namisgr

JIM 96 is, thankfully, the last ish without the Lee/Kirby magic on Thor, and instead is another Berns/Sinnott production. In the story, Merlin sees the Mighty One revert back to Dr. Donald Blake. With quick thinking, Dr. Blake dupes Merlin into believing he has the power to change into any creature of his choice, thereby protecting Thor's secret identity. Merlin falls for it, of course. This ish is more plentiful in high grade, and I'm looking to upgrade without paying the exhorbitant price of a 9.6.

Picking up where we left off, here is my JIM 95. This book is essentially impossible to find in great shape. Like my VF+ copy, the very few high grade slabbed copies I've seen tend to suffer from poor cover wrap or miscut. It is a shame, because this is a cool cover with a beautiful green background. The story itself is pretty lame - turns out the second Thor is an android version created by an evil scientist (is there any other kind?). Pencils by Sinnott and -script by R. Berns - less than memorable. The ish does have a neat Lee/Ditko backup story and a short story called Time Machine, and so really feels more like an Atlas than a Marvel comic. This copy came from Marnin Rosenberg many years ago. Marnin was, I believe, the very first dealer to specialize in "ultra high grade" Silver Age books, and when his prices seemed too steep to me (naive collector that I was), I'd buy his more affordable VF - VF/NM books, like this one:

I sell those.

With JIM 94, Kirby is once again absent from the interior. The cover menacingly shows the merciless Loki right here on Midgard, but without the Kirby magic I frankly don't remember this story. This is also a White Mountain copy. Being a nice book in an old blue label and a very old serial number, it should probably be regraded in the near future. It has what appears to be a staple mark near the right edge, suggesting that it was stored in a stack of books with opposing orientations, a good strategy for minimizing spine roll back in the day.

JIM 93 is a desirable issue, featuring the return (for only one issue) of Kirby art, and being relatively scarce in high grade. The villain's "powers" over radioactivity have a weird effect on the Mighty One, and are a bit like his kryptonite. I bought this ish as a NM/NM- from Ted VanLiew at either a Philly or Baltimore comic con (can't remember which). It was and is gorgeous, despite the "R" penciled onto the front cover. If recollection serves me, I have seen this R pencilled onto one or two other high grade early Silver Age gems, and so suspect that this was used by a kid to mark his copies. Anyone else ever seen this cover marking?

Next up is JIM 92, again featuring Loki as evil-doer, Thor being deprived of his hammer for 60 seconds as the major attack strategy, and Joe Sinnott on pencils. The series certainly did not benefit from Kirby's absence. This is my only copy with c/ow page quality (which held up through a regrading into the new label), but since it is a relatively weak issue, I have no desire to upgrade it.

Kev, where did your beautiful splash page art go? It was a great example of Kirby's wild imaginative work that he especially showcased on the Tales of Asgard backup series.

JIM 91. Still no Kirby interior art. This storyline is the first of many times that Loki, having been sent to a corner by his father Odin, transmits some of his impressive powers to another baddie to do his bidding and defeat his hated half-brother. This is the White Mountain copy, acquired from our own George/Jive Turkey who, based on the back of the slab, likely purchased it originally from Metro. Gorgeous colors front and back, with none of the poor production quality that plagued so many JIM issues during this time period.

Next ish is JIM 90, with Thor drawn by Joe Sinnott. I enjoyed Mr. Sinnott immensely as an inker, but the rendering of Thor is frankly a big letdown after having Kirby pencils for 7 issues. The title still had not latched onto its roots in Norse mythology, and featured a creature from outer space as the villain in an obvious extension of the Atlas approach. This is the Pacific Coast copy, purchased raw from PCE as a VF+ for 90 bucks. Like it's brethren in the pedigree it is structurally NM, but suffers from heavy prechipping along the right and top edges. Perhaps the grade is a bit harsh for a book without any missing chips. This ish is also one of the most difficult Marvel superhero books to find in high grade, with only 3 copies reaching 9.2 or better so far.

Continuing with the Thor run in JIM, here is the classic cover of JIM 89. This is the last ish until 93 that has Kirby pencils. I'm not sure if Kirby stopped working on Thor because the title had poor early sales, or he was simply too busy. In this regard, Iron Man was about to hit the stands, and Jack's workload may have been too great to continue on Thor. This copy was purchased from Jeff Weaver of Mad Cow Comics at a local Philly monthly show. Jeff acquired it from our own r1970/Roy. All parties agree: this is a really nice copy, and while it does have ~4 tiny spine stresses, is deserving of a better grade than 8.0.

Tremble before Gomdulla!

That's correct, the 93 was a raw purchase. It should make the thread in a couple of days.

Thanks Beltan. You will most definitely recognize a couple of the books coming up, as their onetime owner. Please feel free to contribute your own favorites to this thread.

Not to try and knock you or anything here Fred, but you may have your wires crossed a little there. I'm not sure if there are missing issue's from the ST curator run, but the collection certainly does date around the start of the super hero run of ST. Hence the Curator AF #15 discussed in SA section last week. But where ever they are, speaking with a few people, it's likely they are all with one person. Hence why none have emerged, or the odd one appearing on the census Frederic was referring to the Hollywood Hills books, which only range from 1965-68. Apparently there are no Torch/Thing issues.

And last for today, here is JIM88. This is a transition book for the title that focuses on Odin and sons, and is the first to really delve into elements of Norse mythology. There's a great view of the rainbow bridge on the cover, albeit with a relatively muted color palate. Odin makes his first cover appearance, too. The book looks nicer than the assigned CGC grade, but the 9.0 on the old blue label held up through a second grading as well. Definitely not your Mothers' VF/NM. The theme of a "battle over midgard (earth)" between Thor and Loki is an oft-recurring one in the hundreds of issues to follow. With this ish, the anxious reader had to now ponder that while the well-intentioned and powerful Thor was protecting our planet, his nasty and powerful half-brother also had access to us and was willing to put us in grave danger merely over his fragile ego and familial jealosy. Good stuff!

JIM87. Another storyline having Thor battling the communist menace. Thankfully, the more interesting villains and storylines are just around the corner. This ish has a beautifully colored cover, and the copy looks pretty much like it did the day it hit the newstand - only a Marvel prechip in the upper right corner keeps this copy from an even higher grade:

Thanks for the kind words, all. Here is my copy of JIM86. Not much of a story behind this one, although the cover is more dynamic and finally depicts Thor using his hammer to fly. This and the other books posted today were purchased as slabs from the usual sources: Heritage, Pedigree, and Comiclink:

And, last for today, is Thor's third appearance. This is the Massachusetts copy, and was purchased raw from Marnin Rosenberg back in the day. If not for the single Marvel chip along the right edge, it would grade much higher. This book and the other earliest Marvels from the Mass collection that I have seen are exceptional examples of hard-to-find high grade gems, with beautifully preserved cover colors and pages. The story introduces Loki, Thor's blood relative and nemesis for so many great story lines to come. The stiff-looking Kirby cover art shows that in 1962 Jack had not yet fully hit his artistic stride at Marvel:

Here is the second appearance of Thor. It is the rarest Silver Age Marvel superhero book in high grade, with only 3 copies graded by CGC at 9.2 or better, and no copies above 9.4. The Pacific Coast collection did not have a stellar copy of this ish. This raw copy was purchased from Bill Woo of Comicmania in Newark, DE. It has an Eastern Press file copy cover. These were oversized, untrimmed, and stored as covers alone. This particular cover was hand-trimmed and married to a beautiful ow/w interior. It is not one of the fake file copies passed off years ago by Fantazia - Mark Wilson (and perhaps others) can confirm the existence of Eastern Press file copy covers, as he once owned the complete 6 issue Hulk file copy run. Other Marvels from 1962-early '63 with file copy covers pop up occasionally as well. This copy would be certain to receive a green or even purple label from CGC, but I dig the history of the book and consider it a prize of my collection. Not coincidentally, it is also the single nicest copy of JIM 84 that I have ever seen. The cover colors look as though the book was printed yesterday, and having been kept from the newstand and never bundled with other comics, the cover is perfectly clean and flat:

Since the registry only permits 100 kb scans, I thought this would be a better place for posting my complete run of Thor in Journey Into Mystery. I plan to post the set in order at a few per day, and include the non-slabbed issues as well. This series was slow getting started, but later had some of Stan and Jack's finest and grand story lines and art. I hope everyone else will post their favorite Silver Age Thors and Journeys here as well! Here's how it began, with an incredibly frail and meek physician becoming perhaps the mightiest being to walk the earth/midgard. Purchased raw back in the mid-nineties as a VF-, this book is hard to grade, with a VF/NM structure and a stain at the top edge of the front cover:

Shhhh!

Got a couple Hollywood Hills books and a couple Massachusetts books in the past week.

I'll second that, and also give a shout out to Ditko, whose work on Dr. Strange is underappreciated. Just looking at those alternate covers, Ditko's unparalleled imagination and pop art sensibility really come through. Wouldn't it be great if Marvel would start an inexpensive line of single issue monthly reprints of early Silver Age series with "new" covers gleaned from the original artwork?

I'm curious, too. Not being a silver age DC heavy hitter, I certainly don't have the knowledge of others, but I've never seen a copy of Action 242 for sale that was nicer than a fine plus. Cool cover colors, vital story for the Supes mythos, plus rare as hen's teeth in high grade makes for something of a high grade ten cent grail.

Killer copy!