Welcome to the four hundred and forty-fourth in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous four hundred and forty-three. This week, it is almost a shame that it is a Thor-themed week as the numbering of this week sure would go well with Fantastic Four legends! However, with the debut of Thor's new movie here in the United States, we're doing all Thor legends this week! Were Jack Kirby's New Gods originally intended to be Thor characters? Did we nearly have a Superman/Thor crossover? And what exactly is the “Saga of the Vengeance of Thor”?

Let's begin!

NOTE: The column is on three pages, a page for each legend. There's a little "next" button on the top of the page and the bottom of the page to take you to the next page (and you can navigate between each page by just clicking on the little 1, 2 and 3 on the top and the bottom, as well).

COMIC LEGEND: Jack Kirby's New Gods characters were originally intended as Thor characters.

STATUS: Basically True

Looking back at Jack Kirby's career in the 1960s and 1970s, the turning point seems to be his work on the Tales of Asgard back-ups in the pages of Journey Into Mystery and then later Thor. These excellent back-ups, which spotlighted the fascinating world of Thor, were more or less "given" to Kirby by Stan Lee to develop on his own. Lee would still script these back-ups, but Kirby was given a great deal more freedom in developing the series of back-ups on his own. Ultimately, this would lead to Kirby wanting to do projects where he would both plot AND script comics.

It was during his time on Tales of Asgard that Kirby first began to develop the characters that would eventually become the New Gods. The concept came to Kirby while developing the Tales of Asgard version of Ragnarok (the death of the Norse Gods) in Thor #127 and 128.

Check out Thor #128...









As you can see, the idea of New Gods taking over for the "old" Gods was a concept Kirby had all the way back in 1966. Soon after he worked on this story, Kirby began developing these new gods. Marv Wolfman later recalled that he saw some of these designs by Kirby before Kirby moved to California in 1968, so the beginning of Kirby's development of these characters came some time between 1966 and 1968.

Unlike other characters Kirby would create for Marvel, he was not planning on just giving these new characters to Marvel as part of his regular gig. Instead, Kirby held these characters back, with the intent of eventually working out a deal with Marvel where he could share in the profits of these new characters.

When Kirby was given the assignment of writing and drawing the Inhumans, he again planned on addressing the idea of the new gods replacing the old ones, but he soon saw his promised Inhumans ongoing series turn into just a feature in a double feature title in 1970, Amazing Adventures...



Soon afterwards, Kirby finalized his plans to leave Marvel for DC Comics. He brought along his new characters, although very few of them were direct translations to the New Gods. The CONCEPT was more what he brought over. Most of the main characters in the Fourth World comics at DC were developed by Kirby once he decided to make the move (Metron is a notable exception).

However, it seems clear that Kirby still remembered the Ragnarok story from Thor #128, as New Gods #1 opens with...





It is effectively continuing his earlier Tales of Asgard story about Ragnarok.

Making it even clearer is a later Kirby story in Forever People #5 where the Young God Lonar examines the home of the "old gods"...



Check out the helmet on the next page...



Come on, the chances of that being just a coincidence by Kirby are extremely slim.



Essentially, the New Gods are the successors to Thor and the Asgardians, which is pretty darn awesome when you think about it.

Thanks to John Modica for his scholarship on this topic in the Jack Kirby Collector.

Check out some Entertainment Urban Legends Revealed!

How did a hug, of all things, indirectly lead to Stone Cold Austin becoming a wrestling star?

Did concerns over toy sales keep Han Solo from being killed off in Return of the Jedi?

Did the Iron Sheik Really Win a Gold Medal at the 1968 Olympics?

Was Davey Boy Smith’s Middle Name Seriously “Boy”?

On the next page, discover the secrets behind The Saga of the Vengeance of Thor!

COMIC LEGEND: Walter Simonson had a Thor storyline planned called “Saga of the Vengeance of Thor”

STATUS: Also Basically True

Reader William J. wrote in about this awesome but mysterious drawing by Walter Simonson promoting an upcoming Thor storyline in Marvel Age Annual #2....



(Click on the image to enlarge it. It is worth enlarging!)

What was the Saga of the Vengeance of Thor?

As it turns out, it was just a plain ol' "never got around to it" type of situation.

Simonson described the situation on a message board a while back...

I had planned on doing a god/giant war involving many of the characters I was playing with at the time but got off the title before that storyline ever came to fruition. It's possible--but I don't remember now--that parts of the storyline of my final THOR plot were 'borrowed' from that original idea, although clearly, I didn't use Hildy (shown in the annual drawing) and I'd obviously had additional ideas about using mortal weapons in that storyline.

(For more on the Norse gods and mortal weaponry, check out a copy of Lester Del Rey's book, DAY OF THE GIANTS. I read it when I was late junior high school or thereabouts and loved it. Haven't read it more recently so I don't know how it holds up but the basic idea's there. It was probably the first novel I read that involved a version of the Norse gods.)

The God/Giant War can still happen! Jason Aaron, come on!

Thanks to William for the suggestion and thanks to Walter Simonson and Jason Shayer (from his great 1980s Marvel site) for the information!

Check out some classic Comic Book Legends Revealed related to Walter Simonson!

Did Walter Simonson really put together an official list of all the times that Doctor Doom was a real person and when he was a Doom-Bot? (the legend that inspired this entire Comic Book Legends Revealed column!)

Did Walter Simonson and Chris Claremont have to re-work an issue of John Carter of Mars into an issue of Stars?

Did Simonson then need to do the same thing with an issue of Tarzan?

What bizarrely awesome tribute to Peanuts did Len Wein and Walter Simonson put into a Batman short story?

Did Walter Simonson and David Michelinie come up with the Death Star 2 plot before Return of the Jedi?

On the next page, how close did we come to seeing a Superman/Thor comic book?

COMIC LEGEND: Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan pitched a Superman/Thor crossover

STATUS: False

Reader Hal M. wrote in recently to ask me about a legend about Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan almost doing a Superman/Thor crossover between Marvel and DC in the late 1990s.

The late 1990s was a time ripe for Marvel/DC crossovers, from the obvious ones like Batman/Spider-Man...



To some less obvious ones like Silver Surfer/Green Lantern...



and Darkseid/Galactus...



So a Superman/Thor crossover would have fit right in. However, right off the bat, I would imagine that if there WAS one, it would have been Tom DeFalco working with his other collaborator, Ron Frenz, since the pair had done Thor together...



and Frenz was then currently drawing Superman for DC Comics...



However, I asked Tom DeFalco and he said that neither he and Paul Ryan nor he and Ron Frenz ever pitched a Superman/Thor crossover, although he DID note that he and Frenz had at least talked about it, but it had never gotten past general talk.

So sorry, Hal, no dice!

Thanks to Hal for the suggestion and thanks so much to Tom DeFalco for the information!

Check out the latest edition of my weekly Movie/TV Legends Revealed Column at Spinoff Online: How did the writing staff of the Simpsons get "revenge" on Justin Timberlake when he complained about one of the lines they wrote for him during a guest spot on the show?

Okay, that's it for this week!

Thanks to the Grand Comics Database for this week's covers! And thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com. And my Twitter feed is http://twitter.com/brian_cronin, so you can ask me legends there, as well!

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Here's my book of Comic Book Legends (130 legends - half of them are re-worked classic legends I've featured on the blog and half of them are legends never published on the blog!).

The cover is by artist Mickey Duzyj. He did a great job on it...(click to enlarge)...



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Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed

See you all next week!