The Mighty Thor

In the 1960s, Marvel turned the thunder god of Norse legend into a comic-book star, and this Penguin Classics collection gathers the stories that built him. Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber took ancient myth and blended it with the relentless pace of superhero adventure and the big ideas of classic science fiction. What came out was epic, operatic, melodramatic, and at times downright psychedelic.

The volume brings together some of the most important story arcs from the series' formative years. It includes early appearances of Hercules and of Ego, the Living Planet, along with Thor's first meeting with Galactus. The issues collected are Journey into Mystery #83, 85, and 114-116, plus Thor #128-133, 154-157, and 159-161.

Rick Riordan contributes a foreword, and Charles Hatfield and Ben Saunders supply scholarly introductions and notes. Together they place these comics within the wider story of Marvel's influence on American popular culture and on the fantasy genre as a whole.