The nine-day feast continuing from last issue shows Thor
accepting a challenge from Tyr that he cannot lift a massive table with dozens of
Asgardians seated atop it. Thor can and does and claims his bag of gold from
the cheerful war-god. At Odin’s side Frigga asks why Loki is so miserable and
he snarls because he has been shackled to his wife Sigyn whose concern sickens
him. Frigga asks why Balder is also glum and it’s because he has been dead and
everything feels strange. He angrily refuses an offer to go adventuring with
the Warriors Three; Thor speaks to him later and Balder reveals that having
seen the dead suffering in Valhalla he can no longer be a warrior, even his
hair has turned white. Thor offers some comfort and leaves, encountering Sif on
the way. Now that Asgard is at peace, they talk of marriage but Thor is
concerned that even though she shares a spirit with Jane Foster, she will
object to Thor’s plans to return to Midgard….
The next day he tells her of his plans and she is surprised;
the Warriors Three are shocked when he declines to join them against the
Storm-Giants. Thor tries to explain the satisfaction he gets from healing
people as Donald Blake but they don’t quite get it. He promises to return for Sif
once he has reestablished his life as Don Blake on Earth. For his recent
heroism, Odin grants him leave to come and go as he sees fit so the Thunder God
takes himself off to New York City….
Transforming himself back into Dr Donald Blake, he stops by
a bank to withdraw some funds, finding that Tony Stark makes for an excellent
reference. Suddenly a huge pink cone smashes its way through the wall and
everyone is suddenly trapped by a fence of parallel lines. It’s Aaron Verne,
now calling himself Locus the Geometric Man, recently fired for daydreaming on
the job, and he has now acquired the ability to make geometric shapes become real
by concentration and he’s going to rob the bank. He snatches up some cash into
a pink rectangle for a briefcase and departs; Don transforms into Thor and
pursues him outside where the police are waiting. Locus clobbers Thor with a
giant pink cylinder and tries to escape as another cylinder carries him up to
the rooftops and a parabola becomes a bulletproof shield. Thor hurls his hammer
and topples the villain from his perch. Locus responds with a sky full of
deadly spheres but learns that a) when Thor hits the spheres, he (Locus) can
feel pain and b) Thor is no mere costumed hero with a gimmick and his hammer is
a pretty potent weapon. He encloses Thor and Mjolnir in separate polyhedrons
but the hero’s concentration in summoning his hammer makes it pass through the
walls of the shapes and reach his hand. The strain of concentrating on his shapes
puts a lot of pressure on Locus so he drops everything to take a woman hostage
in a sphere, demanding Thor hand over his hammer or he will kill her. Thor, warning
the baddie that he’s messing with forces he can’t understand, puts Mjolnir down
on the ground and Locus uses a cylinder to raise the hammer up to him but when
he grasps the hammer its weight pulls him down to the ground—violently. Thor catches
the hostage and departs, returning moments later as Don Blake to tend to the
man’s injuries….