Thor leaps through the dimensional barrier to Asgard just seconds behind Loki, thus losing the Trial of the Gods (last issue). He catches up to his trickster brother and threatens to expose his cheating but Loki sends the magic Norn Stones to a place of concealment somewhere on Earth. Brought before Odin, Thor accuses Loki of treachery but in the absence of evidence, he requests twenty-four hours to return to Earth to recover the Stones. Odin grants his request and the Thunder God returns to his adopted world….
…where in New York, Balder is locked in combat with the Executioner and the Enchantress to rescue Jane Foster from their clutches. When Thor arrives, the two villains decide that this is too much trouble and flee, abandoning their captive. Balder wipes these dark memories from her (and the other witnesses) and Thor thanks him for his devotion. Thor then uses his Uru hammer to trace the Norn Stones to a battlefield in Vietnam, where he is blasted by a gigantic mortal shell and knocked unconscious…. He awakens in a hut, cared for by a peasant family, despite the terror caused by the guerillas. Thor vows to help them overthrow the tyrants once he has completed his quest, and he changes to his Don Blake form to better navigate the dense jungle….
Meanwhile in Asgard, Loki gloats and dreams of ruling the gods as an evil dictator. He then leads a band of guerillas to capture Don and tie his arms using his cane. Don is then taken to their underground lair and interrogated by the commander and forced to talk by the presence of the villagers, now taken hostage. Then the revelation comes that the family who rescued Don are the mother and siblings of the commander, Hu Sak! Don seizes the opportunity to escape and, once in the tunnels, he falls so that his cane strikes the ground, transforming him into Thor. He quickly discovers the bag of Norn Stones in the enemy ammunition stores and takes it. Meanwhile, Hu Sak, chafing under his brother's denunciations of him as a traitor to their people and a disgrace to the family, shoots down his brother and his mother who tries to save him. As his sister runs screaming into the tunnels, Thor flies into action, knocking all the guards out of the way to protect the girl. He tells the commander that he will return in wrath after he has taken the girl to safety. To redeem himself and strike back at the Communism that warped his values, the commander detonates all the ammunition, blowing up the entire guerilla camp along with him.