Random Happenstance

So I've done more than a couple posts covering the by-and-large forgotten three-year stretch of Thor from the end of the sprawling Celestial Saga around #300 to #337, when Walt Simonson brought the title back to life. Despite some issues I personally quite enjoyed, it was a by-the-numbers, meat-and-potatoes pile of comics there. The cover for today's book got my hopes up, but mostly because I was thinking of somebody else: from 1982, Thor #326, "The Scarab Strikes!" Written by Doug Moench, pencils by Alan Kupperberg, inks by Jon D'agostino.

Cutting to the chase, I thought this might be a fun issue, since I was confusing Kang's alter-egos Rama-Tut and the Scarlet Centurion--the latter of whom didn't even rate a picture on his own Wikipedia page--but instead we've got the Blue Beetle Scarlet Scarab. Actually, this would be a legacy version, the son of the original that appeared in Invaders. Whereas the original was trying to oust foreigners from Egypt, starting with Namor and the Human Torch, the new one is after thieves of Egyptian artifacts. Which admittedly, might be a full-time job, but here SS is after a gang that swiped the Eye of Horus: they tried to sell it in Chicago, so he was smashing up the museum after it, even though the curator told the thieves to take a hike and reported them to the authorities.

Working with said curator, Thor does hide inside a sarcophagus, so he can jump out and surprise the Scarab...somewhat unnecessarily, but hey, it's something to do. After a bit of scuffle, they also take a time-out to take it outside, so the museum doesn't get smashed up. And immediately grind some poor chump's car into metal shavings.

I know Thor was pretty A-list, in terms of respected heroes of the time: a couple points in the story note that he would be trusted by the law. I'm sure he would make some form of restitution for any property damage there, either by dropping a fat sack of Asgardian gold, or letting someone like Tony Stark cover the bill. Either way, this wasn't a stellar story, but it's also cut short by a Tales of Asgard feature setting up the next issue. Did I pick that one up as well...I don't have great expectations for it at this point, but we'll see.