The Least Heroic Hero

A long time ago, I talked about Tin, the Metal Man who was arguably the bravest character in the Silver Age, because he always showed great valor despite obviously lacking an iota of self-confidence.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was Volstagg the Voluminous, a Marvel hero who first appeared in the Tales of Asgard backup feature in Journey into Mystery #119:

It is somewhat remarkable that Volstagg is shown fighting in his initial appearance, as he generally avoided combat whenever possible:

All the while blustering about what a mighty warrior he was.

The Tales of Asgard feature, which had started as a way for Stan to work in some background on the Norse gods, rapidly evolved into the adventures of the Warriors Three: Volstagg, Hogun the Grim and Fandral the Dashing (with Thor often joining in):

Hogun looks a bit like Attila the Hun, and Fandral was inspired by Errol Flynn's version of Robin Hood (and would later inspire Green Arrow's extreme makeover).

Volstagg himself was based on the character of Falstaff, who appeared in three Shakespeare plays, most notably the two parts of Henry IV. In the first part, Falstaff is the drinking and debauching companion of Prince Hal (the future Henry V). Like Volstagg, he's portly and given much to braggadocio, and is the frequent subject of the jests of his companions. Thor himself can be seen as similar to Hal; the son of the King who sorely tests his father's patience yet shows great heroism. Falstaff is repudiated by Hal in the final scene of the second part of Henry IV, as a sign that the young prince has renounced his former dissolute lifestyle and is ready to assume his duties as king. As far as I know, Thor never similarly abandoned Volstagg.

One aspect of Volstagg's characterization must be commented on, and that is his steed. While Hogun and Fandral had sterling and mighty chargers, Volstagg was given a mount that would not seem capable of supporting his girth:

This further emphasizes the comical nature of the character.

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Marvel's Son of God

Of course, this is a paraphrase of one of the sayings attributed to Jesus on the cross. It is interesting to look at some of the similarities of the Odin/Thor relationship with that of Jesus and God the Father.

If you look at the God of the Old Testament, he's very much like Odin: regal, imperious and somewhat haughty and capricious. Jesus is like Thor in some ways: came to Earth to help the humans, long-haired, etc. Of course, Thor relishes battle while Jesus was the Prince of Peace. And Odin does not judge mortals, but rather his fellow gods.

Of course, DC has also occasionally hinted that Superman is similar to Jesus, most explicitly in the trailer for Superman Returns.

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Tales of Asgard

As Marvel changed its focus from monsters to superheroes, the new characters quickly took over the featured spot in some of the line's existing comics. The Human Torch quickly became the headliner in Strange Tales, while Tales of Suspense picked up Iron Man and Tales to Astonish (initially) featured Ant-Man, while Journey into Mystery became the flagship of the Mighty Thor.

However, those comics did not drop their monster/horror stories entirely. At least, not at first. Journey into Mystery #95 (the 13th issue featuring Thor) included a Steve Ditko thriller called The Tomb of Tut-Amm-Tut and Save Me from the Lizard Men, in addition to the cover feature, The Demon Duplicators. Stan was hedging his bets at least slightly on the costumed crimebusters. But with JiM #97 he made it clear that he was going to push Thor in that magazine, by adding a five-page Tales of Asgard feature, which ran for several years. The stories were clearly intended to give us more background on the supporting characters of Thor.

The problem, back then, is that the feature ran a relatively brief five pages, and seldom tied into current events in the main Thor stories, so that it was hard to get excited about reading each one. Plus even with a friend's pretty good collection of Marvels to read back then there were always missing issues to contend with, so I never really took a hard look at the series.

I'm going to rectify that a bit starting today; I'll do it like the Iron Man run where I'll tackle several issues in a row so that I can hit on larger themes than just plot points.

In the first story we just get the who begat who stuff. Odin was the grandson of the first god, who's name was Buri. The gods battled constantly against the Frost Giants; one suspects that those from Scandinavia might have special concerns about the cold. The only signicant negative I see to the opening tale is that it is told completely by narration and not dialog.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but one of the singular reasons why comics have been so successful is because all readers instinctively hate long narrative passages and love dialog. The art obviates the need for the boring descriptions and thus we can get to what we really like, which is the interaction between characters.

However, by the second story Stan is more on his game, as he lets Odin and the Frost Giants exchange some insults before the former disposes of the latter. I do have to chuckle a bit at Odin's throne:



I can only think of one kind of throne that a ruler should be on where his knees are higher than his stomach. ;)

The third story is back to the narrative style. Odin battles Surtur, king of the fire demons. In the course of the story, we learn it was this battle that causes the earth to rotate on its axis and also resulted in the creation of the Moon. Note that many religious systems originated in attempts to explain the nighttime sky and other observed cosmological phenomena.

By the fourth story, Thor as a boy (and his vile brother Loki) have been introduced. They collaborate to recover some apples stolen by three storm giants. And in the end:



That's an interesting little detail that I didn't know before; earlier in the story I noticed that Thor was using a sword instead of his famed hammer.

The fifth story returns to the form of the prior one, where Loki plots to get the hammer rather than Thor, but fails, when his brother delays an invasion of Asgard (that Loki had orchestrated) long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

We continue with the story of Thor rescuing Sif from Hela, Goddess of Death; IIRC this was one of Sif's only appearances before she became Thor's official girlfriend at the end of Thor #136. Thor offers his life for hers; the nobility of this (offered but not accepted) sacrifice is what finally wins him the hammer.

In JiM #103 we learn that Thor had a key part to play in the Norse version of Adam and Eve:



Interesting stuff; I wonder if it caused any controversy at the time. You know how it is; if you present the Norse myths as real aren't you denying the myths of other religions?

It is announced at the end of this story that the next episode will feature bios of the major characters in Asgard, starting with Heimdall, so this seems like a good breaking point.

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Worst Dad of the Silver Age?

There are only a couple of real contenders, partially because fathers were as scarce as hen's teeth in the Silver Age.

Odin certainly qualifies for the short list. Let's see, you've got two sons. One's handsome, valiant, noble and the other's ugly, cowardly and base. And you can't choose between them?

Odin constantly interferes in his son's life, regularly (and at convenient moments for the plot) removing or reducing Thor's powers:



And interfering in his son's love life:



But on the other hand, he is a god and so maybe it's unfair to judge him by human standards.

Both Jor-El and Jonathan Kent both were good fathers for Kal-El/Clark, but they were also capable of being jerkwads when the situation called for it. In one memorable story (from Adventure #240), Jor-El sent a robot to test Superboy's suitability as a hero, with instructions to remove the lad's powers if he failed any part of the test. And Kent was capable of a little super-dickery himself:



But these minor transgressions are nothing compared to the world's worst dad, Pincus Popnecker. The father of Herbie Popnecker had no redeeming qualities. Consider:

Faithless. The last thing a son needs is a dad who's got a roving eye:



Abusive. Pincus Popnecker wrote the book on verbal abuse:



Tyrannical. Hate-filled. Egotistical. Raving.

Put them all together, you have, by a rather large margin, the worst father of the Silver Age:



BTW, I should mention that I gleaned some of the Herbie pictures from this amazing website that covers just about everything Herbie. Terrific resource for all Popnecker fans!

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