8:42 PM
Brad
Cover Date: April 1963
Plot Overview: Thor tries to thwart a bank robbery but the bank suddenly disappears. The people inside the bank reappear but can't remember anything that happened. Thor suspects Loki but is informed by Odin that Loki is in Asgard being punished for his last caper on Earth. Loki steals some money to amuse himself.
We take a look into the past as Dr. Don Blake and Jane Foster are at a carnival. They come across a mind reader named Sandu and he predicts that Blake loves a woman with the initials J.F. Blake successfully plays it off and Jane is actually disappointed that he doesn't love her. Loki watches Sandu from Asgard and decides to strengthen Sandu's power 1000 times.
Sandu quickly realizes this and steals one of the audiences wallet. Sandu decides that his powers call for greater feats. Sandu was the one levitating the bank and then teleported it away. He made the customers forget what happened as well.
Sandu steals a palace for himself and visits the U.N. afterwards. He tells the delegates to turn over their countries to him or he'll levitate them into space and kill them. Thor arrives on the scene and saves the delegates. Sandu throws some steel beams at Thor and knocks him out. Sandu chains Thor and then levitates a building onto him.
Thor is too weak to escape and Odin appears and gives him the belt of strength. Thor is stronger than ever and escapes his prison. Loki mentally contacts Sandu and tells him to steal Thor's hammer to defeat him.
Sandu manages to separate Thor from the Hammer and teleports it into another dimension. Sandu becomes arrogant and decides that he should wield Thor's Hammer. Sandu can't lift it so he tries to use his powers. He spends more and more energy until he burns his powers out. Thor hands the now powerless Sandu over to the police.
Odin tells Thor to call upon the belt of strength if he's ever in need as the issue ends.
My Take: Journey Into Mystery has been a fairly rough read for this project. It's really just been lacking in a few areas. It really feels like he's a Superman analogue with some Norse mythology tacked on. The Thor concept is just growing kind of slow and that's frustrating when concepts like Spider-Man and Iron Man take off almost immediately.
With that said, I enjoyed this issue. The Loki issues always seem to be a fairly fun read. I think that's because it's more grounded in Asgard. Asgard makes this comic interesting but when it's just superhero stuff it tends to be boring. Sandu was fairly interesting as a villain. He was generic but he made for a fun antagonist for Thor. He had a wide range of powers and it felt like he was a match for Thor. Most of the villains to this point have been overmatched and usually just find some contrived method to get the Hammer. It was nice seeing someone who had the power to go toe to toe with Thor in his own way.
I didn't like the Jane Foster bit early in the comic. The first 2 issues maybe, they teased her maybe being interested in Don Blake but they had really gone away from that idea. It seemed she only had eyes for Thor and now we're back to the love triangle idea. The silver lining to this is that it added some much needed character development for Blake and Foster.
Overall I'd give this **1/2 out of *****.
Notes: This is the first appearance of Sandu and the Belt of Strength. I've never really been a Thor reader so I can't tell you if either ever really appears again in a Thor comic. I'm guessing the Belt of Strength does and that Sandu probably does not. Sandu really strikes me as one of those early Marvel villains that never get used again.
Next Issue: Strange Tales #107
Posted in: Jane Foster,Journey Into Mystery,Loki,Odin,Sandu,Thor
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