TITLE: The Mighty Thor issue #203
YEAR: September 1972
COMPANY: Marvel Comics
Written by Gerry Conway
Pencils by John Buscema
Inkers: Vince Colletta
Letterer: John Costanza
Editor: Roy Thomas
The relationship between Thor and his father Odin has been always rocky. If father and son squabbles are seen as normal on Earth, Odin takes things to a higher level to show his kin some tough love.
In the case of issue #203, Odin creates a game where Thor, Sif and Balder must face a huge giant known as Ego-Prime (and no, this is not a Transformer) who wants to kill all humans on Earth.
And as one can expect, Ego-Prime is kicking Thor’s butt and always the concerned warriors, Sif and Balder are concerned about Thor and that he can’t beat his enemy.
But they aren’t the only ones concerned, Karnilia bursts into Odin’s room angry that he added Balder to his game and can’t understand why he did it.
But Odin has his plans and why he has the three fighting against Ego-Prime but most importantly, what he has planned for Ego-Prime.
But they aren’t the only ones facing danger on Earth, Silas Grant, denizen of Blackworld saw his world go from medieval times to 20th Century thanks to Ego-Prime and now he is stuck with alien, Tana Nile.
But it’s the ending that showcases the big reveal of how Odin was going to utilize Ego-Prime in the game was revealed.
For me, reading this comic, it brought back memories of remembering how the characters in Asgard spoke. With the primary words always being utilized by the Asgardians such as Doth, Thee, Thy, Thyself, Thou, etc.
Not only was the comic interesting to read, it always made me try to figure out what those words translated to in English.
But reading this comic also made things nostalgic of a good time when Gerry Conway and John Buscema were the dynamic duo on this comic book series and while I am biased towards the Simonson run, the Conway/Buscema comics were wonderful to read. They complimented each other and even if a story was weak, there was something about Buscema that took the story and made it better because of is artwork. But these two had a great dynamic back then.
Overall, “The Mighty Thor” issue #203 was definitely worth reading again!