Thor #497
Thor Must Die
After his recent encounter with the Hulk, Thor has had his powers restored by the Leader.[1] He doesn’t know how long this revival will last and decides to make the best out of this situation. As he patrols the city, the thunder got sees that someone has written “Thor Must Die” in flames on a nearby rooftop and decides to go and investigate.
Landing on the roof he is confronted by two new vigilantes Razorfist and Spiral who want to make a name for themselves by killing Thor, as they believe that this would make them a reputation that could land them spots on the Avengers. They are aware that Thor recently lost his powers and figure that this will be an easy task to accomplish, not knowing that the thunder god has them back.
Thor easily trounces the pair and decides to teach them a lesson by flying them high into the air. While they are over the city, the thunder god spots a crime in progress in Central Park. A drug deal has gone bad between two rival street gangs, the Hawks and the Neo-Nazi Aryan Dream. When police arrived on the scene, one of the skinheads managed to grab one of the officers and is now using him as a hostage.
Thor decides to use this opportunity to show Razorfist and Spiral that they don’t have what it takes to be crime fighters. Dumping the pair in the middle of the situation, they soon find surrounded by guns. As expected, the pair instantly turn coward. Thor then unleashes a powerful storm that sweeps both the gangs off their feet. He is thanked by Officer Kim Gaunt, who was trying to protect a little girl named Darcia who was also caught in the middle of the gang violence. However, the leader of Aryan Dream still has his hostage and threatens to kill him if they aren’t allowed to leave.
When Thor tries to summon lightning to incapacitate the bigot, his powers finally fizzle out. That’s when Razorfist and Spiral step up and actually take down most of the gang members. This causes their leader to start to panic and warns them to stay away. However, Thor bluffs him out by shouting just as there is a large clap of thunder. This scares the skinhead so badly he surrenders.
In the aftermath of the hostage situation, Thor spots a homeless man sitting on the corner that looks exactly like Odin.[2] However, the man disappears while Thor is distracted by arriving members of the media who bombard him with all sorts of questions.
The story is being watched on the news by Victor Prazniki, who takes issue with the way his daughter, Annie, has dressed to go out. That’s when someone drives by their house and opens fire. Luckily, nobody gets hurt but Victor realizes that he’s going to need to hire some protection.[3] Seeing Thor on the news, Prazniki decides that he needs to hire Thor.
Recurring Characters
Thor, Wad, Kim Gaunt, Annie Prazniki, Sylvia Prazniki, Victor Prazniki
Continuity Notes
Back in Thor #491, when the WorldEngine tricked Yggdrasil into thinking that Ragnarok had already passed. This caused Thor’s powers to eventually fade in issue #495. Here, Thor states that the return of his powers were due to the Leader reactivating them so he could battle the Hulk. This was in Incredible Hulk #439-440. However, this doesn’t make sense. See below…
This is indeed Odin, as will be explained in Journey into Mystery #511, Odin took advantage of the WorldEngine scenario to try and protect the Asgardians from Ragnarok. Odin and all the others were banished to Earth in mortal form with no memories of their past. In Odin’s case, he was sent many years into the past and has been living as a homeless drunk this entire time. He won’t be restored to normal until Journey into Mystery #513.
Victor Prazniki is being terrorized by the Mad Thinker who is trying to get ahold of the Raven’s Eye, an ancient sword that was given to him as a gift from the mob over his favorable union work many years earlier. See Thor #498-500.
Topical References
Victor Prazniki is depicted watching CNN on a CRT television. This should be considered topical as these types of TVs are considered obsolete and CNN is a real world TV network.
Continuity Issues
This story follows the events of Incredible Hulk #439-440. In that story, Thor’s powers mysteriously return when he stamps his hammer on the ground. In the story above, Thor claims that this was somehow caused by the Leader. However, there is no way Thor could have known this. At the time these stories were originally published everyone thought the Leader had died in Incredible Hulk #400. In Incredible Hulk #442, Omnibus claims that the Leader had taken over his mind. Whatever the case may be, Thor couldn’t have known that the Leader was in possession of Omnibus. I think we can chalk this up as an error on the part of the writer. It’s entirely possible that Thor assumed that it was the Leader who was responsible, unaware that he actually made a correct deduction.
