Strange Tales #108

Cover Date: May 1963

Plot Overview: An artist named Van Vile approaches a local mobster and demonstrates his powers. Whatever he paints comes to life and follows his orders. The artist goes into his story of how he was counterfeiting money and the Human Torch captured him. He also talks about how he found these magic paints while escaping from prison. Van Vile is going to build an underworld army and he wants to start with this mobster.

They commit a few crimes and Van Vile thwarts the Torch with his paints. He finally decides to end things and paints a picture of the Fantastic Four killing the Torch. The FF attack the Torch and throw a grenade in a closed room with him. Van Vile gloats as he hears of the Torch's demise.

Suddenly the Torch burns his paints and paper. The Torch explains that he recognized it was Van Vile because of how careless he was. The Torch snuck in and painted a living version of himself with the paints so he would survive.

My Take: I guess the run of good stories had to end sometime. It took me two tries to read this story because it was just brutally boring. This was a 13 page story and about 8 of those pages were spent going over the origin and powers of a villain that will never be seen from again. And to make it even worse, he was a horribly lame villain. I really don't understand why they went into painstaking detail of his life and origin. I just couldn't make myself care at all.

This story was also really text heavy as there was really no action of any kind. It was mostly Van Vile standing around and talking about himself and what he wanted to do.

The art was what you would expect from an issue of Strange Tales. No real complaints here.

I'd give this 1/2* out of *****.

Notes: This is the first appearance of Van Vile. I'm pretty sure he's never heard from again in the Marvel Universe.

Next Issue: Fantastic Four #15

Journey Into Mystery #92

Cover Date: May 1963

Plot Overview: The issue starts with Neri approaching Heimdall at the Bifrost. Heimdall stops her in case she may be Loki. Neri points to Loki chained to a tree and Heimdall lets her pass. Loki sulks and promises he'll show everyone why he's the god of evil.

We switch scenes to three gangsters. One has been shot and they storm into Dr. Don Blake's office. They tell him to perform surgery on their boss or they'll shoot him. Blake does as he's told and then tricks them so he can become Thor. Thor ties them to the bed and flings them so they land at the local hospital.

We change scenes to a later date where Thor has agreed to help a movie maker with the special effects for a Thor movie. Thor uses his powers for various scenes and the chained Loki watches with great interest. Thor throws his hammer for the final scene and Loki uses his magic to have the hammer come and break his chains. Thor calls upon Odin who brings him to Asgard. The gods cannot help Thor but they wish him luck on his quest.

Loki sends a pack of trees to attack Thor but he fights them off with a wooden hammer he pieces together. Loki burns the hammer and Thor realizes that magic is at work here. He heads to the Bifrost to check on Loki. Loki conjures a dragon to attack Thor and this time Thor creates a hammer out of stone and defeats the dragon with it. Thor then realizes that the stone is actually uru which his hammer is made of. He throws his new hammer and it falls next to his old hammer. Thor heads back to Earth while Loki is captured to close out the issue.

My Take: I want to start with the art here. It was amazing for this issue. The Journey Into Mystery stuff has tended to look slapped together and generally not very good. This issue looked great and it really felt like they found an art style for the Thor comics. It really made the issue more enjoyable to have good art matched up with it.

The story itself was a little slow. I don't like when these 13 page comics take till page 10 to really get to the point. You have 13 pages to work with and trying to wrap up a plot in the last couple of pages really isn't good pacing. I know I've complained about that before and I will continue to do so as long as they do the 13 page anthology stories.

Despite the pacing, it was an enjoyable enough read. Showing off Thor's powers in the context of a movie was an innovative way to remind readers of what Thor is supposed to be able to do. I also think when Asgard is the central focus that Thor works a lot better as a concept. I'm really hoping this is where they start to focus on Asgard a little more.

Loki was the villain again. Thankfully, he usually provides the better stories so I'll overlook that this is his fourth appearance in ten issues of Thor.

I'll give this **1/2 out of *****.

Notes: This is the first appearance of Neri. She may never reappear in the series for all I know. This issue also marks the first time Thor went to Asgard I believe.

Next Issue: Strange Tales #108