Thor kicks off the new year by fighting with Galactus. This is a “big” story. A giant villain. Lots of big, whole-page (and even double-page) panels. And it all starts with that beautiful splash page.
Most of the time, we see Thor with that big movement-circle spinning near him, but look how great a job Jack Kirby does on drawing the “wind up” before the big spin. Such a master of the craft.
And then there’s this drawing of Galactus’ face. We don’t get a lot of Kirby headshot-and this one is just beautiful.
We also get yet another take on Galactus’ costume. In this story, he doesn’t wear a kilt with shorts, he’s got two-toned long pants and a short-sleeved shirt. I suppose it doesn’t matter, really. We all change our clothes every day, after all. Most days, anyway. Which reminds me of how Stan Lee sometimes thought to have Spider-Man wash his costume. Who else thinks of things like that?!
Storywise, we see the return of the Rigellians, asking Thor to save them from Galactus’ appetite. We get to see The Recorder again, which is always fun. It’s another Thor space-epic. Jason Aaron, on his Thor run, took the character back to space-he hadn’t really had this kind of a big story for a long time before that. It suits the larger-than-life character well.
Also, it gives Kirby the chance to play with photo backgrounds again…..
Oh, and Galactus tries to eat Ego, the Living Planet. That’s a neat little sequence. Ego’s power boosts Thor’s own, which enables Thor to beat up Galactus. Yes, in this comic, he takes on the big G mano-a-mano and wins. That never happens again. But we get to see Ego manifest a “human” form for the first time, on the surface of the planet, just like he did in the recent Guardians of the Galaxy 2 movie…
And, finally, there’s Fallstaff for comic relief…
Because fat jokes are always funny.