Thor #375: Review

Jan 1987

Walt Simonson, Sal Buscema

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Story Name:

Shadows of the Past

Review & Comments

Rating:

Thor #375 Review by Peter Silvestro (April 29, 2014)

Review: A rematch with the Absorbing Man? I’m up for that…but first let’s drown the story in subplots. Not bad but it feels like we’re being shifted around a but too much, though it’s nice that the Loki/Storm Giants thread brings us back to the main plot. The issue is a lot better than I’m making it sound but I’m hoping the Mick and Keven/Amora stories come to something cool.

Comments: Man-Beast was introduced in issue #135; the Wrecker in #148, and the Absorbing Man way back in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #114.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Thor #375 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Loki, brooding over Thor’s defeat of his scheme to become King of Asgard (issues #364-368), seeks out his foe in a crystal ball. The God of Mischief sees Thor, his arm broken through Hela’s spell (last issue), consulting Tony Stark for a remedy. Tony builds him a high-tech armored cast for his arm. Loki then visits Hela in Hel (she’s his daughter) and proposes a scheme to team up against their brittle-boned arch-enemy.

Subplots all in one place: the orphaned Keith and Mick Mortenson are hurt playing with the immortal children of Asgard; Hogun and Fandral take the boys under their wing. Heimdall visits his sister Amora, still mourning the death of Skurge (issue #362); he literally carries her off for some emotional healing. Balder announces that the time is near for sheathing the Sword of Surtur. Loki approaches the Frost Giants who were miniaturized by Balder (in his miniseries) and offers to restore them if they will join him in his plot of revenge; he uses a magic crystal to show them what is currently happening to Thor….

Thor returns to New York to find the Man-Beast on a rampage; the Thunder God engages the advanced animal-man in combat which ends with the villain’s collapse. As the Man-Beast dies, Thor is shocked to see it transform into an ordinary mortal, body aged by the force of the illusion. Almost immediately the Wrecker appears in another part of the city and Thor battles him with the same result: the bad guy is revealed to be an innocent victim of a magical scheme. Thor then comes upon the Absorbing Man—unaware that it is the real Crusher Creel; Thor plans to hold back so as not to injure the mortal underneath, but Creel has no such scruples….