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Journey Into Mystery #91

Apr 1963
Larry Lieber, Joe Sinnott

Story Name:

Sandu, Master of the Supernatural!


Synopsis

Journey Into Mystery #91 synopsis by Arcturus Jackson
Rating: 2 stars
Image from Journey Into Mystery #91

In Asgard, Odin muses on Thor’s Belt of Strength which he guards until the day Thor has need of it. Odin is the Norse God of Foreshadowing….

In New York, Thor sees a bank building levitate into the air; when he tries to push it back to Earth, it vanishes altogether. Sometime later, the people from the bank reappear, with no memory of what happened after the building disappeared. Thor contacts Odin to ask where Loki is but the All-Father assures him the God of Mischief is confined to Asgard. Over the next few days more bizarre incidents take place on Earth such as money flying away. And Loki is enjoying it immensely….

The story flashes back a few days to when Don Blake and Jane Foster visited a carnival where they saw a mentalist named Sandu. Loki was watching from Asgard and decided for a lark to increase Sandu’s latent psychic powers a thousandfold. The magician was startled to discover he could now read minds for real, cause objects to levitate and teleport. He decided to become a master criminal, levitating an entire bank (which is where the story opened) then teleporting away from Thor, rendering the guards’ guns useless, wiping the witnesses’ minds, and then depositing the looted building on the moon. Sandu teleports a Middle Eastern palace to America to serve as his home and when the Air Force attacks he sends their missiles right back at them. Finally, Sandu levitates the United Nations building and demands that the delegates name him absoluter ruler of Earth. Hearing of this on the radio, Don Blake changes to Thor and confronts the magical villain. Sandu drops a load of girders on the hero, stunning him, then enwraps Thor in chains, drops him in a ditch, and lowers an entire building on him. Trapped, Thor calls to his father for aid and Odin dispatches the Valkyries to bring Thor his Belt of Strength (saw that coming, didn’t you?). Once the belt is on, Thor has the power to snap the chains and tunnel out from under the edifice. Loki commands Sandu to take Thor’s hammer, which he does by tricking the Thunder God into hurling it at an illusion of the magician. Intent on picking up the hammer, Sandu exerts all his physical and psychic strength until his brain short-circuits, leaving him helpless. With Sandu’s defeat, all his magical mischief is undone and Loki ends up cursing his incompetent ally.


 

Review / Commentaries


Journey Into Mystery #91 Review by (June 8, 2011)
First appearance of the Valkyries. First appearance of the Belt of Strength, though it isn’t clear why Thor really needs it. Sandu becomes the first superpowered Thor villain to never return. Not that anyone really wants him back. It’s probably just a coincidence that Sandu sounds a lot like Chandu, the magical star of a 30s radio show.


> Journey Into Mystery comic book info and issue index

Elektra

This comic is in the following collection:
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Preview Pages




Joe Sinnott
Joe Sinnott
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Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Loki
Loki

(Loki Laufeyson)
Thor
Thor

(Odinson)