… And the Home of the Brave!

After failing to recruit the Olympians to help him search for his lost people, Thor decides to return to Asgard once more to look for more clues.[1] However, when he spins Mjolnir to open a dimensional vortex, some magical force prevents him from crossing over the dimensional plane.

Little does Thor realize that his home land has been taken over by the mysterious Dark Gods. Responsible for the disappearance of the Asgardians, their leader Majestron Zelia has Odin as her prisoner. At the exact moment Thor was attempting to reach Asgard the Dark God known as Adva uses their power to prevent anyone from traveling to this domain.

Although victorious over the Asgardians, the masses have grown bored and demand blood, particularly a flying Dark God named Tokkots, who always speaks in rhyme. Tokkots wants a chance to slay Odin in the arena, however the senior Dark Gods refuse this request, as they want to utterly crush the All-Father’s spirits by destroying everything he cares about before taking his life. Instead, they pull Balder the Brave out of the dungeon and toss him in the arena. Although he has been tortured and starved, Balder vows to fight with all his strength, even to the death. However Tokkots refuses to fight such a weak foe and demands combat worthy of his talents. Annoyed by the creatures incessant rhyming, Mistress Zelia blasts Tokkots with energy, sending him flying outside the city limits. Spotting Thor briefly materialize on the Bifrost bridge, Tokkots leaps into the vortex back to Earth, deciding to find worthy sport there.

With Tokkots gome, Perrikus steps in to fight Balder in his place. Balder doesn’t even manage to get a single swing with his sword in before Perrikus uses his scythe to slice open his stomach. As Balder collapses to the ground, Zelia promises Odin that this will be the fate of all his people as the Dark Gods kill them all one by one.

Back on Earth, Peter Parker is bringing his Aunt May to Memorial Hospital to meet with her doctor Keith Kincaid in order to get her medication renewed. This is just as EMT’s Jake Olson and Dimitrius Collins arrive in the emergency room with a gunshot victim.[2] As Doctor Jane Foster begins assessing the situation, Peter Parker decides that this is an opportunity to get some dramatic photos for the Daily Bugle, figuring his photos could be used in a story commending EMTs for the job they do. However, Dimitrius takes issue with having his picture take and tries to take Peter’s camera away.[3] Jake Olson, however, manages to diffuse the situation before things get heated. That’s when both Parker and Olsen receive notifications of a super-human incident happening not far away.

While Jake and Dimitrius head off in an ambulance to see who needs medical help, Peter decides to head there on foot to get photos for the Bugle. He tells Aunt May to hang tight, promising to be back in a moment.

At the scene, both men witness Tokkots on the ramage in the streets. The Dark God not only terrorizes people but uses his power to make inanimate objects decay to create havoc on the street. Both Peter and Jake race into separate allies where they change into Spider-Man and Thor respectively.

When the two heroes arrive on the scene, Tokkots uses his power to weaken an apartment building causing it to collapse. As Spider-Man catches the debris in a net made of webbing, Thor grabs hold of the pile of rubble and keeps it from hitting the ground until all the innocent bystanders can get away.

As the battle is going on, Aunt May realizes that Peter has her prescription and goes out looking for him, unaware that she is wandering into harms way.

Meanwhile, Thor tosses Mjolnir at Tokkots, but the enchanted hammer passes harmlessly through the Dark God. Thor tries to will it back, but Mjolnir is once again ignoring his commands.[4] It ends up striking a new helicopter sending it spiraling to the ground. To make matters worse, Tokkots suddenly splits into two distinct beings!

… This story continues in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #2.

Recurring Characters

Thor, Jake Olson, Spider-Man, Dark Gods (Perrikus, Majestron Zelia, Tokkots, Adva), Odin, Balder, Jane Foster, Demitrius Collins, Aunt May

Continuity Notes

1. The Asgardians have been prisoners of the Dark Gods since Journey into Mystery #513. Thor attempted to recruit the Olympians over the last two issues, but the Dark Gods framed an attack on Olympus by Thor’s people in order to prevent this from happening. Thor will learn who captured his people next issue and will rescue them in issue #12.

2. Jane asks Jake if he performed any unauthorized surgeries on this patient. Jake — using knowledge Thor learned as Doctor Don Blake — performed a life saving emergency surgery on a patient in Thor (vol. 2) #5. As he was not licensed to do so, Jane kept it quiet so Olson wouldn’t lose his job.

3. The reason for Demitrius Collins’ freak out is because he’s actually an undercover police officer trying investigating the theft of drugs from the hospital, as we’ll learn in Thor (vol. 2) #15.

4. At the time of this story, Thor’s hammer has been possessed by the Enchanter known as Enrakt as we’ll learn in Thor (vol. 2) #14 and 16.

Topical References

• Both Jake Olson and Peter Parker are depicted as having pagers. This technology for is obsolete for the most part thanks to the cellular phones becoming more mainstream. Many hospitals still use pagers because they are more reliable when it comes to receiving signals, but eventually that’ll be phased out as well. As such the depiction of pages in this story should be considered topical.

• Spider-Man quips about Tokkot’s rampage being “another episode of the Jerry Springer Show!” The Jerry Springer Show was a daytime talk show that was the pioneer in what was eventually known as “Trash TV”, basically talk shows with sleazy premises that usually devolved into shouting matches, fist fights, and even all out brawl between guests and the audience. Beginning its run in 1991, TJSS was at the height of its popularity when this comic book was published. The series ended its run in 2019 and had greatly waned in popularity by that time. Its reference here should be considered a topical reference.