By Fire Born, Part I of V

A man named Gary Lesgetti has died and the mourners leave the cemetery one person emerges to pay their final respects. He remembers when he and Gary Lesgetti were children and played together. Both had aspirations to become great scientists when they were older. While Paul wanted to become a great chemist, Gary hoped to become a French astronaut. Sadly, Gary never lived to achieve these goals. As Paul leaves a rose at the foot of Gary’s grave, he promises he’ll never suffer the same fate. The rose in his hand then suddenly turns into stone.

Meanwhile, in Manhattan, Thor Girl (aka Tarene, the Designate) is busy preventing a high tech bank robbery using sophisticated robotic drones.[1] She smashes and blows up all the drones with little care of the collateral damage. When Jake Olson arrives in his ambulance, he scolds her for allowing innocent bystanders to get injured from the exploding drone’s shrapnel. He tells her that her first job was to make sure to get people to safety before dealing with the robbery. That’s when Jake smells smoke and notices that Thor Girl accidentally set fire to the bank with her lightning strikes. She quickly flies up to the rooftops and uses her power to summon a heavy rainstorm that puts the flames out. Realizing how badly she has screwed up, Tarene realizes that there is still a lot she needs to learn about humanity since she — as the Designate — is supposed to usher them into the next stage of evolution.[2]

Once she is gone, Jake’s old friend Demetrius Collins arrives on the scene. As a police officer Collins isn’t happy with the collateral damage caused by Thor Girl. He also points out how she didn’t catch the ones responsible, but is confident that SHIELD will be able to track them down. Jake explains that she is still learning and she’ll get better eventually. That’s when Collins notices that Jake isn’t with his sister Christine and asks where she is. Jake says that’s complicated and will explain it to him later.[3]

At that same moment, the Enchantress — who had been posing as Christine Collins on Earth — has returned to the gates of Asgard. There she finds Heimdall ever at his post. He isn’t sure if he should admit her into Asgard, but before she can summon Thor, she kisses him on the cheek and makes him forget that he even saw her so she can enter the kingdom unannounced.

Since taking over as ruler of Asgard,[4] Thor has been inundated with the more mundane tasks when it comes to ruling a kingdom. At that very moment he is currently trying to resolve a dispute between a two locals over a dispute between property and grazing rights. Thor doesn’t understand why this needs to be his problem and tells the two men to settle it themselves. The two men are so worked up they complain how Odin would have settled matters like this. They are about to come to blows before they notice that Thor is furious that they mentioned his late father and cower in fear. Thor quickly composes himself and gets up off the throne. He then asks Balder if they have found land to build an home for the orphans created during their recent war with Surtur.[5] When Balder confirms that they have not, Thor decides that the man who complained about goats grazing on his land will now have to give it up for the construction of the new orphanage. When the man complains, Thor reminds him he came to the king for a resolution, and he has given them one, and thanks him for his contribution.

When Thor tells the commoners to get out of his sight, Balder asks his liege if he was not being overly harsh. Thor is about to turn his temper on his best friend but checks himself. He admits that he has as he has less patience than his father over such trivial matters. He has grown bored and craves action. He asks Balder and Thialfi to leave his presence as he’d like a moment alone with his thoughts. Once they are gone, the Enchantress enters the room and makes her presence known. She sneaks up and kisses him on the lips. Thor pushes Amora away, reminding her that they are no longer lovers.[6] Amora admits this, but now that he is the ruler of Asgard, she thinks it is time for them to get back together. Thor tells her to leave him be as he is concerned with Tarene on Earth as she still needs his guidance. However, the Enchantress already has his hooks in him and is telling him to ignore Midgard and revel in his rule.

Back on Earth, Tarene returns to the high school that she attends in her mortal guise of Tara Olson. Once she has landed on the roof she raps he magic hammer on the ground changing her Thor Girl costume into street clothes. When she heads downstairs she is caught by the Principal T’Ombatanna, who hopes that Tara wasn’t up on the roof smoking. She assures her that she was getting some fresh air. The principal wouldn’t believe her if she didn’t have a high grave point average and lets her go. This is overheard by Tara’s friend, Amanda Fairmont, who warns her that getting detention will affect her GPA. As the two walk down the hall, Tara notices that something has turned all the lockers into stone. In fact, the entire building seems to be turned into stone. Tara tells Amanda that she has to check something out and bolts to the women’s washroom to change into Thor Girl once more. She goes back up to the roof and sees that the school security guard had gone up there and has been turned into stone like the rest of the school.

Landing to get a closer look, she is caught off guard when the Grey Gargoyle sneaks up behind her and touches her. Tarene quickly begins turning into stone as he snatches her enchanted hammer. Thinking this will finally grant him immortality, the Grey Gargoyle smashes Thor Girl’s stone form into pieces.[7]

Recurring Characters

Thor, Thor Girl, Jake Olson, Demetrius Collins, Heimdall, Enchantress, Balder, Thialfi, Amanda Fairmont, Grey Gargoyle

Continuity Notes

1. The splash page here pays homage to the cover of Journey into Mystery #83.

2. For more on Tarene’s role as the Designate, see Thor (vol. 2) #21-25.

3. Odin died battling Surtur in Thor (vol. 2) #40, leading Thor to taking the throne in issue #42. Odin will remain among the deceased until Thor #618.

4. Jake was paired off with Christine Collins in Thor (vol. 2) #26, she was introduced to Jake by Demetrius who said that she was his sister. In Thor (vol. 2) #36 we discovered that she was actually the Enchantress in disguise. She completely abandoned this disguise in issue #43. This is the last we ever hear of the situation and the last we see Demetrius Collins. See below.

5. The warriors of Asgard sustained heavy casualties during their recent clash with Surtur on Earth, see Thor (vol. 2) #39-40.

6. Thor and the Enchantress had a brief love affair that lasted from Thor #491-501.

7. The Grey Gargoyle seeking immortality from an enchanted hammer is a deep cut reference that dates back to his first appearance in Journey into Mystery #107. Back then, he got it in his head that Mjolnir was the source of Thor’s immortality and many of their early clashes were attempts to steal the legendary weapon. In reality, the Asgardians aren’t truly immortal. However, they live long lives thanks to the Golden Apples of Idunn, as per Journey into Mystery #100.

8. This is alluding to the Reigning, a future where Thor rules over Earth and Asgard with an iron fist as we’ll see in Thor (vol. 2) #67-79. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #2, this future takes place in Reality-3515.

Topical References

• The grave of Garry Lesgetti states that he was born in 1964 and died in 2002. These dates should be considered topical as they are relative to the date of publication. Modern readers should interpret this to mean that Lesgetti died at the age of 58 years old. Per the Sliding Timescale, Garry would have been born 47 years prior to the start modern age.

• When complaining about how Jake chastised her earlier she wishes she could have become a famous mortal like Brittany Spears, saying she has a lot of fun. Brittany Spears is a pop-singer who was at the height of her popularity when this comic was first published. Part of that fame was her appeal to teenaged girls at the time. This comic was also published before it became public knowledge that Spears’ fame came at the expense of her own autonomy in respects. That said, this should be considered a topical reference as a more contemporary example could be used in her place.

The Christine Collins Issue

It’s never clearly explained if Christine Collins was a real person or just a disguise created by the Enchantress. Writer Dan Jurgens played it fast and loose with the whole double identity thing as he did with the whole Keith Kincaid thing. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d assume that Christine was a fabrication. Amora has the power control the minds of men and while she usually uses that to be a thirst trap, I don’t think it’s impossible for her to use that same power into tricking a dude into thinking he had a sister when one didn’t really exist.