The Mighty Thor # 411 Acts of Vengeance

By Mark Rodriguez

The Acts of Vengeance storyline in the late 80's dealt with Loki rounding up the Marvel supervillians and having them try their luck against other heroes they don't usually face. The idea is to take advantage of the heroes not being familiar with the bad guys they've never encountered before and thus give the bad guys the upper hand. While the story starts in Avengers Spotlight, it continues in several Marvel comics tie-ins. As I gathered comics from cons and Free Comic Book Day specials and whatnot, I did manage to snag a few issues of the other heroes like Thor and Iron Man that tied into this story arc. Now for the order of things, I'm going by the months they were issued out. Act of Vengeance started out with Avengers Spotlight # 26 which was released in Dec. 1989 and of the issues I have, I have the Dec. 1986 issue of Thor. So now, let's check out how The Mighty Thor handles the Unstoppable Juggernaut.

The issue opens with Hercules and Eric Masterson, a guy who is currently fused to Thor as a human alter ego (yeah, I had to look it up) watching news reports about the break in at the Vault, a super villain prison that was broken into, allowing all the bad guys to escape, but also the attack on Avengers' Island that made it sink. They are being watched by a stranger who is looking for Thor. He has plans for him but it won't work out if he's unable to find him.

Elsewhere, security guards are watching over the Juggernaut, Cain Marko, held still by a stasis cage. Suddenly a bright flash of light warps Juggernaut out of prison and onto the streets of Queens, New York. Juggernaut is happy to be free and doesn't care how. He figures whoever did this will want him to do a favor for him, so he decides to walk around until whoever did this finds him.

Eric watches the news about the Juggernaut causing destruction. He says the X-Factor usually deal with him, but now isn't the time to be territorial. He slams his cane into the ground and turns into Thor. Hercules is too busy with his headphones and Thor decides he's better off going at it alone.

The stranger watching Thor is confused that he suddenly appeared, but is glad that he took the bait. It seems he can't see that Thor has a human form.

Thor arrives in front of the Juggernaut and introduces himself. Juggernaut doesn't really care and backhand slaps him, sending him flying into a store. He gets yelled at by the store owners, but he shakes it off and takes to the sky to look for Marko. Juggernaut tosses a car at Thor. The thunder god manages to smash the car with his hammer just right so it would land on top of another car instead of one of the many people running around below. Juggernaut congratulates him and asks how he'll deal with a bus full of people, which he tosses right at him.

Thor spins his hammer fast enough to create a tornado that catches the bus and sets it down safely on the ground. People are glad to see that Thor saved the bus, but some people still complain that he was the one that put him in danger to begin with. Thor feels a wave of nausea hit him, a result of his recent arrival to Earth.

Meanwhile a teen named Richard Rider sees the news about this fight and sends the alert to his other friends, Vance Astrovik, Angelica Jones, Robbie Baldwin, Nita Prentiss and Dwayne Micheal Taylor as they have a mission on their hands.

Thor, weakened by his condition, follows Juggernaut to a railroad where Cain Marko tosses a boxcar at him. The son of Odin barely manages to catch the boxcar and set it down before he'd drop it. Juggernaut runs the next train car right into Thor and the boxcar he just set down, saying he doesn't know when he's been outmatches. Marko smashes his way through the train, looking for the thunder god, and gets a fist to the face that sends him flying back.

Thor tosses his hammer at Juggernaut with all his might, but Marko tells him his personal forcefield is already slowing down its momentum. The hammer barely touches Juggernaut, and it turns around, ready to fly back to its owner. Marko already read about how Thor's hammer returns and he grabs onto it, sending himself flying back to Thor along with the hammer.

Juggernaut smashes himself right into Thor and the two are sent tearing through five train cars and into a building, demolishing it. After a few moments, we see that Thor is out cold, and Juggernaut continues to remind the Asgardian that he is unstoppable, no matter what, and is ready to smash another box car on top of him. Just then something blows up the train, surprising Marko. He turns to see a team of teenage superheroes, Marvel Boy, Nova, Namorita, Night Thrasher, Firestar and Speedball.... The New Warriors!

My opinions-

I know little of Thor outside of the Marvel movies and the general concept of the character. Though nowadays he is always Thor, I do know before there were times that had a human form in which he would transform back and forth from Thor to a human form, I guess like He-Man. The Juggernaut, if of course, unstoppable in every sense of the word, and while he is the half brother of Xavier and fights mutants regularly, Cain Marko isn't a mutant. He gains his powers from the Gem of Cyttorak that makes him what he is. I'm not really sure what's up with him in modern day comics, or with Marvel re-doing the universe and blah blah blah. I just remember him fondly as the the good ol' unstoppable Juggernaut.

I love how on top of all his power and strength, the Konami arcade game gave him a friggn bazooka!!

The comic was pretty cool, though I was starting to get a bit disappointed at first since it was mostly Juggernaut throwing stuff at Thor and seeing how the Asgardian would respond. I'm glad to see Thor finally punch him back and send him flying for once, though no harm was done. I have to say the final bit with the hammer and Juggernaut basically... riding the hammer back to Thor smashing them both through all those trains and the building was pretty awesome. That's the kind of insane destructive action I would have liked to see in one of the live action movies.

As for Thor and Eric, as far as I could tell there was some kind of adventure that ended with the two of them being fused into one person whenever Thor returned to Earth, so now he lives with Hercules in Eric's apartment. I guess this adventure and the fusing with a human had a toll on Thor and is making him weak and tired during this fight.

As for the New Warrior.... Oh geez, what the hell have they gotten themselves into??? From the gang I only recognize Nova and Firestar, the latter being in the classic cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends alongside Iceman and the webhead himself. Ironically there was an episode where Spidey, Iceman and Firestar met up with the X-Men and helped them defeat the Juggernaut too.

But back on the topic of the kids, they mostly seemed eager to jump into action.... but man.. the Juggernaut sure as hell is NOT someone you want to start your superhero career with. In fact during the scene where Richard was calling everyone, most of them seemed excited or eager, but Angelica in particular was dreading it. I think a few rounds with the friggin' Juggernaut will prove her right. I mean... geez, couldn't they have started out with someone smaller... like the Beetle or Avalanche or someone?

And to wrap this up... here's some nostalgia from those classic comic book ads from this issue.

Those classic Tiger games.... I always wanted to buy DoubleDragon and Simon's Quest.... though we already did an article on there.

The good ol' days when comics still had mail-order subscriptions.... man, those were the days.... Just kick back at home and wait for the monthly issue to be delivered right at your door, sometimes even quicker than the ones at the comic shop.... Or rather, the local drugstore. Remember when comics were usually at the drug store or anywhere that sold magazines? Now you have to find an actual comic shop.