OURS IS A DRAMA DECREED BY THE FATES...

I'm glad to report that MARVEL have done themselves proud with the release of the softcover THOR MASTERWORKS volume. Quite simply, these tales - from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83 to 100 - have never been presented better ANYWHERE. For the first time since its original printing back in 1962, Thor's origin is reproduced - in colour - from pristine proofs, with no evidence of clumsy "restoration" or "reconstruction" as was the case in most earlier reprints.

For example, when the story was reprinted in MARVEL TALES #1, a badly lettered blurb on the splash page declared it was originally printed in JIM #38 (instead of 83) - and the final page was cropped to allow a wrap-up panel to the issue. When the tale was reprinted in the GOLDEN BOOK & RECORD SET, the splash page was in black and white, and the "Editor's Note" panel on the last page was eliminated, with the last two pics being resized to fill the space. In ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, the corner page numbers were removed and some clumsy touch-up work was noticable in places. For the first printing of the hardback edition of Masterworks (and subsequent editions up 'til now), the splash page was reconstructed from the reprint in Thor #158, and the final panel was badly relettered from the changes made in the aforementioned issue to its original wording. (Although the misspelling of "THORR" was corrected.)

Rather than bore you here with the details of every single printing of this classic tale, see my previous post on the subject. However, before you do that, run out and buy this beautiful edition before it's sold out. (It's just a shame that they inadvertently missed out a paragraph in STAN LEE's introduction, originally written for the 1991 printing.)

ISBN# 978-0-7851-4568-4.

Start saving now for the OMNIBUS volume due out at the end of the year.