Holiday Heroes MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL "Mighty Thor in 'Twas a Mid-Winter's Night' "

We're Taking a Break from Russkie-Smashing Until After the New Year...

...because our hearts are filled with the Joy of the Season, yea, verily!

Written by Tom DeFalco and illustrated by Sal Buscema, this never-reprinted tale from Marvel Holiday Special (1991) celebrates not Christmas, per se, but the Winter Solstice celebrations popular throughout Europe that the Christian holiday is based on!

From 1991 through 2011, Marvel usually-produced an annual-sized anthology Marvel Holiday Special with all-new tales of Christmas, Hanukkah, and other mid-Winter celebrations!
DC did a couple of similar holiday series featuring all-new stories from the 1980s to the present.
Many of them haven't been reprinted since initial publication, like this one with the God of Thunder and his All-Father, Odin!
We're going to be re-presenting long-unseen stories from those series every Monday through New Year, after which we'll return to superheroes, spies, and other good guys beating up Russkies, ChiComs, NoKos, and other Communist miscreants!

Heroic Halloween in Rutland MIGHTY THOR "Firesword!" Conclusion

When Last We Left the Norse God of Thunder, Mighty Thor, Lady Sif, and Hildegarde had pursued the Absorbing Man to Rutland, Vermont, where the Son of Odin defeated him, only to discover the villain was merely bait, manipulated by the guy shown on the kool Gil Kane/Joe Sinnott cover above!
Now, forsooth, the mayhem shalt begin!

Poor Glynis Wein (dressed as Supergirl) can't catch a break!
First, magician Felix Faust conjures up a demon who possesses her (while giving her the powers of Supergirl) and forces her to battle the Justice League (as seen HERE)!
Now Loki enchants her, and most of the Rutland Parade goers/participants!

We saw weakened evil mage Felix Faust steal comics writer Steve Englehart's muffler-free car at the end of the Justice League tale HERE!

So a DC bad guy is responsible for a Marvel bad guy hurtling to his doom!

(Spoiler: Loki survives, eventually gets his sight back, and causes the Avengers/Defenders War, which results in another Halloween trip by the Mighty Avengers to Rutland the next year!

We're saving that one for Halloween 2022!)
Written by Gerry Conway, penciled by John Buscema, inked by Vince Colletta, with caricatures of all real-life comics pros and fans penciled by Marie Severin.

BTW: Thor eventually saves Lady Sif!

Next Week:

A Rutland Parade SuperHero Special!

And that's all the clues you're getting!

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Heroic Halloween in Rutland MIGHTY THOR "Firesword!" Part 1

Let's Begin the Final Chapter of the "Rutland Trilogy"...right at the Parade!

Note the presence of our four comic creatives, writers Steve Englehart (balding blonde), Gerry Conway (long brown hair), Len Wein (curly hair and goatee) and colorist Glynis Wein (do we have to tell you, the only woman in the group?).
Also note the real Justice League on the float directly behind the "Avengers'" float!

Steve's noisy car will play a pivotal role at the climax of this tale, as it did in the previous one.
And Parade organizer/comics uber-fan Tom Fagan is back in his NightHawk costume!

We see Loki back in disguise after revealing himself to The Absorbing Man at the end of our previous post!

"Who ever heard of Power Girl anyway?"

Well, nobody, since DC's Power Girl (the Supergirl of Earth-Two) wouldn't debut until four years later!

(BTW, she was co-created by Gerry Conway!)

Glynis is costumed as Supergirl, though they couldn't call her that in a Marvel book!

When she disappears, she'll be possessed by a demon and do battle with the Justice League!

Love him or loathe him, you gotta admit the trickster god knows how to make an entrance!

But, to find out what happens next, you'll have to be back...

TOMORROW!

BTW, the Absorbing Man, like most villains, survived this setback and is still creating havoc throughout the Marvel Universe!

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Visit Amazon and Buy...

Thor Epic Collection

Into the Dark Nebula

Heroic Halloween in Rutland "Rebirth!"

Technically, this material you're about to read is not part of the almost-mythical "Rutland Trilogy"!
But, since it "sets up" the situation for the final chapter, I'm including it as a prelude to the actual issue which you'll see on Monday!

Crusher Creel aka The Absorbing Man, is a long-time Marvel villain.

We now jump ahead a number of pages...

(The first panel is blurred because it really has nothing to do with this situation, but if I PhotoShopped it out, the page would look weird.)

Once more we see real-life Halloween Parade organizer and comics uber-fan Tom Fagan...

(On this page, I simply cut the bottom 2/3rds off since it has nothing to do with this particular plotline!)

We now jump ahead to the end of the story, as The Absorbing Man arrives in Rutland... 

You knew all along who it was, didn't you?

You've now seen how writer Gerry Conway and penciler John Buscema set the stage in Marvel's Mighty Thor #206 (1972) for the conclusion of the Rutland Trilogy!

Note: while DC sometimes did two, three, and occasional multi-part stories (such as the never-reprinted Silver-Age "Death of Superman" we presented HERE), those were the exceptions rather than the rule.

Marvel, on the other hand, was noted for serialized storylines that could go on for a year or more!

You will be here on Monday for the finale, right?

Rutland Vermont...Where Fiction and Reality Meet...on Halloween!

Our contribution to the Annual Countdown to Halloween blogathon features Rutland, Vermont...a town where, for decades, the Halloween parade featured participants dressed as superheroes!

But, beginning in 1970, comic books began a Halloween tradition of their characters visiting the town to battle various threats both super-scientific and supernatural!

First came Marvel's Mighty Avengers...

...followed in 1971 by DC's The Batman and Robin, the Teen Wonder...

...as well as Marvel's Defenders...

...in unrelated stories, though all the characters were at the same parade!

Then, in 1972, three comic writers, Len Wein, Steve Englehart, and Gerry Conway did a three-title crossover featuring characters in a Rashamon-like story involving characters telling the same events at the Rutland Halloween Parade from different points of view!

Now here's the kool part...the books were from different comics companies, but they all told the same story with overlapping characters, as well as the writers themselves, appearing in all three books!

Though it doesn't matter what order you read them in, we're re-presenting them in this order...

Marvel's Amazing Adventures #16, featuring the X-Men's own blue-furred Beast on October 4th-5th!

DC's Justice League of America #103 on October 11th-12th!

Marvel's Mighty Thor #207 on October 18th-19th!

Plus a surprise on October 25th-26th!

You're not going to miss history in the making as we show this almost 50-year old crossover between DC and Marvel which has never been presented as one complete package...are you?
Start Reading...
NOW!!!

Reading Room: THOR GOD OF THUNDER "Blood Piracy in Shanghai"

The Golden Age Thor returns to battle a typical-for-the-period "Yellow Menace" Asian-stereotype villain in this tale from Weird Comics #5.
NOTE: this story may be NSFW due to the racial stereotypes.
Oddly, the Asian characters do not have yellow skin coloring, but standard comic book Caucasian flesh tones.

Despite the blurb in the last panel, this was Thor: God of Thunder's final appearance.
He didn't appear again until Erik Larsen revived him in Savage Dragon #141.

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