Journey Into Mystery #98 (1963)
by Stan Lee & Don Heck
cover by Jack Kirby
The next entry in the Character Chronology will keep track of the alliance between the Cobra and Mr. Hyde over the Silver Age and how it ended.
But while I’ve already covered the first appearance of Mr. Hyde, I first have to talk about the Cobra.
This is quite early in Thor’s career (it’s his 16th issue), so obviously his problems as Donald Blake are still a factor.
Considering how often he disappears and seems to forget things, it’s no wonder that Jane Foster stops working for him and goes to work for another doctor.
But we’re here for the Cobra, so let’s move to his origin story.
He starts off as the assistant to a famous professor who has discovered the cure to ALL venomous snakes.
So wait, your claim to fame is going to be discovering the cure for all snake venoms, while your colleague died from a snake bite?
Sounds legit.
The professor was Donald Blake’s teacher, and upon hearing about him he decides to turn into Thor to get his mind off Jane.
And once there, the professor tells him about the menace of the Cobra.
Ever since Spider-Man, “bitten by a radioactive animal” has become a stock superpower origin… even though there really aren’t a lot of characters with that as the origin.
But not the Cobra, whose origin story… is being bitten by a radioactive cobra.
This looks like a job for Thor, SOMEHOW.
I’ve always thought that Thor’s original form of transportation… throwing the hammer as hard as he could and holding on for dear life… was a bit silly.
It could have been dumber.
Dude, you were bitten by a radioactive SNAKE, not a SPIDER, get off the ceiling!!!
This guy is on a massive power trip, perhaps not surprising considering that he has the intelligence of a human on top of the intelligence of a cobra… which is not that impressive.
I mean cobras ARE smarter than most snakes… they’re good hunters and build their own nests… but snakes are not particularly smart animals.
They apparently have great fashion sense though, because that is one killer design!
Okay, we now have Snake Guy versus Thunder God. What have you got?
Yeah, like those gadgets are going to actually do anyhing to a god.
OH COME ON!!!
This plays into a minor detail of Thor’s powers: the hammer returns to him if he THROWS it, but since he just dropped it that doesn’t work.
I’m pretty sure this is changed to Thor being able to recall the hammer regardless.
Also, this is easily the Cobra’s greatest display of strength; I don’t remember any other instance when he clearly has super-strength.
A big disadvantage of the story is having Don Heck on pencils instead of Jack Kirby, since he’s not at the same level of storytelling: it’s quite hard to follow where exactly the scene is taking place.
Thor, be honest, how much did you drink before going into this fight?
The Cobra escapes, and OF COURSE the first place where he goes is the new doctor where Jane is now working: the No Background Clinic.
This guy is absolutely terrified of the Cobra, but Jane has already been in mortal danger a dozen times.
Fortunately, out of SHEER LUCK Thor just happens to be flying nearby.
Forget finding a job as a nurse, Jane, your true calling is being a professional hostage.
Thor’s master plan to deal with the villain who already escaped him twice is to fly around the building and kick him in the face.
See, this is why most flying heroes tend to have villains who can also fly.
Snakes are known to fly, right?
And so concludes “the sage of the Cobra”, whatever that is.
Historical significance: 2/10
Aside from his alliance with Mr. Hyde, the Cobra quickly devolved into a villain-of-the-month… when he’s lucky.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
Man are the early Thor stories rough. It lacks the grandeur of later stories, Thor’s world feels very random, and he doesn’t have much of a personality yet.
The Cobra is a very lackluster villain here: not only he’s a TERRIBLE match for Thor, but his powers and abilities are all over the place!
He gets bitten by a radioactive snake and… what, did it make him smart enough to build snake-themed gadgets? Aside from the panel where he’s inexplicably strong, if you go by this story alone the only power he has is that he can stick to walls.
Forget Thor, what was STAN drinking when he wrote this!?
How close is this to the modern character? 1/10
We don’t even get the Cobra’s main gimmick, being a super-contorsionist!!!
Not going into the Cobra’s immediate future since he teams up with Mr. Hyde in his second appearance, and that will be covered in a separate review.
After they split up, in the 80s he joins the Serpent Society: despite being the first Marvel snake-themed supervillain, he gets no respect there.
After Viper takes over the Serpent Society, the Cobra rebuilds it and takes the name King Cobra in 1990.
King Cobra hasn’t done anything notable since… the Serpent Society hasn’t been much of a focus, so he returned to be a villain-of-the-month.
In 2006 he was forced to join the Thunderbolts (right before the Osborn takeover), but that didn’t last. Being stuck in the same category of Ox and Unicorn might be King Cobra at his lowest.
And that’s it for King Cobra: aside from getting his butt kicked by several superheroes, he hasn’t done anything worth mentioning.
Save perhaps that, now that he’s been calling himself King Cobra consistently since 1990, in 2006 he decided to give away the codename Cobra… to his nephew.
The original Cobra debuted fighting Thor.
His nephew debuted fighting White Tiger.
I don’t think he’s going to beat the original’s staying power.
Confusingly, sometimes Cobra shows up with the old costume and the old name, and it’s PROBABLY supposed to be the nephew instead of King Cobra? Even when it’s not specified?
While Mr. Hyde has managed to find enough complexity to be used in a variety of ways, at this point Cobra… or King Cobra if you prefer that name… has completely failed to get out of the “themed supervillain” angle.
Too bad because that is a perfect supervillain design.
What else was in Journey Into Mystery #98?
A far, FAR superior mythological story with great Kirby artwork.
