Anniversary Countdown #23: Thor 68

Let’s continue one of the very few two-parters that I actually owned.

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Thor #68 (1973)
Published by: Corno

The original title, “The Monster and the Man-God”, was more than a little weird.
It would have made sense to translate “The Monster and the God” instead, but they went with the equivalent to “The Monster and the Numen”.

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Thor #169 (1969)
by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Considering Galactus is the protagonist of the story rather than Thor, it makes sense to give him the cover.

Galactus is also rather shorter than he tends to be. Possibly because the entire story has him narrating stuff to Thor, and it would be a bit awkward if he was ten times taller.

Continuing from the previous issue, we see a Watched coming across a ship full of dead people.

Dude, no spoilers!

Even Thor is like “Can you please stop interrupting your own story?”.

Galactus then goes on a tangent about his home planet Taa, in a beautiful splash page.

We are then introduced to a scientist, later called Galan, who goes all Jor-El.

The reason for the destruction of Taa will go through several retcons, eventually settling on a universe-destroying natural phenomenon.
But originally is was just a simple disease.

Galan and his giant forehead are not going to just let this happen.

Interesting to see Galan watching some bird people suffer the same death of his own planet. Just 7 issues ago, on Thor #162, we were introduced to Archeopia: a planet of bird people that was the first to be eaten by Galactus.
Coincidence? Yeah probably, their design is completely different.

Jokes aside, it’s a surprisingly brutal end for this civilization.

Future retcons will see Galan attempting to leave his universe through his ship.
But originally he just wanted SUICIDE BY JUMPING INTO A STAR.

HARD. CORE.

And then the crew is bit by a radioactive universe, crashing the ship.

Galan was the only survivor of the whole thing, and the Watcher decides to study him without interfering.
Not sure how taking him out of the ship is not interfering.
Also, a reminder that this is A Watcher, not THE Watcher that typically hangs around on the Moon.

That’s all well and good until Galan wakes up.

The Watcher has ONE CHANCE to stop the soon-to-be Galactus before he’s too powerful.

Aaaaaand he blows it.

Galan then creates his own armor and iconic helmet from basically nothing, and transmutes his ship into the giant incubator what will transform him into Galactus.

With the origin story done, Thor remembers that he was originally tasked with FIGHTING Galactus, not to just hear him talk.

Someone should tell that to Odin, who suddenly decides he’s had enough and sends Thor into another mission.
Probably because he figured out that Thor doesn’t stand a chance.

What matters of cosmic importance must have caught Odin’s attention to distract him from a fight with the Devourer Of Worlds?

A robot is attacking America.

That’s it.

WHY WOULD ODIN CARE???

And that’s how it ends!

The following issue is a fight between Thor and the Thermal Man.
You might expect it to be underwhelming when compared to a two-parter with Galactus… but THAT ONE has a colossal battle full of action, as opposed to just people talking.

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Historical significance: 10/10
While the Galactus origin will be subject to several retcons, the basics have stuck.
The idea that he originates from a previous origin is a surprisingly late addition: it comes from “Super-Villain Classics #1” in 1983, which reprints the pages from this origin and adds new material written by Mark Gruenwald.
The story moves Taa to having existed in the previous issue and being destroyed by an “universal decay”.

Personal significance: 10/10
This was the only Galactus appearance I owned before becoming a regular reader; in addition to Silver Surfer showing up in Fantastic Four (which will also be part of the retrospective), this ensured I would always be a fan of the cosmic side of Marvel.

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
On the Marvel scale it rarely gets any higher.

 Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
I know that the revelation that Galactus used to be some guy doesn’t sit well with some readers. While I admit it might be because it’s how he’s always been for me… I don’t have a problem with it. If anything, I think it makes him MORE interesting than if he was just a born that way or was a literal force of nature: there’s an additional level of tragedy to him.
It’s a good origin, it has Jack Kirby artwork at his best… but you can tell this is the period where Kirby was calling most of the shots because it also showcases some of his problems.
Thor is absolutely redundant here, despite supposedly being the main character: he just listens to Galactus talking, threatens to fight him and then he’s teleported away.
It’s also a symptom of Kirby’s ADHD: two whole issues are dedicated to this plot, which is completely superfluous to the other plots of the series. You can basically cut the entire thing and, as far as Thor’s personal story is concerned, nothing really changes.

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Avengers #56 (1968)
by Roy Thomas & John Buscema

While I couldn’t know it at the time, this was my first exposure to the Golden Age.

The story begins with the Avengers being summoned by Captain America to a castle…

…because he’s still obsessed by the death of Bucky.

Come on Cap, don’t be ridiculous. Bucky can’t have possibly survived the blast, lose an arm, be brainwashed by the Russians, given the Knockoff Super Soldier Serum, and acted as their assassin for decades, right?
That would just be silly.

Cap didn’t call the Avengers to any random castle.
This actually the Doctor Doom castle in America, all the way back in his first appearance.
Complete with the Time Platform™!

That’s actually a continuity error by Roy Thomas.

We already saw in Fantastic Four #23 that the Time Platform™ was in the Baxter Building!
The contradiction was solved in 1976 on Fantastic Four Annual #11, where it was revealed that the time machine in the Baxter Building was just a copy built by Reed.
Reed actually sent the original time machine back to Latveria, which… why would he do that!?
Yeah Doom asked for it, but Reed could’ve just refused: are we really supposed to believe Doom was going to sue him for stealing his time machine!?
It also doesn’t really work with this story. If Reed sent the time machine back, why would Doom just keep it in his American castle with barely any defenses?

Cap’s plan is to use the time machine to go back to WWII to check if Bucky really died (!!!).
And Wasp is going to stay in the present to operate the time machine.
Which makes SOME level of sense, since the original version of the platform required someone to stay behind on the controls… but still, it’s a bit lame to leave her behind.

Cap says he wants to go alone. But if that’s the case, why did he call the Avengers!?
Also, even when he writes good stories (and his Avengers run is generally very good), Roy Thomas manages to irk me with his dialogue.
Would Captain America REALLY say “Chrono-Square”!?

When compared to DC Comics, up to this moment Marvel hasn’t had the same number of time travel stories so the rules are not well established yet.
I might be wrong on this, but I believe this is the first time Marvel uses the same time travel rules of DC Comics: if you go back in time to a period where you already exist, you show up as an intangible ghost.
If that’s the case, then it makes sense that all the Avengers would be intangible and not just Captain America: this is a 1968 story, so it’s only 23 years after the end of the war so ALL these Avengers would’ve been alive at the time!

It’s thanks to stories like this one that people tend to believe the original Baron Zemo was a Golden Age villain, when he’s actually a Silver Age creation.
He also has access to technology that would’ve been useful during the war! I’m going to assume this monster is more of an Arnim Zola creation (even if Zola had yet to be created in 1969).

So the Captain America from the present witnesses his younger counterpart and Bucky fighting Zemo.

And lose.

Then there’s a truly BAFFLING decision by Roy Thomas.

All the flashbacks to Bucky’s death showed that him and Cap were wearing uniforms.
So he has Baron Zemo put the uniforms OVER their costumes before placing them in his death trap.
There’s some clunky explanation why he does this in-story, sure, but… Roy Thomas didn’t HAVE to make them show up in costume!!!
This is another frustrating part of Roy Thomas: sometimes he has to come up with convoluted solutions to problems that HE caused for no reason!!!

Also, the whole point of Bucky’s death is that he sacrificed his life to stop this rocket. So I always assumed Zemo pointed it at the Allies.
But nope! It was intended to bring their dead bodies back to Berlin.
WTF!?

And then “at that precise instant” but also 23 years later (WHAT!?), Wasp suddenly falls asleep!!!

At the time I found this INCREDIBLY stupid.
But there IS an explanation: in the follow-up story Avengers Annual #2, it’s revealed that the Scarlet Centurion… yet ANOTHER identity of Kang (REALLY) is the one who caused her to fall asleep for convoluted time travel reasons.

But back to the story, the asleep Wasp presses a button that makes the Avengers materialize.
So they weren’t intangible due to time travel rules, that’s a Time Platform™ feature that you can turn off if you want.

Cap wants a piece of Zemo, who comes up with the idea that there are multiple Captain Americas.

The other Avengers are stuck fighting the giant android and some soldiers.

But that doesn’t last long, because the Avengers are called back to the present.

But not before the Captain America from the present manages to free the Captain America from the past, causing a time paradox.

Or rather a time loop: everything else proceeds as intended, so perhaps Cap was always supposed to be freed by himself.

Presumably Zemo will believe until his death that there are multiple Captain America.
Funnily enough, because of various retcons there ARE other Captain Americas that show up between 1945 and Cap’s return… but as far as I know, none of them actually meets Zemo.

And that is somehow proof that Bucky is really dead.

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Historical significance: 1/10
Connected to the Scarlet Centurion debut, but it’s a tenuous connection.

Personal significance: 8/10
I’m a sucker for time travel stories, so this one really stuck with me. I also found it fascinating that Captain America had this whole history behind him. I didn’t really care for Bucky, but I thought Zemo was a bigger part of the Marvel mythos that he actually ended up being.
Funnily enough I barely noticed the Doctor Doom connection!

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
The DC version of time travel rules show up, kind of, only to be completely ignored. But also, if you don’t know the revelation from the upcoming Annual, you have Wasp suddenly falling asleep.

Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
On re-read, this is not as good as I remembered it. The Avengers don’t get to do much, and as a revelation of the fate of Bucky it’s not very satisfying. And Wasp falling asleep STILL irks me.
There’s also little reason to have this as an Avengers story rather than an issue of Captain America, considering they don’t really contribute much.
I still love the idea of Cap managing to free his younger self! Granted, if you go into the specific way time travel is supposed to work in the Marvel Universe it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s still a cool scene.

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Amazing Adventures #3 (1970)
by Gary Friedrich & Gene Colan
cover by John Buscema

Last time I completely forgot the gorgeous Buscema art, and this time I completely forgot the gorgeous Gene Colan art.

Interesting way to recap to do the credits and the recap at the same time.
The title and the text are translated in the Italian version, but oddly enough the date is not.

Looks like Spider-Man is not the only spider-themed superhero who sells newspapers.

It’s all kinds of sad that the plot of this 1970 story is still relevant in 2024.

Then Black Widow goes into mission with her chauffeur…

…only to be IMMEDIATELY chloroformed!!!

THIS is where the story ended for me: only the first 5 pages were published in this issue.

Which is a pity, because in the following panel her kidnappers are distracted by a phone…

…and she unleashes a marvelous Colan scene!!!

Had they included those pages I would CERTAINLY have remembered this story!!!

OH COME ON, I know Black Widow doesn’t have a Spider-Sense or a Radar Sense… but does she HAVE to be constantly knocked out by people who sneak up on her!?

Since the following issue is not part of the retrospective, I guess I have to point out that she does break free on her own immediately afterwards.

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Historical significance: 0/10
This doesn’t really go anywhere.

Personal significance: 0/10
Another story that I completely forgot.

Silver Age-ness: 6/10
The bad guys knock out Black Widow TWICE. Not even once they remove her weapons!!! At least after the cliffhanger they tie her up.

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
Black Widow is taken out waaaaay to easily, considering her talents. It’s also way too short. But those are my only complains, it’s an otherwise solid story.
Score bumped by the Colan artwork, which is just unbelievably good.