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Thursday, January 27, 2005

Thor #171 - The Wrath of the Wrecker

From the middle of the great run of THOR inked by Bill Everett. It's a beautiful thing to see the texture that Everett brings to these pencils both in the 20-page story and the cover.

The basic story this time around has Thor returning to Earth and his Don Blake identity, just in time to operate on a a civil rights leader who was shot (somewhere along the line Don Blake seems to have gone from a decent surgeon to the greatest surgeon in the world). In the middle of the operation, the Wrecker manages to escape custody and Blake has to leave the operation for a knock-down fight, returning just in time to finish the operation.



A bit of an oddly written issue, as Thor spends most of the fight lecturing the Wrecker on morality and responsibility, in between the punches and hammer blows.

But the art is a masterpiece of destructive action. There's one really good scene where the Wrecker sends his crowbar right through a truck, sending the engine flying out the front. Then when he and Thor get to fighting in the city, it's as powerful as Kirby's art ever looked. It's a shame most of this run of THOR has never been reprinted, and probably won't be for a few more years at least.

Published 1969

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Its also a shame Bill Everett wasn't inking Thor instead of Vince Colletta. Imaging what a long run of THAT would have looked like!

Nick Caputo

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