This Mortal Coil

Thor has returned to Asgard to demand his father reveal the truth about Don Blake. Upon his arrival he learned that his father replaced him with Red Norvell, leading to a brawl between the two.[1] With the pair evenly matched and the kingdom getting ruined in the clash, Odin calls a halt to the hostilities as he realizes that he cannot keep his long held secret any longer.

Up until now, Thor has always believed that Don Blake was a mystical template that was created to be a mortal guise for Thor, and was forced to live in order to learn a lesson in humility.[2] The fact that Odin may have lied about something regarding Thor’s past causes everyone gathered — including Odin’s wife Frigga,[3] Loki’s wife Sigyn, Sif,[4] Balder, Beta Ray Bill, and the Warriors Three — to mutter among themselves. The tension is so thick that Thor and Red almost get into another brawl. Eventually, Odin tells everyone to stand down and be silent as there is a reason for all his lies over the years.

Odin begins by saying that it all started just before he banished Thor to Earth in the mortal guise of Don Blake to teach him a lesson in humility. This, apparently, was just a cover however. Prior to Thor’s exile, Odin was visited by the prophetess known as Volla. She was once again warning Odin that the threat of Ragnarok was looming large and that in the end, if Thor participated in the final battle he would perish. This angered Odin who reasserted his composure when Volla reminded him that she is only a messenger and not responsible for the future calamity that is coming their way. Thanking her with her vision, he sent Volla on her way and began planning how to prevent Thor’s demise when the twilight of the gods finally arrived. Checking on his son, Odin saw that he and the Warriors Three were off on a quest, giving him time to find a solution without being interrupted.

Odin then ventured to Earth to find a suitable human host that he could merge Thor with and hide him away until after the threat of Ragnarok passed. His quest led him to a home in Minnesota where he discovered the Blake family, whose only son Don — who walked with a limp and needed the assistance of a cane — had just been accepted to medical school. Not long after this discovery, Thor got into the very bar brawl that gave Odin his excuse to banish Thor to “learn a lesson in humility”.[5] He was then sent to Earth and merged with Don Blake on the day he arrived at med school. Thor’s mind was then put in a deep slumber until it was time for Odin to awaken him.

Interrupting the story, Thor points out how in the past, he was led to believe that Don Blake was a construct and a template based off of the real life Keith Kincaid.[6] Odin explains that he allowed Thor to believe that as it helped sell the lie, but notes that Kincaid was actually his second choice as a host for Thor.

Continuing his tale, Odin explains that after the bonding process Odin was confident that Thor would be kept until the threat of Ragnarok had passed. He then took Mjolnir and hid it in a secret chamber in Asgard where it stayed for years. As time passed, Don Blake — unaware that he was a vessel for Thor — made his way through med school and became a celebrated doctor and surgeon in time. Meanwhile, Odin and the warriors of Asgard would deal with whatever threats materialized in the passing years in the hopes that one day Ragnarok could be prevented. After each battle, Odin would return to the secret chamber, tempted to use Mjolnir in battle, but never using it. One day he visited the hammer and it began to glow, and Odin saw it as a sign that it was time for Thor to return. That’s when Odin moved the enchanted weapon to a cave in Norway where he disguised it as a walking stick in preparation for Don Blake to find it.

The opportunity to awaken Thor came when Odin became aware that the Kronans were planning an invasion of Earth.[7] Coincidentally, the aliens were to land in Norway, near the vey place he hid Thor’s hammer. He then mentally influenced Don Blake to decide to go on vacation to the northlands where he encountered the Kronans and fled from the invaders. He ultimately, ended up in the cave and found the walking stick. Trapped inside, he struck the walking stick in frustration against the wall, triggering his transformation into Thor.

This has all been told before, but this time, Odin explains that when the walking stick was struck it caused Thor and Don Blake to separate and briefly freeze time. This allowed Odin to spirit away the real Don Blake. When time resumed, Thor went into battle with the Kronans unaware of what had truly happened. Odin then decided to hide Don Blake’s body in suspended animation beneath Wundagore Mountain where he assumed nobody would find it. There he was shocked to discover that the High Evolutionary had set up shop in that location and used it as his breeding ground for his evolved animals called the New Men.[8] Still, Odin went ahead and hid Blake deep below the mountain, then visited the Evolutionary in a dream and warned him never to venture deep into the mountain.[9][10]

After defeating the Kornans, Thor would split his time between being Doctor Donald Blake and defending the world as Thor, and Odin allowed him to think he was Blake who turned into Thor and not the other way around. However, his Don Blake identity was merely a mystical shell and over time, Thor’s godly heritage began affecting his Don Blake identity making it stronger and more muscular to the point where he hardly needed a cane to walk when in mortal form.[11] Also during this time, Thor had fallen in love with the mortal Jane Foster, even after he learned the truth about his heritage. Odin became increasingly concerned over this romance when Jane ended up being hired by the High Evolutionary to become a teacher to his New Men.[12] Odin then pretended to finally allow Thor to marry Jane if she could pass a test that proved she was worthy of becoming a goddess. Odin stacked the odds against her and she failed.[13] Jane was then banished to Earth where she met and fell in love with Keith Kincaid.[14] He also arranged for Sif to return to Asgard and she and Thor almost immediately fell back in love with one another. However, Odin notes that he didn’t require and magic or trickery as it happened naturally.[15]

Hearing all the layers of deception and manipulation that Odin had orchestrated over the years comes as a shock to everyone, even his wife Frigga, who had no idea either. However, Odin insists that he only did all of this with the best intentions in mind, because all he wanted to do was save the life of his beloved son. Thor doesn’t see it that way, pointing out that he tossed his son away in a false identity then meddled in the lives of many and lied about the whole thing for years. Odin doesn’t deny this, but points out that if he had been truthful about everything from the start, Thor would never have agreed to it. Thor can’t argue with this and Odin pleads with his son one last time to remain in Asgard. Unfortunately, this entire revelation has further justified Thor’s decision to leave and he tells his father that his place is now alongside the Godpack on Earth.[16]

Odin accepts this, having decided that it would be impossible to force Thor to stay, besides which he has his own Thor and Beta Ray Bill to defend Asgard now. This deeply disappoints Sif who tells Thor to stop stalling and leave, then walks away before she starts crying. With that, Thor departs for Earth, but wonders if he can truly be happy there as he once was in heaven.

Recurring Characters

Thor, Odin, Frigga, Sif, Warriors Three (Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg), Sigyn, Volla, Gondolff, Red Norvell, Beta Ray Bill, High Evolutionary, Hercules, Heimdall, Loki, Hyrm, Kronans, Zarrko the Tomorrow Man, Don Blake, Jane Foster, Keith Kincaid, Sleipnir

Continuity Notes

1. Red Norvell was a mortal who previously usurped the role of Thor and died preventing Ragnarok in Thor #276-278. After Thor turned his back on Asgard in Thor #472, Odin went to Valhalla and recovered Red and installed him as the new Thor, as revealed last issue.

2. This explanation was made in Thor #129. Up to that point, Thor believed he was trapped in the form of Don Blake — a construct — to teach him a lesson in humility until he learned his lesson in Journey into Mystery #83. After which he was allowed to regain his powers. Thor ultimately abandoned the enchantment that allowed him to change into Blake, having it transferred to Stormbreaker, Beta Ray Bill’s hammer in Thor #339.

3. Here, Frigga mentions how Thor is not really her son. Following the last Ragnarok cycle — which happened after the birth of Christ, as explained in Thor #293 — Odin decided that one way to circumvent the next Ragnarok cycle is have Thor born with a connection on Earth. Rather than mate with Frigga as he had in the past he instead mated with Gaea, the earth goddess, as explained in Thor Annual #11.

4. Sif tries, and fails, to get Thor to see that Odin really wants him to stay in Asgard. Thor denounced his homeland and decided to make a life for himself on Earth, as seen in Thor #472.

5. The events leading to Thor’s banishment and his bonding with Don Blake were first told in Thor #129. However, in that accounting of events it was said that Blake wasn’t a real person. Everyone believed this to be true until Thor found a man appearing to be Don Blake hidden in a secret cave beneath Wundagore Mountain in Thor #475.

6. The idea that Kincaid was the template for Don Blake was floated back in Thor #415. This is a supposition on the fact that when Kincaid first appeared (circa Thor #136) it was noted that he strongly resembled Blake.

7. Odin makes a point of stating that the Kronans were previously referred to as the “Stone Men from Saturn”, as they were originally called and thought to originate from when they first appeared in Journey into Mystery #83. It was later clarified in the Alien Appendix of Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #5 (the first text to address the aliens by their real names) that the Kronan’s actually come from the planet Ria and only used Saturn as a staging ground for their planned invasion of Earth.

8. Kind of a weird thing for Odin to miss since, as revealed in Silver Surfer Annual #1, Herbert Wyndham — aka the High Evolutionary — had been living and conducting experiments on Wundagore Mountain since the 1930s.

9. Next issue, the Evolutionary explains that he took this warning to be regarding Chthon, a demon that had been trapped in the mountain long ago. Chthon’s imprisonment was first told in Thor Annual #10. The High Evolutionary became aware of the demon’s presence as early as 1958, as detailed in Uncanny X-Men Annual #12.

10. What isn’t revealed here is that after Odin stashed Don Blake away, Sigyn ventured into the cave in an effort to kidnap Don and use him to blackmail Odin into free Loki, who was imprisoned at the time. Unfortunately, her attempts to free Blake accidentally killed him instead. She then created a mystical doppelganger to hide this fact. We won’t learn this truth until Thor #483.

11. Presented here is a montage of some of Thor’s earliest battles with Loki (Journey into Mystery #85), Zarrko the Tomorrow Man (Journey into Mystery #86), and Hercules (whom he first fought in the present day circa Thor #126)

12. Jane’s journey to working for the High Evolutionary as a teacher was chronicled in Thor #132-135. It came to an abrupt end after a battle with the evil Man-Beast, convinced the geneticist to take his creations into space to find their destiny among the stars.

13. Odin’s test on Jane Foster departure, her meeting with Keith Kincaid, and Sif’s return were all chronicled in Thor #136.

14. Here, Odin states that Heimdall asked for his sister to be sent away from Asgard while Thor was exiled on Earth. This wasn’t entirely accurate. As explained in Thor #301, the goddesses of Asgard were sent off to find the best of humanity as a means to prove to the Celestials that their experiment on Earth was a success. It was here that Sif was called back early in Thor #136, with the rest of the goddesses returning in issue #274. I guess you could assume that Sif wasn’t originally chosen to go and Heimdall convinced Odin to send her anyway? Like one explanation isn’t mutually exclusive to the others is what I’m saying.

15. Jane would eventually go on to marry Kincaid in Thor #336, have a child with him after issue #372, however she has since been separated just prior to her reappearance in Thor #475.

16. The Godpack are evolved humans created by the High Evolutionary. Thor agreed to lead and teach them back in Thor #473.

Supplementary Material

This issue features a pin-up of Code: Blue which is used to plug a back-up story featuring the team that will feature in Thunderstrike #13 through 16.

Topical References

• The Blake family are depicted driving a 50s model car with fins on the back. I’m assuming to take this as writer Roy Thomas placing Thor’s first appearance in real time with the publication of his first appearance circa Journey into Mystery #83. It’s been established that Blake went to med school 10 years prior to the start of the Modern Age, as noted in Thor #415. Thor’s first appearance was published in 1962, so from that perspective a 50s model vehicle would be accurate. That said, unless you think the Blakes owned a vintage car, this should be considered a topical reference. The Sliding Timescale dictates that the Modern Age of the Marvel Universe and the first hundred or so years prior are not locked into any specific time period and push forward in time on a 4:1 ratio so as not to age the characters prematurely.