Issue(s): Journey Into Mystery #110, Journey Into Mystery #111
Cover Date: Nov-Dec 64
Title: "Every Hand Against Him!" / "The Power of the Thunder God!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Chic Stone - Inker

Review/plot: Loki powers up Cobra and Hyde.

He can't tell them that Thor is Don Blake (due to Odin's law, but see more on that below), but he still sends them to Blake's office, where they kidnap Jane Foster. Loki is still manipulating Odin, and when Odin sees Thor hold back from attacking Cobra and Hyde because of Jane, Odin gets angry and banishes Thor from Asgard. I don't know why Odin keeps listening to Loki.

Thor fights the powered up villains and in the battle Jane is mortally injured. Thor creates a time warp (!)...

...preventing her from dying.

Meanwhile, Balder reminds Odin via song about a mortal girl that Odin once loved. It convinces Odin to send Loki to retrieve a healing potion for Jane.

Now, earlier the narrator said that Loki could not reveal that Thor was Blake because it was Odin's law. Here also, Odin's law demands that Loki retrieve the healing potion, but this time Loki thinks "The word of Odin is indeed the law wherever it is spoken or heard! But, still the girl shall die - for laws have been known to be broken!". I'm not sure why this time Loki is willing to break the law... But anyway, Balder heads off Loki and takes the assignment for himself. While Thor fights Hyde and Cobra (or rather, watches them fight each other half the time)...

...Balder faces many challenges to meet Hardol the Healer and retrieves the healing potion for Jane.

#111 has a nice cover. The interior art is a little shaky, however. I blame Chic Stone's inks.

Meanwhile, in Tales of Asgard, Odin lets his army be defeated in order to teach a young warrior about courage, and a young Thor, accompanied by Loki and Balder, fights Sigurd in single combat. Balder remembers that Sigurd can not be hurt while he's touching the ground, so Thor throws him into space.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: Thor appears here between Avengers #9 and #10.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Thor vol. 1

So Thor makes a time warp around the house to freeze time within it. A weird power for him, but OK. Yet Thor, and Cobra, and Hyde are all within the warp and move through time normally. It's somehow only Jane who's frozen.

The Thor stories at about this time are really starting to pickup in excitement but the really good stuff was a few issues away.

I read Journey into Mystery #111 last night. It was a bit disappointing. Why would Odin sent Loki, of all people, on such an important errand? Luckily Balder at least had some sense and took over the errand. That Thor can all of a sudden re-wire Hyde's ray gun to be able to send an electrical surge through the house causing the Cobra to be shocked out of the vents, just because he hang out with Iron Man and has somehow picked up IM's technical expertise, is a bit of a stretch. Balder's victory over the Phantom of Asgard didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, either. Balder's quest also seemed a bit rushed. Plus, yes, Mortificator's objection also occurred to me.

The Tales of Asgard was also nothing special. Loki tricks Thor into fighting a battle that he thinks he cannot win.

I think Thor is one of the better Silver Age titles out there, but this particular issue was not exactly one of the better examples of that. I hope Bobby Sisemore is right, because I'm starting to plow through Thor Marvel Masterworks volumes 3 and 4, and this was the first story in volume 3.