Thor in 1965
There’s finally some cross-pollination between the Asgard and Earth aspects of this series.
I’ve been complimenting the artistry of this series every year. I’ve growing to dislike Vince Colleta’s inking, though. Most comic experts seem to also dislike his work with Marvel, with the notable exception of his Thor jobs. I admit that his light pen work here gives the feel of olde wood block carvings.
I can cede the argument that a critic may see the style as “fitting” the Old Norse concept. It doesn’t mean it’s attractive, though. It consistently looks rushed and, when large areas of ink are called for, it looks incredibly splotchy. Overall, the inking jobs detract from Kirby’s pencils. The opening image of Thor 116 might be the worst inking output I’ve seen through this whole project thus far.
Marvel Editor Tom Brevoort has a post about Colletta here. Note missing figures in the pencil vs. inked comparison at the bottom of the post.
On the story front… evaluating things this year is tricky. Ideally, I would have drastically increased the size of the mythological backup story and decreased the size of the Don Blake/ Jane Foster primary stuff. There’s just no there there.
What actually appears to have happened is that Lee and Kirby decided to do some cross-pollination. Where Odin once showed disapproval of Thor courting Foster and rained down occasional punishment upon him, there’s substantially more intermingling of Jane Foster and Asgard. Credit this to Loki as the evil abductor, by extension, in nearly every case.
I would have gone the route of entirely eliminating the secret identity long ago, but at least cross-pollination is better than nothing.
