Marvel Preview #10 - Marvel

Winter 1977 - An all-new adventure with The Mighty Thor!

Only a small handful of Marvel's superhero stars were deemed marketable as b/w magazine headliners--they tried (briefly) with Spider-Man, but there was also The Punisher, the Hulk of course, and Howard The Duck, all to different levels of success.

But the vast majority of Marvel's other big stars--Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, Daredevil, etc.--never got the chance to appear in the b/w line. But a curious addition to the former list is the Mighty Thor.

Yes, Thor got the chance to star in his own b/w "try-out" issue of Marvel Preview; featuring an all-new story; one that was clearly designed and aimed at a slightly older audience.

The inside cover features a nifty pin-up by Jim Starlin, and then the main story--simply called "Thor the Mighty"--kicks off by Len Wein, Jim Starlin, and Tony DeZuniga:

Thor's good-natured drunken brawling is interrupted when he is called before his father, Odin. When he sees his brother Loki is there, too--they are both charged by their father to retrieve the Crystal of Blood, a dangerous gemstone that, in the wrong hands, could bring about total non-existence!

Thor and Loki head out, and make their way to the castle home of the dark sorceress Shamballa. During dinner, Shamballa lays it on thick to the Thunder God. Afterward, she shows up in Thor's room and makes her feelings clear:

While still relatively chaste (by, say, Conan's standards), this scene is way more explicit than anything you ever saw Thor do in his regular color comic--which leads me to think this story was written specifically for this magazine format, not a repurposed one originally meant for the color line.

Thor's romance is interrupted when he hears his brother call out for help--he's being attacked by a horde of meddlesome demons! Thor, of course, beats them away with Mjolnir. Later, they head back out, and find their prescribed destination:

Inside the chamber, the find a pile of skeletons and giant statues "watching" over them. Thor smashes through the only other door in the place, leading to the statues to come alive!

A battle ensues, and after a few pages they all spot the Crystal of Blood, perched at the edge of a small river flowing deep inside a cave. As they approach it, they are all startled by a giant sea creature!

After chomping on a few guys, Thor gets in the creature's face and begins to pound away:

This is another moment that makes me think this was aimed at a (slightly) older readership--check the spurts of blood hitting Thor's arm as he pounds the creature with Mjolnir. That's something else you never saw in the regular Thor comic.

Thor defeats the creature, and then of course Loki tries to double-cross his brother and try to control the crystal. That doesn't work, leading to the cave collapsing, burying the crystal in the rubble. Thor helps save his brother, even though Loki is a total dick.

Thor and Loki head home, and apologize to Odin for failing. Odin realizes its probably better the crystal is lost forever--no one, but no one, should have control of such awesome power.

All in all, a really fun story, full of adventure, and with just a couple of extra elements that make it feel a little different than your typical Thor adventure. The story moves at a good clip, and the art by Starlin and DeZuniga (not a great combo, to my eye) is decent if unspectacular.

But that's not all! This issue also features a second story, starring that other Asgardian ass-kicker, Hercules!:

In this story, Hercules gets to do what he does best--fight a Griffin, fight Medusa, brag about his strength, ending with him picking up a topless wench with one hand a flagon of mead in the other, heading off for a fun night.

There's another Thor pin-up by Rudy Nebres, ending what is a really solid package. I would've loved to have seen more b/w mags starring Thor if they all could've been this good.