Journey into Mystery #83
Thor the Mighty and the Stone Men from Saturn!
Doctor Donald Blake, an American physician that requires a cane to walk, is on vacation in Norway.[1] As he watches the incoming tide he is unaware of an alien ship that lands in the forest behind him.
The rock skinned aliens that emerge from the ship claim to come from Saturn to invade the Earth.[2] After testing their strength and weapons on this world, the Stone Men figure Earth is ripe for conquest.[3] Their arrival is witnessed by a local fisherman who returns to town to try and warn everyone of the alien invaders. Nobody but Don Blake takes the fisherman seriously.
Blake returns to the woods to see if he can find the aliens. Discovering them he tries to head back to warn the others but his presence is detected when he steps on a branch. Running for his life, Don loses his walking stick and seeks refuge in a cave only to find the exit on the other end is sealed. Fearing what the aliens might do to him, Don leans against the wall, triggering a secret passageway. There he finds an old walking stick and tries to use it as a lever to pry the boulder out of the way of the exit. When this doesn’t work he strikes the stick against the stone in frustration. Suddenly, there is a flash of lightning and Blake suddenly undergoes a radical transformation.
The walking stick has turned into a hammer which reads “Whomsoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy shall possess the power of… Thor.” Realizing that he has become the mythical thunder god, Blake is able to lift the boulder out of the way with his bare hands, having gained phenomenal strength. Once outside, Don sits on the ground to try and make sense of what happened and puts the hammer down beside him. A minute later he reverts back to normal. Touching the hammer again causes him to transform into Thor once again, teaching him that he cannot have the hammer leave his grasp for more than a minute otherwise he will lose his power. He next spends the next few moments testing out his new abilities. He discovers that when he throws the hammer it will always come back to his hand and that it can break through almost everything. Tapping the hammer on the ground he can summon storms of rain and snow, powerful winds, and even thunder and lightning. Tapping the hammer once on the ground changes him back to Donald Blake and the hammer resumed the appearance of a gnarled old walking stick.
Meanwhile, NATO has detected the alien ships on radar and send a squadron of fighter planes to confront them. The Stone Men ward off the fighters by creating the illusion of a massive dragon in the sky. Fearing a collision, many of the pilot’s bailout. Those who are left try to fire missiles at the alien ships, but powerful forcefields protect them from.
Seeing this from the ground, Don Blake changes into Thor and confronts the aliens. The Stone Men are unprepared for Thor’s titanic strength. When they try to contain him in a cage, Thor easily rips it open with his bare hands. When the aliens draw their weapons, Thor tosses his hammer, knocking the weapons out of their grasp. They then activate their robot, the Mechano-Monster. However, even this robot is no match for Thor’s titanic strength. Panicked, the aliens fear that there might be more Earthmen like this and flee the Earth. With the invasion over and NATO troops arrive on the scene, Thor changes back into Donald Blake. The soldiers are confused as to what happened, little knowing the lame man walking away was responsible for saving the planet from alien invasion.[4]
Recurring Characters
Thor, Kronans (Korg, Margus, Gorr, all unidentified)
Continuity Notes
This story leads readers to believe that Donald Blake is endowed with the powers of Thor but is not actually the famed thunder god. It’s a lot more complicated than that, because comics.
As Thor #159, Blake is Thor trapped in mortal form and trapped on Earth years earlier by Odin in order to teach him the meaning of humility until he became worthy to become Thor again. However the situation is far more complicated than that.
First of all, Don Blake was actually a real guy, as revealed in Thor #479. Thor was merged with him until the moment he taped the enchanted walking stick to first transform into Thor. The real Don Blake was then transported to a secret cavern within Wundagore Mountain where he was to remain in suspended animation. Odin kept this all a secret.
Shortly after this, as explained in Thor #483, Sigyn found Blake and tried to kidnap him to use as blackmail against Odin to avenger her husband Loki. She accidentally killed Blake and replaced a construct instead. From there, Thor was led to believe that Blake was merely a figment of his father’s imagination.
According to Official Index to the Marvel Universe: Thor and Thor (vol. 3) #1, the real Don Blake ended up in a “shattering void” and all of Thor’s experiences as Don Blake were later transferred to him when Thor was briefly killed off circa Thor (vol. 2) #85 and entered that same void. When Thor died he entered the shattering void was merged with Blake again.
The “Stone Men from Saturn” are not actually from Saturn. Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #5 clarifies that these aliens are actually called the Kronan and they come from the planet Rai. It has since been clarified that alien invaders often used staging grounds in Earth’s solar system and often claimed to be from those worlds in order to obfuscate their origins. Presumably, this was done in case Earth proved powerful enough to retaliate against invaders.
The Kronans in this story are all unidentified. However, we learn the name of three of them: Gorr, Korg, and Margus in Incredible Hulk (vol. 2) #94.
This story is expanded upon in Thor: First Thunder #1-2.
