I remember the thrill I got just looking at a house ad for Giants Walk the Earth! in Journey Into Mystery 104 (May 1964).
Jack Kirby’s art depicted a Godzilla-sized storm giant and fire demon looming over Manhattan as Thor soared in the foreground. Just imagine the battle royal that had to be in store!
Thor — who’d begun as a sort of long-haired Captain Marvel battling alien invaders, communist despots and gangsters — was gradually becoming more cosmic and epic in his adventures, and this Stan Lee-scripted issue marked a milestone in that evolution.
Thor’s star-crossed soap operatic love for nurse Jane Foster was also being carefully developed, and in this issue Thor’s romantic defiance brings Odin to Earth in a delightfully incongruous business suit.
Odin often wandered in disguise among humans in the ancient myths, so this story was effectively carrying on a centuries-old tradition.
I enjoyed the scene in which thugs accost the haughty god-king with the intention of mugging him.
“My name is not ‘Mac,’” Odin informs them, before laying them out with a massive supernatural blast.
“None may touch the person of Odin,” he remarks, casually brushing off his sleeve.
Odin’s eternal self-satisfaction proves to be unwarranted, however, because he has left Loki in charge of Asgard and charged with some of his own divine power. The God of Mischief promptly unleashes Skagg the Storm Giant and Surtur the Fire Demon on New York in his scheme to rule Asgard permanently.
Funny. For someone who’s described as “all-wise,” Odin often manages to overlook the obvious.
Surtur and the storm giants were already familiar to readers, having debuted in the Tales of Asgard feature on Norse mythology that had already been running in Journey Into Mystery for six issues. The title’s scope was continually expanding.
“Fortunately, all is not lost, as watchful Heimdall hears of Loki’s plans, and summons Balder the Brave to assist Thor and Odin on the earthly plane,” noted comics historian Don Alsafi. “And what a battle it is! Thor, Odin, and Heimdall on one side, with the titanic forces of Skagg and Surtur on the other — and the Earth caught between!
“But y’know, despite Odin’s decrees that his son stop dating the Earth ladies, he really does have a soft spot for our race… and so, in an effort to spare us the trauma and destruction that will surely ensue, he stops time and removes the entire human race to another dimension! The level of power this bespeaks is staggering, and the fact that it’s done as an offhand gesture really makes us reassess our thoughts of this Asgardian god-king.”
Beset by hurricanes and a giant fireball intended to melt the polar ice caps, Thor, Odin and Balder manage to overcome the two monstrous beings in an exhausting battle.
With a gesture, Odin restores an unsuspecting humanity to Earth. Then, back home, the seriously peeved All-Father punishes Loki by sentencing him to work as a servant to the trolls.
Meanwhile, a lightning flash has turned Thor into his alter ego, who regards his fellow human beings with a certain private wonder.
“Of the billions of mortals, only I know what transpired when time stood still,” thinks Dr. Don Blake.
In fact, Dr. Stephen Strange would have an opportunity to entertain similar sentiments on several occasions.
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