after last month’s story, this month’s Thor is a bit more down to earth. It still focuses on showing that the Norse god of thunder is patriotic to the US government and standing against the ‘reds‘ in the cold war. As such this issue, builds upon both  Journey into Mystery #86 & #84 without referring ether of them.

Story

The story is short and to the point, like all the Thor stories so far.  our Hero as Dr. Blake decides to investigate the defection of key U.S. Scientist to behind the iron curtain. He does this by setting himself up as having developed a new biological weapon. The story continues as the red’s take the bait, and he works to bring home the scientist.

I do feel it was written fairly well, offering a bit of development along the way, I would not call this a masterpiece, but it is a fairly good work.

Art

in the first half of the story I feel that there was excellent use of shadow’s, darkness and angles to keep the aura of mystery going as the story developed.  Hiding a face in part or in whole can go a long way to maintaining the feeling of mystery. There is no doubt in my mind that the face of the photographer was at least partly obscured in every panel he is in.

You get the same effect of the man in the background, covered in darkness in one of the panels that feature  Colonel Edward Harrison when Dr. Blake is proposing the plan. I feel these shadows are quite deliberate as in the latter half of the story, when the mystery is over shows are not used the same way, instead almost everything is revealed to us.

Originality & Continuity

I feel this story was fair in both regards, it reminded me a bit of stories told already for Ant-Man, and the against the Red’s theme is running strong. Again, this is a product of its times; look at some of my past post or look up information on 1962.

While I will say it has striking similarity to other stories, I do not find myself feeling ‘I have read this before’, the read is still quite enjoyable.  although I must say, I could easily transfix this story to 1942 and make it the Nazi’s or 2002 and make it Terrorist.

Characters & Development

Thor, and Jane, and their two-way love triangle seen a bit of development in this issue.  Jane Foster seems much more completely enamored with Thor, and less so with Dr. Don Blake then she did when her character was introduced. This still makes a wonderful, and perhaps one of my favorite two-way Love Triangles in comics.

We also see that Dr. Blake, like many comic hero alter ego’s seems to have some connection’s. We can tell this by his visit to Washington, and the acceptance of his plan. Now it just remains to be seen if they will build upon this in the issues that follow…