Thor 1966 #154 - 8.0 - $44.00

• First app: Mangog

While Sif recovers, Hela shows Thor the glory of eternal battle he can enter if he surrenders to her. Loki takes the throne of Asgard while Odin undergoes the Odinsleep. Ulik frees Mangog from captivity.

On-sale date from 1968 Periodicals, Copyright Office, Library of Congress.

• ...To Wake the Mangog! - The character?s name Mangog would be inspired by the Biblical name, ?Magog.? This name means either a person, a people, a city, or a country. In Ezekiel?s book, the pagan Magog peoples "live in the north of the World" - an obvious analogy with Norse mythology as depicted in Thor?s comics - and metaphorically represent the forces of evil embodied by Gog, their leader. In the Qur?an, this myth is also repeated and refers to the annunciation of the end of the world. The analogies with the script of the comic books Thor #154-#157 and these elements seem evident. Pages 17-18: Thor meets a trio of Hippies. Drawn in 1968, during the full Hippy period in the US, when the Counter-culture movement gained a sensitive part of the American youth opposing the mainstream conformism of the society, this sequence would be akin to a moralistic and paternalistic message (the authors of the comic book were, after all, ?adult? men) addressed to his readership, as these pages represented a rare - and iconic! - instance in which a Marvel hero dealt with a moralistic theme. Note that initially designed by Kirby, the three Hippies were finally remodeled by Herb Trimpe, who conferred them more unsympathetic faces than Kirby has.
• - Letters submitted by Art Wang; Franklin Ray; Bob Barnett; Bettina Helms