Thor Annual #6
Thunder in the 31st Century!
Thor is on patrol around Manhattan and, although it is a peaceful day, he feels a sense of foreboding.[1] He then spots a police cordon in front of the Roxxon Nucleonics building. There, the officer in charge tells him a group of men have sealed themselves inside and have threatened to set a nuclear reactor off if their demands aren’t met. Thor barges inside and destroys the switch that will trigger the reactor to explode. Despite this, the reactor begins to glow with energy. When Thor races to shield everyone from the blast with his own body, he and the reactor suddenly vanish in a flash of light.
Thor suddenly finds himself transported to the 31st Century.[2] The man who brought the thunder god to this era did so by mistake, and can hardly believe it when his computers identifies Thor. However, when he attacks Thor, all doubts to his identity are quashed. Not wanting to get into a prolonged battle, the entity then teleports Thor out into deep space.
Not far away, the Guardians of the Galaxy are out testing their new starship, the Freedom’s Lady when their vessel is struck by an energy beam.[3] While Vance Astro, Charlie-27, Martinex, and Nikki scramble to stabilize equipment inside before the ship is destroyed, Starhawk — who was flying outside the ship — helps stabilize the ship with his powers. As they begin to trace the source of the energy blast, the man response — the same one that stranded Thor in space — becomes aware of the Guardian’s presence and orders his minions to try and destroy them by creating a freak meteor swarm. The heroes narrowly avoid destruction for the second time and then come upon Thor’s frozen body drifting in space. When Starhawk brings Thor inside the Freedom’s Lady to be thawed out, Vance recognizes him as a hero from his native era.[4] To their surprise, the thunder god is still alive and wakes up shortly after he is thawed out.
Meanwhile, the entity responsible for these events is none other than Korvac the Living Computer who has reformed the Minions of Menace: Teju, Grott, Brahl, Tork, and Dumog.[5] The aliens begin bickering with each other until Korvac breaks it up. He reminds them all about how they got to this moment: How he was once a computer technician enslaved by the Badoon who almost worked himself to death. They then transformed him into a cyborg for peak efficiency but didn’t anticipate that Korvac would turn on his masters. Not long after this, the Minions of Menace were formed by the Grandmaster to battle the Defenders.[6] There Korvac was set to battle Doctor Strange and allowed himself to be defeated so he could analyse and replicate the Grandmaster’s powers. This gave Korvac the ability to teleport and alter matter to his will. Upon his return to the 31st Century, Korvac used his power to convert a barren world into a technological paradise and began re-recruiting his former allies. Now he has set up a device that will cause Earth’s sun to go nova so he can siphon the energies and power his world for all time. The destruction of Earth and its sun is now just two hours away. That’s when Teju informs Korvac that he has picked up the Guardian’s ship heading their way.
Aboard the Freedom’s Lady, Thor is being introduced to the Guardians of the Galaxy. He has heard of them from Captain America’s report on his encounter with the group.[7] When Yondu can recognize Thor’s godly lineage, the rest of the Guardians are convinced that they are dealing with the real deal. That’s when Korvac sends drone ships to attack the Freedom’s Lady. As they are near Korvac’s world, they use the ship’s transporter to teleport onto the surface. There they are confronted by the Minions of Menace who are poised to stop them. While Thor and Starhawk take of to deal with Korvac, the other members of the Guardians tackle the Minions of Menace. Charlie-27 takes on Teju, Yondu battles Dumog, Martinex goes up against Grott, Nikki battles Tork, and Vance fights Brahl. However, due to their foe’s power sets, each Guardian finds themselves outmatched.
Meawhile, Thor and Starhawk try to stop Korvac’s sun-killer weapon but every time they try to get close they are teleported back outside the building by their foe. Starhawk then uses his cosmic senses to detect the teleportation device’s power source and guides Thor on where to throw Mjolnir in order to disable it. Entering the building once again, Thor and Starhawk corner Korvac. However, before they can stop their foe, the cyborg uses a hypnotic beam to force the pair into fighting each other. Back outside, the Guardians of the Galaxy discover that the best tactic to defeat their foes is to switch opponents.
As the Minions of Menace begin dropping like flies, Thor and Starhawk come up with a way of turning their forced battle to their advantage. The pair stop pulling their punches and the destructive force of their battle begins causing the building to start collapsing. Fearing for his own life, Korvac teleports away freeing Thor and Starhawk from his control. They are then able to disarm Korvac’s star-killer with less than a minute to spare. With the threat over, Starhawk uses Korvac’s time-machine to send Thor back to his own era before destroying the facility. When Thor reappears in the present day he finds the police searching for clues to figure out what happened to the thunder god. Thor had been missing for 10 hours and tells the officers they wouldn’t believe his story if he told them.
Recurring Characters
Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy (Vance Astro, Charlie-27, Martinex, Nikki, Starhawk, Yondu), Minions of Menace (Korvac, Teju, Grott, Brahl, Tork, Dumog)
Continuity Notes
This story is the product of some wonky continuity. It takes place between pages 11 and 12 of Thor #260. As explained in Avengers #175, the Collector had been pulling Thor out of time in the middle of his quest for Odin (between Thor #255-266) to aid the Avengers and keep them alive until the Collector could add them to his collection. Thor would be put back the same instant he was taken with his memories of events wiped out.
The Guardian of the Galaxy’s 31st Century is not the future of the Prime Marvel Universe, but an alternate reality. Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005 #1 indexes it as Reality-631. The two realities will diverge from one another following the events of Marvel Two-In-One #69.
The Guardian’s previous ship, the Captain America, was destroyed in Marvel Presents #10.
The scene of Thor thawing out on a table is identical to the scene where the original Avengers discovered Captain America from Avengers #4. Vance Astro was an astronaut from the modern age which has a similar history to that of Earth-616. He ended up in suspended animation until the 30th Century on a mission to Alpha Centauri. See Marvel Super-Heroes #18.
None of the Minion’s alien races are identified here. Teju, Grott, Brahl, Tork, and Dumog are (individually) members of the Reptoids, Grunds, Achernonians, Procyonites, and Formalhauti respectively. These details were revealed in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #’s 1, 4, 7, and 8.
Korvac and co battled the Defenders in Giant-Size Defenders #3.
Marvel Two-In-One #4-5 is when Captain America encountered the Guardians of the Galaxy. He and the Thing helped them overthrow the Badoon.
Topical References
References to the Modern Age of the Marvel Universe existing in the 20th Century should be considered topical. Due to the Sliding Timescale, the Modern Age has been pushed forward to the point where it does not begin until after the start of the 21st Century.
