Yes, but does he have to take the Thor-sleep now?

When we looked at Thor #432, we mentioned DeFalco seemed to make up a rule that "immortals of Asgard (are) forbidden to harm an 'innocent' mortal, or to kill a fellow Asgardian." I kind of feel like something like that is going on here, as Balder gets ready to drain the Thor-power! From 1988, Thor #396, "Into the Realm of Death!" Written by Tom DeFalco, pencils by Ron Frenz, inks by Don Heck.

Thor is donating blood to his old friend Hogun the Grim, who had been injured several issues back: Hogun was beat by Daredevil and shot by a SWAT team in #393. He wasn't fully recovered, though: Seth had marked him for death, the scar still showing on his face. Thor is dismayed to hear Asgard was besieged by Seth, but ever since the Rainbow Bridge had been destroyed, getting to Asgard was much more difficult. Thor has a plan, and some new allies: Earth Force, who had been given powers by Seth but wanted to make amends; and his teammate in the Avengers, the Black Knight! The Knight is more than willing to help Thor, even though he was going through his own thing right now: the Avengers were currently disbanded, and the curse of the Ebony Blade had been immobilizing him, forcing him to use an exo-skeleton.

In Asgard, with the situation looking desperate, Balder was considering a desperate measure: "the Celestial Siphon," to drain Thor's power for their use. Sif is furious, but Balder frames it as a tough call and one he wouldn't be disputed on: it's also pointed out that the Siphon was built by Odin, which 100% seems like the kind of crap he would pull. At the Vault, Thor and company visit one of Seth's men, Grog the God-Crusher. Thor goads him into opening a portal to Seth's dimension, and everyone follows him through. (The Black Knight goes through partially because he doesn't think he has any reason to stay, but also because he did not want to be the one to have to explain this to the authorities!) Facing one of Seth's "Death Legions" Thor begins tearing into them: "'Tis only a minor outpost!" Wind Warrior, the girl member of Earth Force, gets to have a crisis of confidence that she'll hopefully get to overcome later; but everyone else fights behind Thor.

As Seth's main forces invade Asgard, Balder activates the Syphon, draining Thor's power mid-battle: Thor realizes what has happened, but is charitable enough to consider how much that must have cost Balder. Grog is now able to curbstomp Thor, as everyone else gets bogged down by numbers: even Mjolnir seemed to have lost its mojo, as Grog is able to pick it up! This was of course building up to the 400th issue, so this probably wasn't their darkest hour yet--after all, the next issue banner proclaims "and Loki enters the fray," so things were probably going to get worse.