A Quick Trip to the Future

Cover Art by John Buscema

It's interesting to compare 1977's Thor Annual with last week's look at the first three issues of DC's All-Star Squadron. In the DC story, the villain had a convoluted plan. But the story built around that complex plan was a good one and the complexity was a strength of the story.

In the Thor annual, the villain (Korvac the Living Computer) has a pretty straightforward plan as far as Comic Book Logic goes--use a power beam to blow up our sun, then collect the power from that. He'll then have enough power to conquer the galaxy.

But in this case, the simplicity of the plan is a strength of the story, allowing co-plotters Len Wein and Roger Stern (with Stern writing the script) to set up some nifty action set pieces and bring the tale to a satisfying conclusion.

So villain plans can be complex or simple--a good writer can work with either and give his readers a fun yarn.

This one begins with Thor beating up some terrorists who had captured a nuclear reactor. The Thunder God deals with these bad guys fairly easily, but then he and the reactor vanish.

It turns out that a 31st Century bad guy (it's Korvac, but that reveal comes a little later in the story) was using a time probe to get some equipment he needs for his evil "blow up the sun" plan. He brought Thor forward in time by accident, so he deals with that by teleporting the big guy out into deep space.

But deep space in a comic book universe is a pretty crowded place. The Guardians of the Galaxy (a different team in the comics than in the recent movies--though I expect most of you reading this know that) are nearby, investigating Korvac's power beam. They find Thor, bring him aboard their ship and thaw him out.

Sal Buscema's art is great in this one--I can't put my finger on why, but this issue has always struck me as one of his best efforts. The action is expertly laid out, the sci-fi design of the settings are cool-looking and visuals flow along as smoothly as Stern's writing.

Anyway, the Guardians and Thor end up teaming up against Korvac and his various alien minions. While most of the Guardians fight those minions...

...Thor and Starhawk bust in on Korvac. At first, things do not go well for the heroes. The Guardians are soon on the ropes against the minions, while Korvac uses a neural beam to force the two most powerful good guys to fight each other.

Two things go wrong for Korvac, though. First, the Guardians improvise some effective tactics to beat the minions. Second, Thor and Starhawk are so powerful that their forced duel soon brings the house down around Korvac, forcing him to teleport away. The power beam about to blow up the sun is destroyed and Thor is sent home to present-day New York.

This is simply a fun issue--using Comic Book Logic to toss a superhero into the far future, team him up with characters from that era and get him into an entertaining battle with the bad guys. Well, entertaining for those of us reading the story. I suppose Thor didn't enjoy being zapped through time, frozen and mind-controlled. But, to paraphrase an old Mel Brooks quote about comedy: "Tragedy is when something bad happens to me. Adventure is when something bad happens to someone else."

Next week, we'll join Tarzan's son Korak for an adventure in the dinosaur-infested land of Pal-ul-don.