Plot by Stan Lee – Script by Stan Lee – Pencils by Jack Kirby – Inks by Dick Ayers – Letters by Artie Simek

Journey into Mystery #97 feels like a soft reboot for Thor.

For the first time, Stan Lee is scripting the Thor feature while Jack Kirby takes over the art, and the difference is immediate. Kirby’s Thor looks different from the version we’ve been seeing from Dick Ayers. He’s more filled out, almost like a 1950s bodybuilder, and his movements have a much greater sense of scale. Thor doesn’t just look powerful. He looks mythic.

Lee changes the dynamic between Thor and Don Blake, too. Once again, the relationship between the two identities shifts. This time, Thor seems to be the dominant personality. Even when Blake has an inner monologue, he talks about Thor as though they’re the same person rather than two separate identities.

Lee and Kirby also lean into the romantic subplot. Blake finally plans to confess his feelings to Jane, but as Thor, he first asks Odin for permission to marry her. Odin refuses.

There’s another small but important change here. Lee begins giving Thor the formal language we’ve come to associate with him, using words like “thee” and “thy.” He’s starting to sound like the Thor Marvel readers will eventually recognize.

Loki sees Thor’s frustration as an opportunity and sets the Lava Man loose. Meanwhile, Jane decides to leave Blake’s practice and work for another doctor who has been pursuing her romantically.

It’s a strange subplot. Jane feels that Blake’s hesitation to tell her how he feels is a sign that he is not a “real man.” Lee and Kirby treat the doctor/nurse relationship like it’s a matchmaking service. The whole thing feels very 1963.

The Thor story itself is much more exciting as he battles the Lava Man. Kirby gives Thor a much greater sense of movement, and the scale of the action feels completely different from the Thor stories we’ve been getting.

Tales of Asgard also premieres in Journey into Mystery #97.

The five-page backup begins what feels like a whole new approach to this book. Rather than another short adventure, Lee and Kirby start telling an ongoing story about the birth of Norse mythology, following the gods and the stories they tell about their own history.

We get the origin of Buri, the first of the Aesir, along with the Frost Giants, Surtur, sword fights, and plenty of other mythology packed into five pages.

I’m not sure how much of this is actually accurate to Norse mythology, but Kirby gets to go absolutely wild with it.

This is unlike anything else we’ve seen in Journey into Mystery so far.

It appears as though the old anthology-style monthly comics are disappearing.

They’re giving way to the age of Marvel.

Marvel in the 60s Entry #88