Issue(s): Thor #356
Cover Date: Jun 85
Title: "The power and the pride!"
Credits:
Bob Harras - Writer
Butch Guice - Penciler
Bob Layton - Inker
Craig Anderson - Assistant Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Guest Editor

Review/plot:
The best thing about this issue is the cover. The issue itself is in the same spirit, but never quite reaches the same level of awesomeness. I actually suspect that this issue was slated for Assistant Editors' Month; a blurb in the lettercol says it was commissioned by previous editor Mark Gruenwald (Ralph Macchio is the editor at this time). I assume they didn't want to interrupt Walt Simonon's debut arc and probably felt that replacing Thor with a dude with a horse-skull head was Assistant Editors' Month-y enough.

It's a cute story about Hercules regaling a kid with a tale about a fight he had with Thor, and of course the story is extremely implausible and one sided.

The kid has bully problems, which oddly hinge on whether Thor or Hercules wins the fight in the story, so when Jarvis clues Hercules in to that fact...

...Hercules modifies the story accordingly and also gives the bully some friendly advice.

Cute fun.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Hercules is wearing his original costume, placing this prior to Avengers #252. Which does mean that this issue is placed out of order for the Thor series, but this is a fill-in that Thor doesn't even appear in, so that's not a problem. There's no sense in trying to determine where any actual Thor/Herc fight might have taken place; it's clearly just a tall tale.

irh13 notes in the comments that someone that looks kind of like Debra Whitman appears in this issue, and even mentions a boyfriend named "Biff".

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Herc smacking Thor with the isle of Manhattan is probably a reference on that issue where Herc seemingly towed the island back in place.

Ironic that it's not by Simonson in the middle of the Simonson run (and thus, of course, not included in the Simonson collections), because it's my favorite non-Simonson issue of Thor by far. A nice fun issue - especially for the moment where Herc hits Thor over the head with Manhattan (though Herc getting hit by Mjolnir and having it just irritate him is pretty good as well) - a great issue of fan given that it stars two characters I was never that fond of.

Wasn't Hercules' "costume" destroyed. You've got it placed at a time when he was between costumes.

You're right. Thanks Scott.

There's an odd sequence I remember where a girl who looks A LOT like Debra Whitman bumps into Hercules when chasing down a frisbee (I think). Hercules, ever the ladies man, puts the moves on her, asking her to dinner, I believe. She says she'd have to discuss it with her boyfriend, Biff. Is that a reference to Biff Rifkin? I know Deb left NYC after the events of PPSSM #74, but what were the odds? Was it an inside joke?

By the way, is tne Bob Harris's first work at Marvel? It's funy, but I always thought he didn't join the company until the late 80s/early 90s (the era I usually associate him with.)

No, this isn't Bob Harras's first work at Marvel- his first work was Iron Man 178.

irh13, i've added a scan of "Debra" in the Considerations. I'm not sure if she looks that much like Debra, and Biff is a stereotypical Big Dumb Boyfriend name, so it might just be a coincidence. But maybe the idea was that Debra has divorced her abusive husband and returned to New York to try out a relationship with Biff. A fill-in issue of Thor would be a weird place to show that, though, and the Marvel Indexes (and the MCP) never listed Debra as appearing here, so i haven't either.