Journey into Mystery #92

 "Dr. Blake is very experienced in using a mallet!"

Another uneven Thor story here. The cover, for one thing, is misleading- the main threat is on Asgard where the sixty second rule apparently doesn't apply. We're told that Loki wants to force Thor to fight on Asgard, his territory, rather than Earth, which is more known to Thor- but surely it makes sense to exploit the sixty second rule?

We're introduced to two new Asgardian characters. One is Thor's mother, "Fricka" (er, interesting way of spelling "Frigga" there...) and Neri, her handmaiden. But then it's back to Earth for a recent plot point to be reused- yet again, a criminal forces Don Blake to operate and save his life. The crooks want to off him, but Blake effectively says "oh look, a squirrel" then becomes Thor and overpowers them. He then proceeds to tie them all to the operating table, which he literally throws to the police station....

This is probably not great post-op procedure, to put it mildly. And neither this sort of thing, nor the silliness with Thor helping with special effects for a B movie, are right for this title. Thor's world is too big for this sort of thing, which takes up far too much of the story.

Then Loki seems to rather easily summon Thor's hammer to smash his bonds, something he could have done at any time. We then rush to a rather perfunctory battle between them, livened only by the rather arresting sight of a giant Odin picking Thor up. There's no sixty second rule... but for some reason Thor still wants to make new hammers out of wood, rock and the like, which makes sense because, er...

This story is uneven in pace, concept, everything. Thor has a lot of promise, but we urgently need a change of direction and an injection of seriousness.