Issue(s): Thor #210, Thor #211
Cover Date: Apr-May 73
Title: "The hammer and the hellfire!" / "The end of the battle!"
Credits:
Gerry Conway - Writer
John Buscema - Layouts
Don Perlin - Finished Art
Vincent Colletta - Inker

Review/plot:
This two-parter features an attempt by the Asgardian Trolls to invade Earth.

Thor is still off searching for Sif, and he's apparently found a group of over-sized moloids in fuzzy hats to fight.

That is some offensively yellow coloring! The color used for the trolls would have been better (or, you know, you could use the same color you used for white people; Asian people aren't really that yellow). More on this when we get to Master of Kung Fu.

Anyway, that's not really relevant to this story, except here's Thor wondering why armies would attack him when he invades their land wearing battle armor and wielding a big weapon (and, of course, having attacked Communists on behalf of the American government in the past).

Ulik the troll has decided that even though he's obviously stronger than Thor, he loses to him because of Thor's weapon. So he works with King Geirrodur to devise a plan to separate Thor from his weapon.

And then Thor is kidnapped while he's sleeping and brought to the Troll domain. And then attacked by Ulik.

We quickly learn that Ulik's real plan is to exploit the fact that Thor turns back into Donald Blake when he's separated from his hammer. So it's not a real test of their relative strengths. This also (maybe?) means that the Trolls are currently residing under Earth, since Thor isn't supposed to transform back into Blake when he's in Asgard and its surrounding mystical realms.

Thor's hammer is pulled away from him with magnetized Uru...

...and thrown into the forge that created it. Thor dives in after it, and the Trolls assume he's dead and invade Earth. Thor was kidnapped in Asia but the Trolls attack Manhattan which, if it wasn't for the concern of turning into Blake, would lead me to believe that the Trolls are actually traveling through extra-dimensional portals.

It turns out neither Thor nor the hammer are even singed by the fires (which maybe is what Ralph Macchio is getting at; see below).

Meanwhile, the Warriors Three are extra depressed and can barely be arsed to get off the couch when Jarvis informs them that Asgardian Trolls are invading Manhattan.

But they do eventually get out there...

...and Thor of course returns and eventually the Trolls are driven back.

There was also a power struggle going on between Geirrodur and Ulik, and we're introduced to one of Geirrodur's wives, Ulla (who we'll never see again), but Ulik's defeat means that Geirrodur remains in control.

Thor and company were helped by Tana Nile and (less effectively) Silas Grant. Tana Nile is a Rigellian Colonizer, and she's got a nifty gun that weakens Ulik enough that Thor is able to definitively beat him. Silas Grant is a caveman that was super-evolved into, well, an ordinary human, so he just kinda hangs around.

Both rejoin the cast after having been sitting in an apartment watching television together since issue #205.

We learn at the end that the reason the Warriors Three are so bummed is because Balder is returned but he's gone mad.

Only breakdowns by Buscema in these issues, and the Troll situation feels underdeveloped (Thor just seals the hole in the street and it's all over?).

In the #214 lettercol, Ralph Macchio writes in to complain about an inconsistency introduced in this story. In Tales Of Asgard, it was said that King Sindri of the Dwarves forged all of Asgards' weapons, but in this story it was said to have been done by King Geirrodur of the Trolls. And it was also previously shown that the Trolls only had the power to enchant weapons thanks to the entity Orikal (from Thor #136-139). Honestly, i'm not sure what he's getting at with the Orikal part (i'm not even able to summarize it properly!), but for the Dwarf/Troll discrepancy, Macchio theorizes that Mjolnir was an exception, with Geirrodur attempting to placate Odin in the early days. What i do find interesting is that even though at this point all you had to do to earn a No-Prize was point out a problem, Macchio is already playing by the rules that would be in place during his era, where you had to provide a solution.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Thor #209-228 take place during Avengers #109.

References:

• Thor and his buddies were banished from Asgard circa Thor #203.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I'm not sure where Conway got the idea that Mjolnir was forged by trolls. Every other writer seemed to think that it was forged by dwarves. For example, in Thor 339-340, Odin goes to the dwarves to forge a hammer for Beta Ray Bill and in Thor 458-459, Odin goes to the dwarves to forge a hammer for Eric Masterson.

Thor isn't listed as a Character Appearing. I should really get a forum account so I can report these sorts of things on the goofs thread instead of sprinkling comments everywhere about them...

Yeah, Morgan, that's kind of the point of "Fnord;s thread of shame" in the forum, so we can save the comments for interesting stuff, like this....

Them reds sure are yellow!

:-)

Snorri Sturluson's Edda also says that Mjolnir was forged by dwarves. There's a whole story about it, explaining that the hammer's handle was shorter than planned because Loki disguised himself as a fly who kept biting the dwarf who was working the bellows of the forge. It's a pretty good Loki story.