Thor is brought back to Asgard after his fall from the stratosphere (last issue) and he summons the metalworker Falki. Thor must enter into Odinsleep to recover his strength and the smith had created for the All-Father a coffin-like chamber which places a god in a state that is between life and death to hasten recovery. Thor leaves Balder in charge while he is in stasis and the chamber is closed—and suddenly Don Blake is in the room. With Thor neither alive nor dead, Don is no longer in the void and he makes his apologies and tries to leave the city. Soon he is on a plane bound for New York, to track down Jane Foster….
In the state between life and death, Thor finds himself in a desolate wasteland. He is confronted by his father’s ravens Hugin and Munin, who scold him for not restoring Odin to life. When the Thunder God objects that he can raise only those who fell during Ragnarok, the ravens point out that he did not even try, and impugn his motives. Thor is directed to follow the sounds of battle and he comes upon Odin locked in combat with Surtur the Fire Demon. The son races to the father’s aid and together they slay Surtur, with Odin dying from the wounds as he does each night in this land, rising healed to continue battle each morning. Odin recognizes that Thor has not raised him back to life and did not expect him to. He then tells the tale of his own father Bor: Odin’s father taught him everything but disapproved of his son’s having independent plans for Midgard. Odin created life on Earth; Bor threatened it with monsters. One day, in war with the Frost Giants, Bor was ambushed by a sorcerer who turned him to living snow. When Odin came upon his father pleading for help as the winds slowly took him away, he chose to do nothing and returned to the Aesir to report his father dead. Odin took the throne that day, and with time, his father’s voice faded away—until his own son Thor was born and he realized that one day the wheel would turn again….