The Marvel Super Heroes · Season 1 · Episode 14
Enchantress and Executioner / Giants Walk the Earth / Battle of the Gods
Synopsis
Odin cannot break his son's heart free of the mortal Jane Foster and Loki has the perfect solution: Send Thor a woman more dazzling than any earthling and the Thunder God will forget his nurse. So, the All-Father dispatches the Enchantress. Amora sweeps into New York, orders a goddess's wardrobe, and glides into Dr. Don Blake's office to bend him to her spell. Jane, of course, walks in at just the wrong time to see Amora's ploy. She sees what looks like an embrace and flees, wounded. But the Enchantress cannot move Thor's heart. Spurned, she turns to the Executioner. His enchanted axe whirls into a blinding vortex and casts Jane Foster into limbo, a nowhere world of mist. Skurge names his price. The nurse's freedom for Thor's Uru hammer. Thor lays down the hammer to save her, and the Executioner learns the old law the hard way: None but Thor can lift it. The Enchantress, betrayed, turns her sorcery on both men. Thor answers with a whirling hammer of his own and hurls the pair back to Asgard, their errand a ruin.
Loki, for his part, is not finished. He goads Odin into walking the Earth to assert his ancient authority, then settles onto the empty throne to rule in his stead. The instant the All-Father is gone, Loki frees Skagg the Storm Giant and Surtur the Fire Demon, sworn to keep Odin from ever coming home. Heimdall's sharp ears catch the incantation from his post on the rainbow bridge. The sentry cannot leave Bifrost, so he sends Balder the Brave streaking to Earth with the warning. Odin freezes time and sweeps every human into another dimension, sparing them the war to come. Then Odin, Thor, and Balder meet the giants head on. Balder charges Skagg atop Odin's winged steed while Thor takes Surtur. The Fire Demon breaks for the Arctic to melt the ice cap and drown the world. Odin throws a shield over Manhattan and drains Skagg with his enchanted sword, even as Loki feeds the giant strength from afar. Thor seizes that same sword and flings Surtur onto a magnetic asteroid a galaxy away. Loki is dragged down to serve the trolls. Odin calls his son home to Asgard, and Thor refuses. Earth holds the woman he loves.
Reality Designation
This story takes place outside the main Marvel continuity: 600026
Reality numbers are Marvel's official designations.
Where a universe has no official number we follow the Marvel Database and use its Temporary Reality Number (TRN-1092). Where there is neither — official or temporary — at the time we watch it, we assign a Snark Industries number of our own (SI-001).
Characters in the Episode
The Thunder God and his mortal guise; gives up his hammer to free Jane, banishes the Enchantress and Executioner, and helps Odin down the giants.
Convinces Odin to use The Enchantress and ends up as the ruler of Asgard in Odin's absence. Frees Skagg and Surtur.
The All-Father; walks the Earth in disguise, freezes time over humanity, and turns the battle.
Asgardian sorceress sent to lure Thor from Jane Foster; fails and is banished.
Half-giant warrior; his axe casts Jane into limbo and he extorts Thor's hammer.
Don Blake's nurse and Thor's love; trapped in limbo, then restored.
Carries Heimdall's warning to Earth and battles Skagg.
Asgard's all-hearing sentry; overhears Loki and sends Balder.
Freed by Loki to bar Odin's return; battles Thor, Balder, and Odin.
Freed by Loki; races to melt the polar ice cap before Thor traps him on an asteroid.
Carries Balder to Earth to deliver the message of Loki's misdeeds
Gallery
In-Universe Date
No date on screen or in dialogue. Contemporary setting, placed after S1E9 (Feb 1966) in Thor's run. March is a sort device, not a real in-universe date.
Comic Roots
Where the episode's people and places come from on the page.
Chapter one draws on Journey into Mystery #103 (April 1964), "The Enchantress and the Executioner," scripted by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Chic Stone. Both villains debut there. Amora is the Asgardian sorceress who tries and fails to seduce Thor away from Jane Foster, and Skurge is the half-giant warrior she recruits when charm fails. The seduction plot and the limbo-vortex axe both come straight off those pages.
Chapters two and three adapt Journey into Mystery #104 (May 1964), "Giants Walk the Earth!" (Lee, Kirby, Stone). Skagg the Storm Giant makes his first appearance here, so the block premieres him. Surtur does not; the Fire Demon had already made a cameo in Journey into Mystery #97 and in full appearance in Journey into Mystery #99, which makes his "release" a return rather than a debut. The issue is also a hinge in Thor's early run, the first time Kirby's mythological Asgardians from the "Tales of Asgard" back-ups, Surtur, Balder, and Heimdall, spilled into Thor's modern-Earth adventures
Recommended Reading
Where to go next if the episode left you wanting more.
The foundation for the block's supporting cast; the first Asgard, the first Balder and Heimdall, and the Silver Age Loki.
The story this little set lifts from. Introductions to characters like Amora, Skurge, and Skagg
The Snark File
Easter eggs, callbacks and technical tidbits.
Farmed out to Paramount
Per Wikipedia, distributor Steve Krantz subcontracted the Mighty Thor segments to Paramount Cartoon Studios, headed by Shamus Culhane, a separate shop from the Grantray-Lawrence house that handled the rest of the rotation.
Sleipnir
Balder rides Odin's flying horse into the giant battle, but it is a single pegasus-type mount, not the eight-legged Sleipnir of Norse myth. Marvel Database simply files it as "Odin's Winged Horse."
