What Thor Comic Book Literally Traveled to Outer Space?

In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover the issue of Walter Simonson's Thor that found its way into outer space!

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and sixteenth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.

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COMIC LEGEND:

An issue of Walter Simonson's Thor traveled to outer space in 1985.

STATUS:

True

As you may or may not know, Walter Simonson's epic run on Thor began with Simonson writing and drawing the book, but it ended with Simonson writing it and Sal Buscema drawing it (while Simonson was drawing X-Factor with his wife, Louise Simonson). Before Buscema took over regular art duties on the book, he drew a one-off issue where Thor met his great-grandfather in the wake of Odin's apparent death in a mighty battle against the evil Surtur (the concluson of the Surtur Saga that Simonson had been setting up all throughout his run on Thor to that point)...

(Thor doesn't know that it is his great-grandfather). It's an excellent comic book, but that issue, Thor #355, is memorable for a whole other reason...

In Simonson's introduction to Jim Amash's Sal Buscema: Comics Fast & Furious Artist from TwoMorrows, Simonson revealed a fascinating piece of information about the issue:

One final note - it's likely that Sal an I did the first comic book to travel into space. Naturally, since Sal and I were merely the freelancers who had done the comic, we wee the last to find out. But I was in a vice-president's office at Marvel many years ago, and happened to see a plaque on the wall with a familiar cover engraved in its center above some copy. Intrigued, I read the plaque and discovered that some youth group dedicated to space flight had chosen Thor #355 to be placed together with some other items and sent into space. Apparently, the group's collection rode the space shuttle, Challenger, into the startled forests of night in July, 1985. Given Thor's rather cosmic history, the honor couldn't be more appropriate. And for the son of Asgard, and for an artist who such a pleasure to work with as well as one of the nicest human beings on the face of the planet, I couldn't be more delighted.

That's fascinating, right? So what's the deal? Why was that comic book sent to space?

Well, as I wrote in a Comic Book Legends Revealed early last year:

In the early 1980s, Marvel cut a deal with the Young Astronauts Council....

They would help develop a cartoon series for Marvel Entertainment, along with a Marvel comic book series, as well as help them with other licensing opportunities in exchange for a cut of the profits.

Marvel worked out a cartoon series called Young Astronauts, that was going to air on CBS in the Fall of 1985. They even included it in those classic Saturday Morning cartoon ads from 1985...

However, there was a big conflict between the Council and CBS, who was going to air the show. The Council insisted on it being as accurate as possible, while CBS felt that that was making the show boring. So they passed on the show for the Fall of 1985. The Council eventually agreed on lightening up on the accuracy to get the show on to the air.

Sadly, by the time that the Young Astronauts Council backed down and agreed to do a "dumbed down" version of the cartoon, the January 1986 Challenger disaster ruined all of that. You can read about that in that CBLR.

However, in July of 1985, the Young Astronauts Council was still going strong and they were involved in the Challenger flight that month.

Challenger mission STS-51-F launched on July 28, 1985...

That mission is most remembered for the fact that Coca Cola had developed a soda for the astronauts to drink on the space shuttle, but Pepsi got mad and convinced the Reagan administration to not allow Coke to go into space before Pepsi could also do their own "space soda," so the astronauts included special dispensary machines for both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola and they were supposed to say which one they liked the best...

(The answer appears to be "neither," as Tang was still their favorite because it could be mixed with other stuff).

Anyhow, I asked Robert Pearlman, who runs collectSPACE.com, the best source for information about what items were sent into outer space, and he so kindly gave me the precise information...

The manifest for the STS-51F mission OFK includes the following entry:

#16 — 7 Miscellaneous Items for public display by the Young Astronaut Council

• Grocery Bag

• Comic Book

• Drink Can

• Gym Bag

• Computer Software

• TV Control

• Magazine

So I assume that the comic book in question was the aforementioned Thor #355. No information about why that comic, in particular, was chosen, but hey, it's still very interesting.

Thanks to Walter for inadvertently providing me with a legend and thanks to Robert for the information! Be sure to check out collectSPACE.com, everyone!