Biography of Thor, 1962-1963

The following is a biography of Thor from 1962 to 1963, in which the thunder god embodied the human doctor Don Blake, fell in love with his nurse Jane Foster, repeatedly battled his brother Loki, and joined the Avengers.

Biography

The Stone Men from Saturn

Dr. Don Blake, an American vacationing in Norway, came upon a group of Stone Men arriving in their spaceship. In an effort to flee their pursuit, Blake took refuge inside a deserted cave. There he discovered a cane, which he absentmindedly tapped against a boulder, thereby magically transforming into Thor, and transforming the cane into the hammer Mjölnir. After testing out his new powers, Thor easily sent the Stone Men back to space, destroying their Mechano-Monster with a single hammer blow.

The communist Executioner

During Blake's time in Norway, the South American nation of San Diablo became embroiled in civil war between its democratic and communist factions, the latter led by the Executioner. As a result, it was in severe need of doctors, and Blake volunteered to go, along with his nurse Jane Foster. Their ship to San Diablo was attacked by communist forces, and Thor appeared before the public for the first time, easily destroying the communist jets. In San Diablo, the Executioner took Foster hostage and threatened her with death unless Thor left. He obliged, but transformed to Don Blake and returned to confront the Executioner. As the communist leader prepared to order Blake's execution, the doctor used a distraction to blindingly transform into Thor, disguising his identity. Along with the arriving democratic army, Thor soon sent the communists into retreat. Recognizing his defeat, the Executioner attempted to flee with his army's financial reserves; his troops opened fire on him, killing him for his treachery. Blake and Foster safely returned to the United States, the former claiming he had hidden during the fight.

Enter Loki

Some time later, Thor was tracked down and confronted by his brother Loki, who had recently escaped captivity in Asgard. Loki managed to hypnotize Thor into doing his bidding, and plotted to wrest the hammer from Thor's grasp. Loki tricked Thor into giving Mjölnir to a conjured image of another Thor, essentially dropping it on the ground. He then had Thor go free dangerous animals from the zoo, but on his way, Thor transformed to Don Blake, having lost control of Mjölnir for sixty seconds. This in turn ended Loki's hypnotic spell, allowing Blake to retrieve the hammer and defeat the god of mischief. Thor then returned Loki to Asgard for reprisal at the hands of their father Odin and the other gods. As punishment, Odin declared that Loki was to remain in Asgard forever.

The Tomorrow Man

Thor soon traveled to New Mexico to assist with military testing of a weapon known as the cobalt bomb, or C-bomb. Before the test could get underway however, a man in a small machine materialized out of nowhere and stole the C-bomb, disappearing just as quickly, but leaving a shard of metal behind. Thor and the military personnel concluded that the man was a time traveler, dubbing him the Tomorrow Man. Thor summoned his father Odin, and besought him to assist him in finding the culprit. On Odin's instruction, Thor attached the piece of metal to his hammer and spun himself, exceeding the speed of light and traveling forward in time to the year 2262. Specifically, he arrived a month later than Tomorrow Man, real name Zarrko, had arrived with the C-bomb. Zarrko had become a tyrant, threatening the otherwise-peaceful world with destruction if they should not obey him. Assaulting Tomorrow Man's castle, Thor was able to defeat him and retrieve the C-bomb; in the process, Zarrko crash-landed his spaceship, surviving but losing his memory in the crash. Thor safely returned the bomb to his own universe and time.

Among the communists

Blake soon learned of reports of American scientists suddenly and unexpectedly defecting to the Soviet Union. Suspecting foul play, Blake contacted his friend, Colonel Edward Harrison, and proposed using himself as bait to investigate the situation from within the Soviet Union. He developed a virus to be used in chemical warfare, gaining sufficient press from the creation to gain the attention of the Soviets. A "photographer" soon arrived at Blake's laboratory and used a hypnotic gas to knock him out and bring him to the Soviet Union, imprisoning him in a dungeon with the other scientists. They confirmed that they had been similarly abducted rather than defecting. Each of them was taken to a different cell, and Blake took advantage of his newfound solitude to transform into Thor. He began to easily dispatch the Soviet forces in the citadel, until the apparent leader of the installation threatened to collapse the dungeon with the pull of a lever. Thor submitted to be bound, and in the process his hammer fell to the ground. The communists left him alone in chains, and after a minute without Mjölnir he became Don Blake again, easily slipping free of his bonds. Reclaiming the cane/hammer, Thor called upon Odin to destroy the citadel and successfully returned the scientists to safety.

Loki returns

While working in his office, Don Blake was confronted by an old man, who revealed himself to be Loki, having learned Thor's secret identity and escaped from Asgard seeking vengeance. Loki challenged him to a battle in Central Park, and Thor agreed. Loki had hypnotized Jane Foster upon entering Blake's office, and when the two met, he used Foster as a distraction and trapped Thor's hammer under a forcefield. Unable to retrieve Mjölnir, Thor transformed into Don Blake, prompting Loki to declare victory and began causing havoc around the city. The following day, Blake devised a plan to reclaim his hammer. He took out an ad in the newspaper declaring that he would defeat Loki by the end of the week, then constructed a plastic dummy of Thor holding the hammer next to the forcefield. As planned, Loki returned to the forcefield, and upon seeing the dummy, panickedly removed the forcefield to confirm Mjölnir's absence. Of course, the hammer was still underneath, and Blake quickly retrieved it and defeated Loki, returning him to Asgard once more.

Facing Thug Thatcher

Following an attempted assassination on mob boss Thug Thatcher, Thatcher's henchmen stormed into Don Blake's office and abducted him and Jane Foster, insisting that Blake operate on the injured Thatcher. He did so, successfully patching up a bullet hole in Thatcher's shoulder. Viewing Blake as a liability, Thatcher then ordered his death, but Blake was able to become Thor and deal handily with Thatcher's henchmen. In the scuffle, Thug and his girlfriend Ruby managed to escape. When Thor began his search for them, he began by returning to his office, finding the two and a tied-up Foster. Thor managed to distract Thatcher and fly Foster out of the building to safety, later catching up with Thug and bringing him to custody. Thor also called upon Odin to erase the memory of Ruby, an inherently-good woman who was cursed with the love of a criminal who didn't care for her.

The Xartan invasion

Tired of concealing his feelings, Don Blake finally decided to confess his love and his secret identity to Jane Foster. Unconfident in his own worthiness, Blake believed that he needed to be Thor for Foster to accept him. Just as he was to tell her, Odin appeared to him and ordered him to never reveal his identity to a mortal, forcing him to leave her awkwardly. Walking around the city, Blake discovered a number of strange new laws, such as declaring that sidewalks were for cars and that treating patients for charity was prohibited. People were also behaving entirely unlike themselves, including Foster and the mayor. Blake, now as Thor, decided that the city must be occupied by imposters, and upon investigation discovered a parked spaceship on the outskirts of the city. The ship was magnetized, and trapped Thor against its hull, forcing him to transform back into Blake. A pair of Xartan henchmen led him inside the ship to their warlord Ugarth and his son Zano, who were holding Foster and the mayor captive. They demonstrated that they could take on the appearance of anyone, and that they were using this power to send New York into chaos and leave them unprepared for a pending invasion—a process that they would then repeat across the planet. Blake negotiated his freedom in exchange for giving them Thor, and they agreed. Walking outside the ship, Blake took advantage of a brief moment out of view to transform into Thor and engaged Zano and Ugarth in combat. They were each able to change their form at will, making the battle complex, but Thor overcame them and hurled Ugarth into space, causing the rest of the Xartan fleet to follow him away from Earth. Thor commanded Zano and the other Xartans that remained to transform into trees, leaving them mindless and unable to return to their default form.

The magical Sandu

While roaming the city, Thor happened upon a bank that was mysteriously floating in midair. Leaping into action, he attempted to push the bank back down to the ground, but it then vanished, and all of the people who were inside reappeared safely on the street. Thor suspected that this was Loki's doing, but confirmed with Odin that his brother was still being held in Asgard. Thor soon discovered the culprit, a human psychic named Sandu whose benign powers had been multiplied a thousandfold from afar by Loki. Thor took the fight to Sandu, but was soon restrained in powerful chains. He called for help from Odin, who sent a pair of Valkyries to him to deliver and equip the Belt of Strength. Newly empowered, Thor easily escaped his bonds and resumed his battle with Sandu. Sandu was able to loose Mjölnir from Thor's grasp, but then strained himself attempting to lift it telekinetically. The strain was so great that his brain "snapped," losing all of his mental superpowers at once. This left Sandu completely defenseless and easy to apprehend.

Loki steals Mjölnir

While shooting a film in Norway, Thor suddenly felt his hammer leave him and not return. Thinking quickly, Thor prayed to Odin who agreed to lift him to Asgard, where he would remain Thor indefinitely. Unbeknownst to him, but not surprisingly, the source of Mjölnir's disappearance was Loki: he had magically altered the uru metal in his binding chains to magnetically attract the same material in the hammer, causing Mjölnir to smash the chains and free Loki. Fending off various magical conjurations, Thor was able to locate Mjölnir among Loki's discarded chains, and brought Loki once again to the justice of the Asgardian gods.

Radioactive Man

Blake was assigned to a humanitarian effort in India, a country ravaged by Chinese forces. When the Chinese attacked their medical camp, Blake stealthily transformed into Thor and began commandeering Chinese tanks on behalf of the Indian soldiers. Chinese military leaders tasked their scientists with finding a solution to their Thor problem; Chen Lu secretly exposed himself to intense radioactivity, having gradually immunized himself to the rays' harmful effects over the preceding months. As Thor returned home to New York, he was soon challenged by Radioactive Man, and the two did battle in the streets. Thor was quickly overpowered and hypnotized, and Radioactive Man forced him to throw his hammer aside. Thor mindlessly threw it far away into the ocean, and as Radioactive Man went to retrieve it, Thor returned to his Blake form. Blake was able to retrieve the hammer, using it to conjure a tornado that sent Radioactive Man back to China, crashing him into the mountains and making him explode, seemingly killing him.

Thor and his faulty chromosomatic gland

By this point, Thor was a globally famous hero. Dr. Blake soon learned of an alert being sent out to Thor from across the world of a missile that had been sent into space and gone haywire, threatening a plunge to Earth. Unbeknownst to Thor, it was Loki who was responsible for the missile's malfunction, having magically tampered with it from his prison in Asgard. Thor flew into space and threw his hammer at the missile, easily destroying it, but was then distracted by the appearance of a dragon, of all things. The clearly false conjuration—another product of Loki's interference—distracted Thor long enough for his returning hammer to strike him in the back of the head, specifically the "chromosomatic gland," which controls one's personality. This all went perfectly according to the plan of Loki, who then implanted a suggestion in Thor's brain to come rescue him.

Thor obeyed, and on his way to Asgard brutishly knocked aside Heimdall, guardian of Bifrost. Thor indeed freed his brother from his uru constraints, who continued to brainwash him to turn him against Odin and the other gods. The two were soon confronted by those very gods, and Odin attempted to convince Thor of his true goodness. Instead, Loki extorted Odin into giving him and Thor sovereignty over Asgard, lest they go down to Earth and wreak havoc together. Odin hesitated, and the brothers departed for Earth, their terms thus named. As promised, Thor caused mass destruction across the globe at Loki's behest, destroying many of mankind's proudest landmarks. Having caused untold destruction, Thor and Loki were soon approached by a supposed committee from the United Nations, pleading for mercy. They went to the United Nations building ostensibly to contact Odin on the matter, but it turned out that the committee were in fact Odin and the other gods in disguise: Thor was led to a trapdoor through which he fell, allowing Odin to telepathically drop Mjölnir once more on his chromosomatic gland, restoring him to his true self. Thor thus regained his hammer and incapacitated Loki. He and the other gods vowed to restore Earth to its previous grandeur, and Odin erased humankind's memories of what had taken place. Loki was again imprisoned in Asgard.

The two Lawrence Zaxtons

In a rare display of his own inherent brilliance, Dr. Blake soon invented a green android with remarkable intelligence (a purported 375 IQ) and unmatched physical power. Blake's invention was presented publicly to a crowd of onlookers by Professor Lawrence Zaxton, a scientific colleague of his. Blake himself was supposedly absent, but in fact attended the event as Thor to demonstrate the android's extreme capability. To that end, he struck the android with Mjölnir, to no effect whatsoever. While adjusting the android's settings, Zaxton overloaded its circuits, apparently by accident. The ultra-intelligent machine warned that it would soon explode, and Thor hurled it high into the sky where it blew up harmlessly. Thor returned to his office as Blake, upset at Zaxton's costly mistake. Zaxton himself soon arrived, proudly showing off his new duplicating machine, a gadget that creates copies of anything it points at. Zaxton threatened Blake to assist him with his invention, warning that he had Jane Foster hostage. He also admitted that he'd deliberately sabotaged the android out of jealousy. With Blake's begrudging help, Zaxton was able to modify the duplicator to create copies of living creatures, successfully testing it on a group of cats. When left alone for a moment, Blake transformed into Thor, but was caught in the act by Zaxton. Recognizing the threat Thor posed, Zaxton instantly created a duplicate Thor, and explained that living duplicates possessed opposite personality traits of the original: in effect, he'd created an evil Thor. The two Thors fought across the city, with Zaxton aiding the duplicate, creating another Thor and an additional Mjölnir to give his copies an advantage. It proved all for naught however, as Mjölnir only grants its power to those worthy, a qualification that the evil duplicate Thors did not meet. Thor defeated the copies, causing them to fade into nothingness. Fearing reprisal, Zaxton nervously made a copy of himself so Thor wouldn't know which one to punish, but dropped his machine off of the overpass on which he was standing. Reaching for the duplicator, Zaxton fell off the bridge to his death. This left the duplicate, benevolent Zaxton to live out his life as a good-natured scientist. Thor was then able to find and free Jane Foster.

The modern Merlin

Dr. Blake's alterego began to get more and more in the way of his career, as he was often forced to abandon patients to save people in more immediate danger as Thor. This particularly upset Jane, who became responsible for handling the disgruntled patients. Don soon learned of the much-publicized unveiling of a stone coffin purportedly belonging to the ancient wizard Merlin. Soon after, he also heard of a valuable satellite being pushed off of its launch course as if by magic at a nearby military base. He traveled there as Thor, successfully pushing the rocket back into its intended path. Thor understandably believed that Loki was the culprit, but found him chained and helpless in Asgard. Loki, who had observed the events on Earth, surprisingly told Thor the complete truth: that Merlin was the culprit, and that he had kept himself alive for the last millennium. Merlin resurfaced in Washington D.C., searching for the president. He sought to reclaim the valued advisor role he had held in the middle ages with King Arthur. Thor confronted him and the two did battle, with Merlin using the various monuments across Washington to his advantage. Thor used his ability to transform to Don Blake to trick Merlin into thinking that he was a powerful sorcerer himself, able to shift into any number of forms. Merlin was terrified of Thor's power, and Thor convinced him to return to his crypt and sleep for another thousand years.

The Avengers

One day, Blake heard a radio signal from the Teen Brigade, a league of young do-gooders led by Rick Jones in the southwestern U.S., warning that the monstrous beast the Hulk had resurfaced and apparently tried to destroy a train along with its passengers. His intentions were unclear, and in any case he had to be found. Blake became Thor and answered the call, flying his way across the country. When he arrived at Teen Brigade headquarters, he found that he wasn’t the only one: Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp had also come. Thor soon noticed the Hulk outside the building, and he alone gave chase. He soon discovered that it was but a fabrication, and deduced that Loki was behind it, traveling to Asgard to get answers. With Odin’s permission, Thor went to the Isle of Silence where he was set upon by Loki and the native Trolls. Loki’s tricks proved no match for his brother’s might, as Thor grabbed hold of him and brought him back to Earth to answer for his most recent ploy. The other heroes on Earth had tracked down the Hulk, and Iron Man had engaged him in combat. Thor interrupted them by bringing Loki and explained what his brother had done, turning the Hulk’s ire against him. A desperate Loki turned himself radioactive, threatening the rest of the heroes to leave him and Thor alone. But it was Ant-Man and the Wasp who saved the day, as a group of ants on Ant-Man’s signal triggered a trapdoor under Loki’s feet, dropping him into a lead-lined nuclear-disposal tank below. Loki could not maintain his radioactivity indefinitely, and Thor would wait it out before returning him to Asgard. During the wait, Ant-Man and Wasp made a proposal: given the combined power that they all shared, the five of them would make an incredible team. Iron Man and Thor readily agreed in the interest of better serving the public, while Hulk figured that it was better than staying on the run. All that was left for the new team was a name, which the Wasp provided: The Avengers.

Molto and the Lava Men

Don's affection for Jane continued to roil up inside of him until he became determined to be with her once and for all. As Thor, he summoned an audience with Odin, and requested his permission to marry her. Odin flatly refused him, scoffing at the idea of Thor marrying a mortal. As Blake contemplated the idea of renouncing his responsibility as Thor, he was approached by Jane, who told him that she was leaving to be with Dr. Bruce Andrews, both professionally and romantically. She had noticed Don's internal struggle, and said she couldn't be with a man who couldn't speak his mind. As Don reached a moment of utter vulnerability, New York was attacked by a new menace known as the Lava Man, real name Molto. Thor unleashed his frustration, violently defeating the fiery creature that had emerged from an erupting volcano. Thor sent Lava Man back whence he came, more or less, depositing him in the nearest volcano and sealing it shut.

The coming of the Cobra

Distraught over his inability to be with Jane, Don began to detest his commitment to being Thor. Odin summoned him to Asgard and warned him to forget about Foster, but he refused. In an attempt to clear his mind, Dr. Blake flew to India, where he learned that Ezekiel Shecktor, a former scientific mentor of his, was near death following a snake bite. Arriving at Shecktor's deathbed as Thor, he learned that Shecktor's assistant Klaus Voorhees was responsible. The two had been successfully researching an antidote to snake bites, and Voorhees plotted to kill Shecktor to get full credit for the discovery. He had their lab cobra bite them both, but only gave himself the antidote. Unbeknownst to Voorhees, the snake was radioactive, and its venom reacted with the antidote to give him various physiological traits of a cobra. Shecktor told Thor that Voorhees, whom he called the Cobra, was now flying to New York. Thor pursued him to a chemical plant there, where Cobra sought a source of cobra serum to create an army of creatures obedient to him. The two fought, but Cobra was able to escape. Thor tracked him down to, of all places, Dr. Andrews' office. Cobra again demanded some serum, and the cowardly Andrews readily gave it to him. Jane called for Thor's help as Cobra took her hostage; he managed to rescue her, but the Cobra escaped. Recovering her things from Dr. Andrews' office, Jane returned to Dr. Blake's employ, disgusted at Andrews' cowardice. Also around this time, the Avengers fought and defeated the Space Phantom, after which the Hulk angrily left the team, tired of perceived unfair treatment.

Calvin Zabo and Mr. Hyde

Thor continued to beseech Odin for the right to marry Jane Foster. He proposed a solution to the problem of immortals being disallowed from marrying mortals: to simply make Foster herself immortal, just as attaining Mjölnir had done for him. Odin scoffed at his suggestion, noting that it takes a truly exceptional person to be made immortal. He said that he would listen to Thor further in the unlikely event that Foster should prove herself deserving of immortality. Thrilled at the possibility, Thor returned to his office in New York, transforming back to Blake. Hearing a commotion in his front office, Blake went out and saw the villain Mister Hyde antagonizing Jane Foster. Unbeknownst to Blake or Foster, Hyde was in fact Calvin Zabo, a man who had once worked in Blake's employ but tried to rob him and was promptly fired. He had since developed a serum to turn him into an unrecognizable powerhouse known as Mister Hyde. Hyde got the jump on Dr. Blake, knocking him out of the window. Blake knocked his cane against the wall as he fell, transforming into Thor and flying back up into his office. He found that Hyde had fled, having stolen the contents of his safe—cash and research papers—and Foster was recovering from having fainted. He assured her that Blake was safe, noting her romantic expression at the news. A few days later, Blake had a dinner date with Foster for her birthday. The two had a pleasant evening outdoors until Mister Hyde approached them with a gun, forcing them into Blake's car. He took the two to his castle hideout, where he tied up Blake and triggered a bomb with a 24-hour timer that only he knew how to stop. As Hyde took Foster away to an unknown location, Blake reached for his cane, which had been knocked away in the confusion. Straining against the ropes, Blake retrieved his cane, transforming into Thor and easily escaping. Scouring the city, he found Hyde and Foster at a port nearby, where Hyde was incredibly trying to steal a submarine. The two fought, putting Foster in an uncomfortable position: she believed that Blake was still in the castle, and that if Hyde was killed the bomb would explode and kill him. She pleaded with Thor to let Hyde escape, and in the confusion, Hyde did just that. Under Foster's suspicion, Thor made a show of going to the castle to save Blake. Odin contacted Thor from Asgard, chiding Foster for helping an evildoer and declaring that she was not worthy of immortality.

See also

• Biography of Thor, 1964
• History of the Avengers, 1963-1964