BHOC: THOR #285

This extended THOR storyline, in which writer/editor Roy Thomas vainly but valiantly attempted to integrate the events of Jack Kirby’s recent series THE ETERNALS into the mainstream Marvel Universe was tedious, and it went on forever. Twice during its run I dropped the title, but wound up coming back on weeks when the number of releases were small and I had the spare cash and a desire for more comics. There was good in this run, but it’s very much overwhelmed by the bad. The whole thing is a bit of a fool’s errand in the first place, as Kirby’s work was never intended to integrate with the world inhabited by Thor and his allies–the whole story kind of doesn’t work if those guys are around. But this was the desire at the time, for a singular and unified Marvel Universe. Roy pursued that outcome doggedly, as did many of his successors, most notably Mark Gruenwald.

I don’t think that it helped matters that John Buscema’s breakdowns were being finished during this period by Chic Stone. Stone was a perfectly competent artist, but he employed a very thick, very heavy outline and relatively few spotted blacks. Consequently, the final pages seemed a bit too open for color, a bit ephemeral. The storytelling from John was always on point, but the final artwork was lacking in finesse.

The issue opens with Thor flying the stricken airliner from the previous two issues back to JFK airport. Why he’s taking it so far when its destination was southward is anybody’s guess, but this entire sequence is here to get some Thor visuals into the comic before the story turns to more pedantic affairs for a while. Having delivered the stricken passengers back to civilization, Thor takes off before the authorities can get any of the answers they seek. The Thunder God has recently become aware of the Celestials’ 50-year judgment of the Earth and he figures that he doesn’t have any time to waste in trying to locate them and confront them. To that end, he resumes his mortal identity of Dr. Donald Blake and follows Dr Damian’s directions to the apartment where Sersi lives.

Blake finds Sersi’s apartment seemingly empty and half-destroyed. As he investigates, a voice tells him to halt. It’s a huge red-haired man who wants to know what Blake is doing there. Matters quickly come to a head when, unsatisfied with Blake’s responses, the man drops his illusory appearance and stands revealed as Karkas of the Deviants. Blake stamps his cane in response to this revelation, resuming his godly form, and the two trade punches for a few panels before they figure out that they’re both after the same thing. Consequently, Karkas begins to give the Thunder God (and the reader) a download on recent events from his perspective.

And so we get a long, long, long flashback to the Eternals. Heroic Ikaris had linked up with not only Thena but also Karkas and the Reject who were in her company. Thena had summoned Ikaris because the trio had learned the location of the Deviants’ rebuilt city–their previous one having been blasted to smithereens by the Celestials in Kirby’s stories. So the trip adopt human-seeming clothes and venture out into the city and down into the subway tunnels, locating the hidden entryway to the reconstructed subterranean citadel. There, they were jumped by the unruly Deviants, and Karkas fled in order to try to locate Sersi and get help.

But as neither Karkas nor Thor were responsible for the destruction of Sersi’s apartment, who cold the culprit be? At this point, a decorative figurine begins to talk and move and reveals itself to be Sersi herself, transformed by her transformational powers. She had been attacked in her domicile by a deviant but won the contest, transforming her attacker into a nearby cat statue. So the three godlings join forces and venture out on a mission to rescue the other fallen Eternals and friends.

Alighting on a nearby building to avoid the authorities (once again) who have cone in response to the ruckus in Sersi’s apartment, the trio questions their captive deviant assassin, learning from him a secret entrance into the Deviant stronghold. But as the issue closes out, Deviant Warlord Kro relishes the opportunity to match his skills against those of the Thunder God and his allies in the fight to come. To Be Continued. As I was marginally interested in the Eternals at best, this issue bored me to tears as a kid. And matters would only get worse in the coming months.