Reading the early Marvel comics can often be a painful experience – whilst they fizz with an almost amphetamine energy they’ve aged horribly badly, an inevitability in an era of swift developments in terms of the comic medium and changing social attitudes. They’re often staid in their structure and a different world in terms of their treatment of women and different ethnicities. None of which is particularly surprising when you consider the volume of work they were churning out each month.

Above all though what their stories tend to lack is scale, geographically and in terms of the story they tell. In this world there’s no time to reflect on what’s happened, to give it proper weight. Instead the heroes are eternally rushing off to foil the next villain’s plan. You start wondering how the hell they don’t collapse of exhaustion at times. But the lack of depth can be almost painful at times, particularly with the status quo at the end of each story essentially unchanged. It wouldn’t be until Chris Claremont’s run on the X-Men that long term character development and self-mythologizing would become popular.

Tales of Asgard is a slight exception to that general rule. Early Thor tales, for all they deal with gods and aliens, are standard Marvel fare and lack grandeur. The strips collected here were originally backups to the main Thor stories but, in presenting some backstory, they provide some weight to the main strip. They start as epic tales in a didactic Boy’s Own style, great deeds of Odin and mini biographies of Thor. Over fifty or so issues it develops beyond that format, embracing ongoing storylines. Often these are clearly improvised, stories finishing on what seems like an author’s whim to be replaced by an idea they’re more interested in. It gets genuinely fun when Lee and Kirby start bringing in thinly disguised characters from other mythologies – the series is often at its best when mixing Norse mythology with 1001 Nights and Christian demons. The other real spark is the introduction of Volstagg as comic relief, something that undermines the po-facedness of other contemporary Marvel books. There’s a sublime Kirby cliffhanger which allies Volstagg comedy to approaching menace, the definite high point of these books.

These aren’t essential reading in their own right, but they’re the first fumblings of the company toward something greater, towards a sense of scale beyond the next month. And it’s always good to be reminded of how good Jack Kirby was, his clean lined art matched by some finely economic storytelling. Even with the repetitive nature of battles and talk of honour and nobility these stories don’t wear down the reader as much as the contemporary superhero strips tend to. Not essential, but fine curios in their own right. ( )

An amusing work, so hammy and cheesy it is delicious ( )