Issue(s): Thor #258, Thor #259
Cover Date: Apr-May 77
Title: "If the stars be made of stone!" / "Escape into oblivion!"
Credits:
Len Wein - Writer
John Buscema - Penciler
Tony DeZuniga - Inker

Review/plot:
The quest for Odin in a giant sailboat in space continues.

They run into the Grey Gargoyle, who is apparently running a crew of animal men space pirates!

The Asgardians do ok against the animal pirates...

...but they're unprepared for the Grey Gargoyle's powers, and they all wind up turned to stone.

Thor surrenders when the Gargoyle threatens to smash Sif's statue. They're made slaves, complete with high-tech slave collars, and put in the salt mines, or whatever. Kind of a generic plot. What's kind of cool is that Hogun is still intimidating even as a slave.

But it turns out that the Gargoyle is sick of being on a cramped ship with a bunch of animal-men, and he calls for a truce with Thor in return for getting him back to Earth. The Gargoyle just got finished explaining that he got launched into space while trying to kill Spider-Man and Captain America, but Thor nonetheless agrees to help him.

Ultimately, though, the Gargoyle tries to escape by himself while the Asgardians are fighting the animal men...

...and he's (seemingly) killed when the escape pod blows up thanks to the interference of one of the animal men.

I kept waiting for the revelation that these animal men were the original New Men that got launched into space way back in the High Evolutionary's first appearance. I mean, with names like Fee-lon, they have to be, right?

But Fee-lon describes himself as being part of an alien race.

Meanwhile, Balder confirms that the Enchantress and the Executioner are trying to take over Asgard.

This is the end of John Buscema's run on Thor.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This has been pushed back in publication time because it's part of the Quest for Odin that begins in Thor #255. See the note there for more details.

References:

• The Grey Gargoyle faced Thor previously in Journey Into Mystery #107 and Journey Into Mystery #113.
  
• The Grey Gargoyle is in space thanks to the end of Marvel Team-Up #13, when he got himself chained to a rocket.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

How the heck did The Grey Gargoyle become the captain of a spaceship of aliens pirates?

What a silly question. As fnord notes, he was dragged into space in Marvel Team-Up 13 and then he floated around until he was picked up by animal men space pirates, of course, and did the next natural thing, which was to challenge the pirate captain to a duel, which obviously, the captain accepted (rather than, say, shooting him on the spot as a lesser alien might do) and when the Grey Gargoyle killed him, well, the crew had no choice but to accept him as the new captain, and he just started working as a space pirate captain, rather than simply telling them to take him back to Earth, as a lesser villain might do. Obviously.