Origin of the Golden Age Thor: God of Thunder

He's muscular, super-strong, has long blonde hair, uses a hammer named Mjolnir, and can control lightning, but he's NOT Don Blake!
Nor is he the real Thor!
Confused, True Believer!
Well, read on and all will be made clear...probably...

So, while Grant transforms into a Thor, the real Thor (with the mythologically-correct red hair and beard) sits comfortably back in Valhalla and watches the fun.
This version of Thor would run from Weird Comics #1 (this appearance) to #5, never once making the cover.
Interestingly, issue by issue, he lost elements of Thor's costume (including the helmet, cape, and long hair), until by his final appearance in #5, he just looked like Grant Farrel in a blue swimsuit!
After that, he disappeared until 2008, when he, and an assemblage of forgotten Golden Age heroes, popped up in Savage Dragon #141, in full "Thor" regalia.

We'll be posting the other four adventures of the first Thor over the next few weeks.

Watch for them.

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Reading Room: THE GREEN HORNET "The Counterplot Affair" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

Attempting to protect the boy prince of the oil-rich Mid-Eastern country of Bahratta from foreign spies, The Green Hornet and Kato discover the lad's uncle has arranged for the kid to be kidnapped.
Kato shadows the young king-to-be, and during a kidnapping attempt loses the boy, who escapes into the depths of the city's biggest park.
Now costumed and armed, the Hornet and Kato return to the park, only to run into the kidnappers...

Written by Paul S Newman and illustrated by Dan
The other tale from the final issue of the Silver Age Green Hornet's Gold Key run can be found HERE.
While lp albums and cassettes of his radio adventures continued to be released thru the 1970s and '80s, the Hornet and Kato wouldn't return to comics until the 1990s, when NOW Comics revived and revised the character, combining all the different incarnations into one big crime-fighting family!
Tomorrow, on the day of the 2011 Green Hornet film's release on DVD/Blu-Ray, we'll have a couple of rarely-seen Hornet goodies!

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Reading Room: THE GREEN HORNET "The Counterplot Affair" Part 1

"Hi-Ho Hornet! Awayyy!"
The Green Hornet takes a page out of his grand-uncle's edition of the Hero Handbook in this, his final Silver Age tale!

How will The Hornet and Kato keep the Prince safe?

Why is the Hornet riding "a fiery white horse with the speed of light" at the beginning of this story?

Everything will make sense tomorrow, so tune in for the conclusion...

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Video Fridays: Dr Who and the Daleks

The British have a long tradition of taking successful tv series in every genre from sitcom to sci-fi, and remaking them into feature films.
So, it seemed only logical that, with "Dalekmania" reaching a frenzied peak in 1965,  a feature film adapting the first tv appearance of the lethal pepperpots, would be a box office smash.
It didn't quite turn out that way.
Amicus Productions, basically a lower-budget Hammer Studios, acquired the rights, and produced Dr Who & the Daleks, starring Peter Cushing as Doctor Who.

Note: I said "Doctor Who" and not "The Doctor".
That's because the movie's Doctor is an eccentric human inventor named "Who", not an alien Time Lord using the title "Doctor"!
The TARDIS, while still a space-time travelling device bigger on the inside than the outside, is now the product of one man's expertise, not the culmination of the technology of an advanced civilization.

Beyond that basic change to the concept, the movie was a fairly straightforward condensation of the  seven-episode serial, utilizing the original story's major plot points.
With the benefits of

• being the first color version of Dr Who (the tv show was shot in black and white until 1970)
• a bigger budget than the tv series and
• a music score by Thunderbirds composer Barry Gray

the movie did very good box office in Europe and Asia, though only moderately-well in the US, where the tv show had not yet aired.
Encouraged by the ticket sales, Amicus adapted the second Dalek story into an even more-expensive feature film, Daleks Invasion Earth: 2150 AD.
But that's a story for another time...

The British Trailer

The American Trailer

And, you can watch the ENTIRE MOVIE HERE!

Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE "The Man of Bronze" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

Art by Jim Steranko

Investigating the death of Doc Savage's father in Hildago, the Man of Bronze and his five associates entered the Valley of the Vanished and encountered the Mayan residents of a hidden City of Gold.
It's ruler, King Chaac and his daughter, Princess Monja, welcomed the son of the late Professor Savage and those who accompanied him.
However, urged on by the costumed "Son of the Feathered Serpent", others were not so friendly towards the outsiders.
Under cover of darkness, they kidnapped three of Doc's aides and threw them into a sacrificial well filled with snakes.
Monk, whom they'd left unconscious, followed them and...

Overall, a pretty good adaptation of the original pulp novel in about the same length as the previous Doc comic, the Silver Age adaptation of The Thousand Headed Man.

You'll note that Ernie Chua/Chan took over the inking from Jim Mooney for "Master of the Red Death".
Personally, I preferred Mooney.

After this, instead of reviving the color comic, Marvel decided to do a b/w magazine featuring long-form original stories rather than adaptations of the pulp tales.
(Marvel's foray into a field previously-dominated by Warren Publishing had proven successful, with b/w magazines in horror, martial arts, and the Planet of the Apes movie/tv franchise proving to be solid sellers.)
The eight-issue magazine run is considered superior by many (including me) to the earlier comic run, with longer, more involved, tales, all written by Doug Moench, that followed the Doc spirit more than the Lester Dent-conceived story structure.
They'll be reprinted in an upcoming Showcase trade paperback from DC.
Not to say the color comic didn't have it's good points including a couple of Steranko covers and some of Ross Andru's best artwork ever!

Doc would make two more appearances in Marvel's four-color line.
We'll be presenting those never-reprinted stories in the near-future!