Monday, November 4, 2013

Reading Room: OUT OF THIS WORLD "The Hammer of Thor"

With Thor: the Dark World opening this week,we're looking at the earlier Thors in comics...
In 1959, three years before Mighty Thor's debut in Marvel's Journey into Mystery #83, Charlton's  Out of This World #11 ran a tale, drawn by Steve Ditko, about a young man with a hammer named Thor.
While he does have a beard, this Thor, like Marvel's Mighty Thor, was blonde, not red-headed as described in the myths.
In 1962, Ditko became the co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr Strange at Marvel, and was considered the #2 artist at the House of Ideas (behind Jack Kirby) during the Silver Age of Comics.
Considering Kirby had drawn a pretty accurate (to the myths) version of Thor, albeit as a villain wearing a disguise...
...why did The King go with a blonde, beardless version when he designed the Marvel character?
Could editor Stan Lee have been influenced by seeing Ditko's version?
Only the gods know...

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Thanx for posting!