JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #86 (1962)
by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby
I’ve always had a soft spot for Zarrko, a.k.a. The Tomorrow Man, a.k.a. Discount Kang.
Although, to be fair, it might actually be the other way around. This issue has a cover date of November 1962 whereas Fantastic Four 19 has a cover date of October 1963.
So Zarrko was doing the whole “supervillain from a futuristic utopia” shtick a full year earlier!!!
I’m not the only one seeing this, right?
Zarrko’s future is so much of an utopia that it completely lacks any sorts of weapons, so naturally the first thing he does after creating a time machine is deciding to steal a nuke from the past.
Whereas Thor is… get ready for this… helping the US military test their equipment!!!
This is so stupid I can’t even come up with a joke.
But that’s nothing compared to the fact that the next test requires Thor to test a POINT-BLANK NUCLEAR EXPLOSION.
Okay clearly this has nothing to do with any actual test but it’s just the US military tricking an extremely gullible superhuman into committing suicide, right? That makes WAY more sense than the idea they are testing the “human physiological reaction” to a POINT BLANK NUKE.
We don’t get to see the results of the tests, though, because Zarrko chooses this moment to show up to steal the bomb. Which apparently is light enough to be carried away by hand!
Cobalt bombs are a theoretical design of nuclear weapons that are IMMENSELY dangerous because they would create an even worse fallout that other nukes; while it’s technically feasible, no cobalt bomb has actually ever been built (at least as far as it’s publicly acknowledged).
But the idea that it would be THAT small is not as laughable as it sounds! The W54 was a nuclear weapon tested in 1962, with a maximum yield of 1 kiloton.
Thor is unable to stop Zarrko because he can time travel.
The military make the brilliant deduction that Zarrko traveled through time because his ship vanished from sight. And he couldn’t possibly be teleporting because… I’ve got nothing.
Unable to track the bomb, Thor decides to summon Odin!!! This is the very first time we see the two interact, and there is the tiniest glimpse of future Thor epicness.
Odin’s solution is to strap to the hammer a piece of metal left behind by Zarrko (WHY would he leave anything behind??? The ship wasn’t damaged in any way!!!) and spin it really really fast… which makes Thor travel through time.
Sounds legit.
Also everything you need to rule this future world is to show up and threaten to blow up a nuke. Good to know.
Thor is able to infiltrate Zarrko’s base, followed by a Time Trapper cosplayer.
Zarrko is able to trap Thor into a room of magnetized mirrors. So… did this room serve any sort of purpose before Zarrko took over, or did he build it specifically to trap Thor?
But it doesn’t matter because Thor switched places with a random dude from the 23rd century.
And no, this is never expanded or explained.
Good thing Zarrko didn’t shoot the impostor with the Delta-Electron Gun ™ !!!!
Which should apparently banish Thor into another dimension… but it just doesn’t (????) thanks to his super-breath. (????)
Thor’s only weakness, at least in the Silver Age, was losing his hammer. Which means he gets disarmed A LOT.
Good thing that Zarrko, despite being a super-scientist able to build a time machine, is not smart enough to water-proof his giant robots.
Zarrko is a sore loser, threatening to use the bomb to blow up the world…
…but Thor summons a storm that derails his ship, and recovers the bomb. Nice storytelling by Jack Kirby, who really sells the dynamism of the scene, but that’s to be expected.
Zarrko is saved, and 23rd century medicine is apparently so advanced that they can diagnose his brain injuries at a glance. (????)
Zarrko will return the following year, if you’re curious.
Thor brings the cobalt bomb back to the US military, and we need to end like this is a sitcom.
Also: there was no explosion, so either the testing continued with Thor surviving or this newspaper is making stuff up.
Historical significance: 0/10
Zarrko is somewhat of a recurrent villain, but in the grand scheme of things he’s not important in the slightest and this issue has no impact.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Early Thor stories are peak Silver Age on the Marvel scale.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
This was bad. Like, embarrassingly bad. Why is Thor hanging around the US army to help them test nukes!? Zarrko is not threatening in the slightest, and the whole thing oozes cliché after cliché.
Random Mjolnir power of the day
Thor can time travel now!!! Admittedly this issue treats it like it’s Odin causing this, but Thor will soon learn to do it on his own. He won’t use the power often and will eventually be stripped of this particular one.
How close is this to the modern character? 10/10
What do you do when your story requires a time travel villain, but you don’t want him to be too threatening and you don’t want to get too deep into continuity with Kang but you want to get a bit silly?
You get Zarrko the Tomorrow Man!
