#JackedKirby - Jack's 100th Birthday/100th Issue Celebration Pt. 1: In celebration of what would be Jack's 100th birthday today (8/28/17) we are highlighting a page from all 3 100th Issues that Jack worked on. This one is from Journey Into Mystery #Issue100 from January of 1964. While Jack did complete the cover for this issue, he unfortunately did not do the interior art on the main Thor story. That would have been the talented Don Heck. But Jack did draw the 8 page Tales of Asgard back up story... which he also scripted! These Tales of Asgard stories laid the foundation for many of the Thor/Asgardian stories to come and often times shined a light on background characters we would come to know and love. The first few stories dealt with Odin and other characters. But this issue began Jack's analysis of the earlier years of the thunder god himself! In this issue Thor begins trying to earn the right to wield the mighty hammer Mjolnir. He must complete great deeds in order to be deemed worthy.... and his half brother Loki wants the hammer for himself. So he tricks Thor in trying to go liberate some golden apples from The Storm Giants of Asgard. Loki figures the young, inexperienced God will be defeated easily by the Giants... but Thor ends up beating them by using a variety of unorthodox tactics to defeat them considering the massive size deficit between them! As a reward for his bravery and returning of the golden apples to Asgard earns Thor the ability to lift Mjolnir a bit off the ground. The more good and courageous deeds he completes, the more he will be able to raise it from the ground... until he is fully worthy of the mighty weapon. This version of Mjolnir is also much different than the traditional version Jackie luke employee. Here it has a much longer handle, like a battle hammer... not the short version with the leather strap that Thor uses in most of the comics through the years. I have heard so theories on this: 1) Maybe Jack changed the hammer for artistic reasons or 2) Thor is smaller in these earlier tales and Jack wanted to really illustrate that with the size of the hammer seeming to be much larger in his hands. Who knows which is true?
