THE MIGHTY THOR #182 NOVEMBER 1970

 "Now that you have SEEN me -- without my MASK -- you cannot leave here ALIVE!"

This is THE MIGHTY THOR #182, cover dated November 1970, on sale a couple of months earlier in September of that year. The image shows the monstrous Dr Doom whipping his mask off in front on Thor, depicted here in both his form as a deity and as his human alter-ego, Dr Donald Blake. 

I knew nothing about Dr Doom prior to reading this issue except for these drawings from HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY (which by the way is a great book that I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone wanting to draw comics, the Marvel way or otherwise)--

In fact before committing to this title I knew precious little about the character of Thor either. I've seen the way he's presented in the AVENGERS films, and was quite amused by what they did with his character in the last one. Other than that I only know that he's a Viking god and that there's a cheeky homage to him in Ken Russell's LISZTOMANIA where he's played by Rick Wakeman.

To to be honest I approached this title with some reservations. And the first few issues I read in the Epic Collection THE FALL OF ASGARD left me pretty cold. The storyline across #174-181 centres on Loki's attempts to overthrow Odin and his assumption of Thor's identity to discredit him. 

I've got to be honest and say I struggled with the whole Asgard idea. OK, I understand that these characters are meant to be gods, and that attitudes have changed an awful lot since 1970, but all the "hail to thee, Odin" stuff takes sycophantic subservience to a new level. 

I don't know how the title develops in the fifty years since these issues, but there's only so much of this kind of guff I can stomach--

Thankfully, a new storyline begins in #182, and for the time being at least I find it altogether more palatable. Written by Stan Lee with art by John Buscema and Joe Sinnott, the story opens on Earth with Thor flying around keeping an eye on things, and spotting "trouble swiftly brewing". Some young people are demonstrating outside the Latverian Embassy, calling for an end to that kingdom's 'tyranny' under its leader, Dr Doom.

An opposition is set up between the youthful protesters and several older faces in the crowd-- a woman uses the word "trouble-maker" accusing them of wanting to "start a war", while older men label the protestors "radicals" and "commies".

The protest or demonstration seems quite a common feature in comics around this period. By definition the protestor is positioned in opposition to recognised authority. He or she is the voice of the oppressed against the oppressor. There are examples of similar protests in issues of CAPTAIN MARVEL #21 and TEEN TITANS #25 for instance. It's worth taking a short detour to see how the subject is handled in these.

In CAPTAIN MARVEL #21, a group of students is holding a protest against their university developing weapons such as "poison-gas". 

The title's protagonist, here in his human form of the young Rick Jones, argues with Bruce Banner over the rights and wrongs of the students' demonstration. "They're fighting for what they believe", he points out, but Banner is incensed because they have targeted his old tutor, Dr Weller, who he is convinced is not guilty of working on weapons. Selfishly, he appears to be particularly affected since the protest is "menacing everything I've been slaving for". 

Transforming into The Hulk he attacks the students but is halted by Captain Marvel, whose own sense of purpose is being redefined as selfleslly fighting for others rather than himself. 

As the story continues for Banner in HULK #130 and across the subsequent 1970 issues, we see the character undergo a period of change -- his experiment to be rid of the Hulk backfires and instead he becomes trapped permanently in the body of his monstrous, green alter-ego. 

In TEEN TITANS #25, two sets of protesters clash at a peace rally. One side promote 'Love' and 'Peace not war' while the other hold banners declaring 'We've got the BOMB and we're going to keep it!' and 'Born to fight'. 

Speaker at the rally is "modern-day saint", the altruistic pacifist Dr Arthur Swenson, heckled as a "traitor" by the "boys that wave the stars and stripes". Interestingly the element of the crowd calling for an aggressive solution to potential conflict are identified in the text as patriots. 

The meeting descends into a full-on confrontation between the two sides and is exacerbated by the intervention of the Titans, most especially the gung-ho character of Hawk. This in turn leads to the death of Dr Swenson and the team of young superheroes questioning their whole existence and purpose. 

The protest trope is used as a signal for change in the protagonists, a potentially positive one for the Titans but a negative one for Banner. 

These changes hinge on the frailties of their protagonists -- Bruce Banner's super-power is a hindrance to him from which he wants release. He has not yet learnt the lesson Rick Jones has tried to teach him, so he is doomed to be stuck in the Hulk's body. The Teen Titans' period of doubt and self-examination across the following set of issues involves them giving up using their super-powers entirely. Like the peace protesters they are opposing the tyranny that often comes with advanced powers. They are discontent with being super-human, wishing instead to be 'ordinary'. 

What is different in THOR is that any frailties are not apparent and that the protest trope does not seem to prompt a similar change in its central character.

The fact that Thor himself exists as a privileged member of a patriarchal, empiricist system -- Asgard -- might suggest that he would be seen to have no truck with "commies" or "radicals". However, this dilemma is neatly sidestepped because the protesters here are not seemingly questioning the authority of their own country, but that of another "kingdom", Latveria -- which Thor reminds us is "ruled by the dreaded Dr Doom". The crowd have mistaken the protesters' beliefs. They are not advocating revolution against a ruling class, but the overthrow of tyranny in a foreign state.

One of the protesters even objects to being called a "commie", and on the next page another of them takes offence at being called a "hippie". Despite his long hair this guy seems to be saying to the older people in the crowd that he is not so different from them, that his principals may well be the same, despite the method by which he chooses to express them.

So, while other titles published around this time might encourage the reader to challenge their thinking about the status quo, here no such challenge is being issued. In GREEN LANTERN #76 the protagonist was forced to reconsider his value system when he intervened in an assault on a seemingly innocent man. Here the character of Thor is not similarly required to adjust his thinking -- by stepping in and protecting one of the protesters against the crowd he is fully justified and his value system remains intact. We see that his intervention is in the first instance driven by the desire to protect a vulnerable woman against what he calls a "blind, unfeeling rabble", similar to the way Green Lantern had felt at his moment of intervention.

But despite the fact that he says he does not know her "cause" and that he has stepped in out of a simple wish to prevent someone being hurt, Thor has already acknowledged that her protest is against Dr Doom. Therefore he is either being somewhat disingenuous or there is a lapse in the story-telling, for it is abundantly clear to the reader that understanding her "cause" is not going to provoke in Thor a GREEN LANTERN styled turnaround. Instead he is afforded the opportunity to fulfill his role as the strong, manly rescuer coming to the aid of the damsel in distress.

The story that this young woman, Cosette, tells our hero, now in the guise of "the soft-spoken, lame physician" Dr Donald Blake, confirms that Dr Doom is an all round bad egg. The evil dictator has imprisoned her scientist father so that he will design missiles for him. 

Cosette herself has managed to escape and has come to America, concerned not only for the well-being of her father, but also the safety of the world once the missiles are ready with "the murdering hand of Dr Doom controlling the button". Then as much as now, the spectre of a demonic foreign power wielding weapons of mass destruction looms large in the consciousness of those happy to accept similar weapons in the hands of their own leaders.

What follows is quite an engaging sequence of events leading to Dr Blake offering Dr Doom plastic surgery to fix his disfigured face. He has identified the disfigurement as the "chink in his armor" and it's a great touch, tapping into the self-loathing of this masked megalomaniac. 

On the whole I was quite taken with this issue. The human-interest element of Cosette's story and the insights into Dr Doom's inner demons I found much more interesting than much of what I read in the previous issues about gods warring against each other. 

I also like the fact that Thor spent a considerable amount of this story as Dr Blake. Surely the most interesting thing about any superhero is when they are stripped of their superpowers? When they become more like us. 

Otherwise, what's the point? 

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