Reading Room: "The Hammer of Thor"

In 1959, three years before Mighty Thor's debut in Journey into Mystery #83,  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.
Ditko was the co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr Strange at Marvel, and was considered the #2 artist behind Jack Kirby during the Silver Age of Comics.
Considering Jack Kirby had drawn a pretty-accurate version of Thor, albeit as a villain wearing a disguise...

...why did he go with a blonde, beardless version when he designed the Marvel character?

Could Stan Lee have been influenced by seeing Ditko's version?