Ink Pen by Phil Dunlap for January 13, 2011

Lousy Vikings…

Ghandi wouldn’t end up in either place - not his pantheon

If you die gloriously in combat, you awaken to beautiful maidens, who feast you grandly, then send you off to die gloriously in combat. How did you think they stayed virgins? Is Allah actually Wotan, rather than Yhwh?

Surely, Gandhi was shot?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi

So, he could, like… uh… is there a Scandinavian version of “Limbo?”

Maybe Hamhock meant “Gautama?” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha

He’d do that Hindu that he do so well.

So RIP is a curse?

I believe the death and decay thing means they are reincarnated back to earth so the mahatma would have definitely found that appealing.

When Walt Simonson was writing (and drawing) the Thor comic, he worked a lot of real Norse mythology into the stories (at least, more than most writers attempt). I don’t know if this particular story has a traditional foundation, but I liked it:

By the late 20th Century, the resident population of Valhalla was pretty much set. All the dead vikings were drinking and fighting and killing each other every night (to return afresh the next day) and having a glorious time, but there hadn’t been any new faces in hundreds and hundreds of years. However, there was ONE space at the tables that remained empty.

I don’t recall if Thor actually went out looking for the guy to fill the last seat, but somehow or another he would up at the site of a “lost” viking colony somewhere, which had maintained the “old beliefs”. By the time Thor got there, though, the was only one survivor, and as soon as he saw Thor he attacked him. Thor managed to beat him handily, but he couldn’t figure out why the guy went for him. It turned out that the guy was like 100 years old, and he was desperately afraid of dying peacefully and this was his last chance of being killed in combat and heading to Valhalla (maybe his only chance EVER; depite being vikings, this colony had been pretty peaceful, if only because they never had contact with any potential enemies).

This Last Viking Warrior wasn’t actually killed in the fight, and even though he was on his last legs it was still going to be old age and not battle wounds that finished him off. But Thor was so impressed by his valor and piety that he bent the rules and got him admitted to Valhalla (he MIGHT have actually delivered a killing blow, but I don’t think so).

Unfortunately, it turned out that filling the last seat in the Halls was one of the prophesied conditions for the coming of Ragnarok, so pretty soon we had Fenris showing up to eat the moon and all that…

Sesquipedalianisms are contraindicated for quotidian communication.

Besides, a little creative misspelling of “Ragnarok” and you get “kangaroo.” How fun is that?

I just remembered a detail: Thor was summoned by the Last Viking by a prayer/invocation that he (Thor) hadn’t heard in 800 years or so. That was part of the reasons he (Thor) was so surprised to be immediately attacked.

It’s worth noting the further belief that Ragnarok would result in the deaths of all but two of the gods and a few humans. The survivors would then create a far better world of plenty and joy.

Kirby kind of outted the New Age ideal of mythology for the Super heroes that Lee keeps claiming as his own. He really hit the ball with THE NEW GODS. He would never have retrieved all the old mythology since he wanted to create new myths to fit our age. Along with the two page splash panel And entire pages with little or no dialogue that was Jack’s main contribution one long ignored by those idolizing Stan.

Some more comic history for Fritz to chew on as well.

I’m disappointed that the “Thor” movie doesn’t seem to feature a lot of really big hats.

Had a lot of his comics a half century or so ago, too, Eldo.

Likely be horned though, Jo.

King Kirby also actually used COLLAGE in some of his full and double page spreads!