Comes Now... The End Of The Universe!

 

War has broken out in Asgard! No, strike that: War has been declared on Asgard, by the embodiment of a billion, billion tyrants whose hatred drives him not only to destroy the Asgardians but to wipe out all of existence! We refer of course to Mangog, imprisoned by Odin following his race's invasion of Asgard but rashly freed by the troll, Ulik, and who now carves a path of destruction and death toward the realm. His ultimate goal (aside from slaying Asgardians): to draw the huge weapon known as the Odinsword, which, once freed from its sheath, will bring an end to everything, and everyone.

In Part One of this story, we watched as Mangog defied all resistance of and weaponry used by the gods and went on to decimate their ranks--including, incredibly, withstanding the full power of the God of Thunder, Thor, unleashed to no avail. Yet Thor realizes that if Mangog makes it past himself and his comrades-in-arms, the beast will have a virtually unimpeded path to the Odinsword--and so Thor searches for his foe along the banks of a new river, the result of a fierce storm he created which only swept Mangog some distance away and gained himself and his group of warriors a respite (a brief one, at best). But just as Thor feared, Mangog lives--and a fateful battle begins for the survival of the entire universe!

At this day's end, will any warriors of Asgard--will anyone, anywhere--be left to mourn the fallen?

Unfortunately, Mangog is neither fatigued nor weakened by prior engagements with either Thor or major attacks launched by Asgard's other forces--and so another attack by the Thunder God is bound to amount to little, if anything. In fact, one has only to see Mangog repel the hammer Mjolnir with equal if not greater force to understand that Mangog is indeed an immovable object who has the power to reduce a once-irresistible force to a weapon easily turned against its master.

And so we come to Asgard's darkest hour, and its warriors' final fight--with Odin, their ruler, still deep in his (what else?) Odin-sleep and helpless to act, while Mangog moves to avoid any impediments to his goal, laser-focused on reaching the Odinsword. On arrival, the sight of Mangog bursting into view in the very heart of Asgard would likely leave even the staunchest warrior shaken at the sight, given the beast's treatment of Asgardian forces prior to this point--but to a race of warriors whose belief in the coming of Ragnarok haunts their existence like a thing alive, each of them has now come to regard Mangog as the harbinger of doom for the entire realm.

Yet Balder the Brave, who has only recently been able to escape the Queen of the Norns and return along with a missing Asgardian legion, has spent his time rallying all able-bodied warriors to take arms and fight. And that they do, charging to meet the invader in a thunderous advance which would under other circumstances give pause to even the most daring of enemies. For all the good it does--as writer Stan Lee's unnerving narrative continues to drive the point home that, against this foe, the Asgardians wage a brave but ultimately futile struggle. (And at this late stage of the conflict, Lee's prose, combined with artist Jack Kirby's depiction of the battle, certainly gave this reader a convincing impression that Asgard was done for.)

At that point, Thor arrives on the scene, his flight depositing him within reach of his quarry--that is to say, putting Thor unfortunately within reach of Mangog, who makes short work of him. (After all, why would Thor fare any better against Mangog this time?) Balder, however, points out that Thor's might will be most needed in the chamber where the Odinsword resides--and as all hell continues to break loose, Thor's horse makes tracks for the royal palace.

And so at last the stage is set for the final moments of this drama, a last stand which will decide the fate of the universe. (It's fair to wonder if other civilizations among the stars are aware that a sword in its scabbard is all that stands between life and death for all of them. If so, more than a few of them are going to want a word with Odin after his little nap, assuming they survive the day.)

As you might have guessed, Asgard's pro tem ruler, Loki, has no intention of going down with the ship, still not realizing (or admitting) that if the ship does go down then he's history as well no matter what hole he dives into. As for the lady Sif and the injured Thor (along with the Rigellian Recorder, whose purpose here is self-explanatory), they don't have long to wait before death is upon them--and even in these final moments, it's clear that the situation is hopeless in the face of Mangog's unstoppable might.

What you're about to witness, however, appears to be two different endings to this struggle to choose from--the ending that Kirby has depicted, vs. the ending that Lee has scripted in order to adapt to the pages that Kirby has turned in. In each of these endings, the shock waves from the Odinsword's release begin to hit, spreading further destruction throughout Asgard as well as expanding out into space in ever-growing cataclysmic force, the Recorder fulfilling his duty to the end; but Lee crafts an entirely different explanation to avoid the impression of having Odin simply showing up in the nick of time to prevent universal holocaust.

(No, I don't know how Zeus got mixed up in this.)

As we now discover, there are some things in this rather hurried ending which could use some clarification. As is evident, Mangog was obviously mistaken in the matter of his creation when he stated that it was his race, on the verge of defeat and death following their invasion of Asgard, which found a way to channel their strength of the billions whom Odin had doomed and store that power within one being, naming it Mangog--when all along it was Odin's spell that was responsible for his creation. As for the circumstances of Odin's awakening, Thor didn't seem to be in any shape to summon a storm, much less control it to the degree of being able to safely rouse a person from their state of sleep.

Then there's the matter of Mangog's race, now having done their "penance" within the living prison of Mangog and allowed to reassume their rightful forms and settle on another world. It's fair to wonder if their penance was scheduled to reach its end at this point in time, regardless of this crisis; at any rate, is the world they've been deposited on seriously large enough to hold one-quintillion people? The only suitable world would have been something like Gigantus, reputed to be of a size that allowed it to "dwarf whole galaxies." (I wouldn't want to be caught in that planet's gravitational pull.) Also, what reason does Odin have for believing these people are going to live in peace? Have these evil tyrants suddenly put aside their hatred? Wouldn't they be incensed at their treatment by Odin and resolve to make plans to annihilate Asgard for daring to take such action against them?

Our Asgardians, however, are in a celebratory mood, having cheated death and vanquished the foe (courtesy of their awakened ruler, that is)--surely an ending the Recorder would prefer to record for posterity, as opposed to the alternative.