The Mighty Thor (Penguin Classics Marvel Collection)

The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel’s transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy

Collects Journey into Mystery #83, 85, and 114-116, and Thor #128-133, 154-157, and 159-161. It is impossible to imagine American popular culture without Marvel Comics. For decades, Marvel has published groundbreaking visual narratives that sustain attention on multiple levels: as metaphors for the experience of difference and otherness; as meditations on the fluid nature of identity; and as high-water marks in the artistic tradition of American cartooning, to name a few.

During the 1960s, under the hands of the inimitable creative team of Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber, Marvel’s Thor combined the raw material of ancient Norse mythology with the nonstop action of super-heroic adventure comics and the speculative reach of classic science fiction. The result was a heady brew: epic, operatic, melodramatic, even psychedelic. This collection gathers some of the most important story arcs from the foundational years of the series and includes seminal early appearances of such characters as Hercules and Ego, the Living Planet, as well as Thor’s first encounter with Galactus.

A foreword by Rick Riordan and scholarly introductions and apparatus by Charles Hatfield and Ben Saunders offer further insight into the enduring significance of The Mighty Thor and classic Marvel comics.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Stan Lee (1922– 2018) and artist Jack Kirby made comic book history in 1961 with The Fantastic Four #1. Lee oversaw the creations for over a decade before handing over the editorial reins at Marvel to others. Jack Kirby (1917-1994) cocreated with Joe Simon Captain America in 1940. Over the next decade, Kirby and Lee would introduce new characters that formed the foundation of the Marvel Universe. Larry Lieber (1931-) was a member, alongside his older brother Stan Lee, of the handful of writers and artists contributing to the fantasy and big monster titles of the nascent Marvel line in the late ’50s and early ’60s. In addition to scripts for Thor in Journey Into Mystery, the Human Torch in Strange Tales and Ant-Man in Tales to Astonish, Lieber also scripted the very first Iron Man story in Tales of Suspense #39. Rick Riordan (foreword), dubbed “storyteller of the gods” by Publishers Weekly, is the author of five New York Times #1 bestselling series with millions of copies sold across the globe, including Percy Jackson and the Olympians, now a hit live-action show on Disney+. Charles Hatfield (introduction and volume editor) is a professor of English at California State University, Northridge, and the author of Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby (2011), Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature (2005), and myriad essays and reviews. Ben Saunders (series editor) is a professor of English at the University of Oregon. He has curated several museum exhibitions of comics art, including "Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes."