Thor #319
The Zaniac Craves Blood!
Thor has just arrived in the city of Chicago and falls instantly in love with the city. He believes that he can make a home. However, he has to cut his tour short because his mortal identity of Don Blake is due to give a speech at a medical seminar. His speech, about how a doctor should never lose the confidence of a patient is well received and he gets a huge applause. After the speech his old classmate Shawna Lynde invites Don out to dinner. There they discuss how Don plans on relocating to Chicago to start up a new medical practice.[1]
After dinner, Shawna takes Don on a tour of the city, starting with Hyde Park. This takes them to the campus of the University of Chicago. There Lynde muses how the university was where the Manhattan Project — which created the nuclear bomb — was secretly located, noting that they operated in secret under the school’s bleachers. They soon come across an on-location movie shoot for a slasher movie called Zaniac. They decide to join the crowd that has formed to watch the shoot to see if it is any good.
At that moment, director Mr. Kronenking, is calling his lead actor to show up on set. This is method actor Brad Wolfe who is still in the make-up chair getting into character. As the make-up effects artists applies the applications onto Wolfe, he goes over the Zaniac’s backstory. The movie slasher came from a traumatic background of abuse that gave him a pathological hatred toward women. Once in costume, Wolfe is fully in character, something that is easy for him to do since his own background is not that much different than that of the Zaniac.
As they prepare to shoot the next scene, Kronenking spots one of the crew lugging a box full of explosives onto the set. This angers the producer since the explosives aren’t to be used in this scene, but in a later one out of town and orders the man to stash the explosives somewhere out of camera range. The explosives are then stashed under the university bleachers behind the spectators. Soon, they begin rolling with their next scene, which has the Zaniac chasing a young co-ed across the field. Wolfe gets really into his role and begins chasing his frightened co-star toward the bleachers. At that same moment, a cigar chomping on-looker is disgusted by the low budget film and decides to leave, tossing his cigar behind the bleachers. This sets off the explosives that rocks the set.
Miraculously, nobody is seriously hurt in the blast however Brad Wolfe is caught in the epicenter of the explosion. The explosion evaporates some of the heavy water, left in the soil following the Manhattan Project, and this interacts with Wolfe, transforming him into a real life Zaniac who can make flaming knives materialize out of nowhere.[2] Spotting Shawna Lynde, the Zaniac decides to make her his latest victim. After overpowering her, the Zaniac then carries Shawna off to a nearby alley so he can kill her. Recovering from the blast, Don is unable to stop the Zaniac from absconding with his friend. Ducking behind a parked car, Blake taps his walking stick on the ground, transforming him into Thor. The thunder god quickly finds Shawna and the Zaniac and manages to stop the monster from murdering his friend. However, the Zaniac has phenominal strength and is able to fight off Thor, but flees the scene when the police begin showing up.
Suspecting that the Zaniac is following the script to the movie, Thor doubles back to the university. There he gets Mr. Kronenking to tell him where the next scene of the movie is supposed to take place. He soon races to a women’s shelter near the Chicago Loop. Thor quickly finds the Zaniac and stops him from harming any of the women. The ensuing battle sends them sprawling onto the tracks of city transit system. When a train is heading their way, Thor knocks the Zaniac aside and lifts up the rails so the vehicle can pass by unharmed. Thor then resumes his battle with the Zaniac who begins throwing his flaming knives at the thunder god. Thor deflects these projectiles by spinning Mjolnir as quickly as possible. One of the weapons is bounced back at the Zaniac and hits him square in the chest. There is as blinding flash of light that sends the Zaniac falling off the train platform, hitting the ground hard.
With his foe knocked out, Thor is cheered on by the women he just saved. Slipping away to turn back into Don Blake, the thunder god begins examining the Zaniac who has reverted back to ordinary Brad Wolfe. As the police and ambulances arrive on the scene, Don is reunited with Shawna Lynde who hopes this experience hasn’t soured his opinion of the city. However, this entire episode convinces Blake that he should move to Chicago after all, believing that the citizens here could use a superhero like Thor around.
Recurring Characters
Thor, Zaniac, Shawna Lynde
Continuity Notes
At the time of this story, Don Blake’s New York practice fell apart due to Thor neglecting his mortal identity. More recently he worked at a clinic until he was laid off in Thor #313.
While this story suggests that the Zaniac was created through scientific means, Thor #372 reveals that the Zaniac is actually an entity that possesses men and turns them into serial killers that specifically target women. One of the Zaniac’s most famous hosts was none other than the legendary Jack the Ripper.
Topical References
This story is rife with topical references galore. Buckle up!
The opening narrative begins with listing a number of statistics about Chicago that were relevant at the time and should now be considered topical. They are:
The first thing it states is that Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is the most busy in the world. That’s no longer the case. At the time of this writing (October 2021), statistics show Chicago ranking as 13th busiest
The story also claims that Chicago is home to the world’s tallest building. Referring to the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) which was the world’s tallest building until 1998.
It also states that Chicago is home to “some 8 million people” which is a bit of an exaggeration. At the time this comic was published in 1982 it was actually about 7.2 million people. At the time of this writing it’s getting close 8.8 million and projected to reach 9 million in the next decade.
When talking about the film industry in Chicago, Shawna name drops mayor Jane Byrne who served in the role from 1979 until 1983. This should be considered topical, particularly since Byrne died in 2014.
Shawna also mentions a number of films that were “recently” shot in Chicago. The Hunter (1980) starring Steve McQueen (who died in 1980), The Blues Brothers (1978), The Fury (1978), The Thief (1981) starring James Caan (who is 81 at the time of this writing), and Continental Divide (1981). All of these films are referred to as being produced in the recent past. This should be considered topical for obvious reasons. Obviously, Chicago continues to be a shooting location for many films. Modern readers could assume that Sawyer is listing off movies that were filmed in Chicago, but just not recently.
When complaining about his incompetent crew, Kronenking’s production assistant asks him to imagine what Carpenter and Romero had to put up with on their own sets. This is a reference to influential horror filmmakers John Carpenter and George Romero. At the time this story was written both filmmakers were at the height of their careers. Carpenter was best known for the Halloween slasher films which Romero was best known as the father of contemporary zombie movies starting with Night of the Living Dead. The comment is made in the present tense as though both men were still working in the industry. However, at the time of this writing, Carpenter has mostly retired from film and Romero passed away in 2017. Modern readers could assume that she is referring to these directors in the past tense rather than commenting on a recent film these filmmakers were involved in.
The disgusted spectator quips that he misses the days of “Tracy and Hepburn”, referring to actors Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy a legendary cinematic couple both on and off the screen, appearing in many movies together between 1942 and 1967. Hepburn died in 1967 while Tracy passed away in 2003. This dated reference should be considered topical unless you want to believe the cigar chomping spectator is some kind of film buff.
This story also states that the Manhattan Project happened 40 years prior to this story. This measurement of time should also be considered topical as the Sliding Timescale continues to push the Modern Age of the Marvel Universe forward. For an idea on how all that works, I’ve gone into detail about how one could compute the amount of time Captain America was in suspended animation which would also work with this story.
