JOURNEY INTO MYSTERIOUS ACTION #5: THOR-EL YEAR ONE "Return to Kryptgard"

From: Mikel Midnight (with apologies to Jerry Siegel)

Thor-El looked upwards at the red sun of Kryptgard. Behind him, the Space Phantom Stranger had long departed, leaving him to his thoughts. Around him lay the vast city of Asgard. He reached down to pick up a small stone, feeling the strain as he crushed it to powder. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Odin-El had told him that his powers were due to Earth's yellow sun; he could feel that his body still possessed more might than a normal human's, but his strength was dulled and his senses were nearly Earth-normal. He had tried earlier to fly, and found that too was denied him. Fortunately, he seemed able to understand the language of the planet's inhabitants.

He spent hours wandering aimlessly. After some experimentation, he found that he could leap as high as the other Kryptgardians, a power he was glad remained to him. As he continued his explorations, he nearly collided with a short and fat person with a long white beard dressed in a green robe and gold metal helmet. Thor-El gasped, recognising his creator, "Odin-El!"

The scientist stared at him. "Dost thou know me, clumsy one?"

Thor-El stumbled over his words. "My, ah, name is Thor-El. I am affiliated with the Kryptgard Security Force. It appears we have recovered some stolen property of yours."

Thor-El held out the duplicate hammer. Odin-El's eyes lit up, "Where didst thou find my device?"

Thor-El improvised, "It had been stolen by a young rapscallion, Rak-Dur. It was no great trouble to track it down, once we discovered the theft. I was on my way to thy domicile to return it, in fact."

Odin-El took the hammer from him happily. "I am in thy debt. Please, join me in my home, Hlithskjalf. I know my wife Freyja would be happy to meet you. She was most upset over the loss of this, ah, heirloom. A duplicate of an ancient weapon from Asgard's early days of war and strife."

Thor-El nodded emphatically, "I would be delighted! Please, lead on."

Odin-El leapt up onto his porch, Thor-El following behind him. As they arrived, two small black spheres hovered into view. [[Greetings, Master. Company is in the hall. Would your guest care for a beverage?]] Odin-El turned to Thor-El, "My house robots, Hugin and Munin." He said to the pair, "Yes, a flagon of mead for us both. Freyja is entertaining in the sitting-room? I shall see her there."

[[Yes Master]] the spheres said mechanically, and hovered off. Thor-El followed Odin-El through the domicile, his eyes widening at the incredible technology on display there. All that was forgotten however, as he entered the sitting room.

Odin-El smiled, standing beside an attractive and slender older woman with greying hair and a conservative gown, "My wife, Freyja." Freyja smiled at him, "Thou art most welcome in Hlithskjalf, sir." "And of course," Odin-El continued, "you must know Sif Lerrol, the most famous emotion-movie actress of our time."

Standing before him was the most hauntingly beautiful woman Thor-El had ever imagined. She was tall and voluptuous, clad in a white tunic and tights with violet trim which matched her boots. Her hair flowed down her back in long golden waves.

Thor-El swallowed hard, fighting for words. "Um ... no ... I haven't had the pleasure."

Sif Lerrol smiled at him and his heart skipped a beat. "I am quite delighted, sir. What is thy name?"

"Thor-El, ma'am. I am sorry I haven't seen any of thy movies."

"Well!" Sif Lerrol said in mock-offense, then chuckled softly, "That's actually quite refreshing, and makes a change from the usual flattery one gets."

Odin-El said, watching the two of them, "Freyja, Sif, this young man helped me recover a valuable piece of property which had been stolen. He's with the Security Forces. His name is Thor-El ... I believe he may be a distant cousin"

Sif Lerrol ohhed, intrigued by the shy, handsome stranger, but Thor-El quickly demurred, "I am certainly not an agent ... I just help them out occasionally."

Odin-El stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps I can repay you with something more material then ... I am actually in need of an assistant for my lab. But perhaps we can discuss this later." Hugin and Munin appeared, each holding a pair of flagons apparently suspended in anti-gravity force-fields. "Freyja, come, there is something in the laboratory I wish to show you."

Freyja winked at her husband, taking a flagon and handing one to him as they departed, leaving Thor-El and Sif Lerrol alone. The remaining house robot served them each, then hovered off somewhere.

The two of them talked, long into the night. Thor-El hardly noticed the hours as they sped by. It amazed him that he would have to travel through hundreds of years and untold billions of worlds to somehow find such a woman. As their lips touched goodbye, their hearts thrilled with a passion compared to which the fiery forces within Kryptgard's unstable uranium core might as well have been frigid glaciers.

As she departed, Thor-El made his decision. The timeline had been healed by his returning the duplicate hammer to Odin-El. His job was done. "Bettey Lane loved me because I was Thor-El, the great superhero," he thought. "But Sif loves me as an equal. On Kryptgard I'm perfectly ordinary." If she would have him ... he would reconcile himself to staying here, spending his remaining days on the doomed planet with the woman he loves, as they awaited the oncoming destruction together.


He spent the next several weeks with Odin-El, studying the fantastic science of Kryptgard and learning its history through its great historical epic the Kryptgardedda, much of which detailed the influential ancestors of his creator; Ymir-El, Bor-El, Vili-El and Ve-El among others. Odin-El gave him a mimir-pillow to help him with the tests at the missile base where they worked.

He watched as Odin-El made the final adjustments to the hammer which would one day be his, two centuries in the future. Fortunately, the very environment of Kryptgard seemed to function almost like the hammer itself, so he was able to retain his Thor-El form without constant physical contact with his own version of the hammer.

Odin-El and Freyja were glad to hear that their guest believed in Odin-El's theories, as well. Together they formed a plan: as Odin-El continued to petition the Science Council, they would coordinate with sympathetic souls to construct a massive 'space-ark' which could convey a million inhabitants of the planet into space. For all its advanced technology and sophisticated astronomy, space travel on Kryptgard was still in its infancy, but Thor-El knew enough of the basics of Earth science so that, combined with Kryptgardian atomics, such a project seemed feasible. He looked forward to a sweet future with Sif Lerrol. The great city of Kandorheim was chosen. The future looked bright.

He stood in the control room booth, his arm around Sif Lerrol, stroking her long gold hair. "My lady," he whispered to her. She smiled at him. "Yes, my love?"

Thor-El swallowed hard, feeling more nervous than any time since he met her. "I've been working with Odin-El for quite some time now. I am currently constructing a home of my own, Bilskinir. Once it's completed, would ... wouldst thou walk with me to the Palace of Marriage? I know the money I make is nothing compared to thee as an emotion-movie actress, but ... "

She put her finger on his lips, "Hush," she said, then wrapped her arms around him tightly, kissing him. "Yes, of course I will!" The science staff in the room cheered.

Thor-El grinned, "And look ... Odin-El is arriving right now, see? There's his eight-engine airship, Sleipner. Let's go tell him the good news." The happiness we will share as husband and wife, Thor-El told himself, will more than compensate for whatever happens later.

Arm-in-arm, they walked to meet the elder scientist, but their joy was dimmed when they saw his expression. "Sir, why art thou so sombre on this grand day?" Sif Lerrol asked.

Odin-El looked at the pair. "I have been monitoring the space surrounding Kryptgard, making maps to determine the best trajectory for our space ark. We are being approached by a vast craft and ... it does not bode well."

Thor-El tensed. His time here had been free from battle. And now, the happiest day of his life must be marred by an alien invasion? "Dost thou recognise it?"

Odin-El hesitated. "Yes. It is the city-eater. It is Galactiac."

They looked up, to see the craft descending from the skies, blotting out all sunlight. Thor-El shouted, "No! I won't allow this!" Sif Lerrol reached for him, but he bolted out the door.

Thor-El leapt into the twin-engine chariot he had been using, and activated a device he had hoped would never be needed; he switched a button which transformed it into a 'super car,' the megingjardir energy belt surrounding the chariot charged it with yellow sun radiation, restoring his full power so long as he was within it.

Odin-El and Sif Lerrol dove into the control room to watch, helpless, as Thor-El attacked Galactiac's equipment as it continued to break down the city of Kandorheim and its inhabitants, recording every detail down to the molecular level even as it converted them to energy with which feed Galactiac. The immense robotic figure finally took notice of him, and with a blast of energy sent him flying off into space.

Thor-El cursed, his craft not designed for off-planet flight. If he could somehow work the controls to coordinate a re-entry ... his thoughts were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder.

The Space Phantom Stranger said, "Congratulations, Thor-El. You have done well."

Thor-El cursed him, "I haven't done anything! I must get back there! I must save my wife!"

The Stranger shook his head sadly, "No. Your role is not yet complete in your own time. If it comforts you, Sif Lerrol is far enough away from the destruction of the city that she will survive it. At this point in time, Galactiac's hunger is not so great, and he devours mere cities rather than planets. But her time is in the past ... and your time is in the future."

Thor-El screamed in despair as the pair of them hurtled forward through the time-stream.


Later, after Odin-El and Freyja comforted the sobbing Sif Lorrel, the great scientist took his wife away privately.

"He was the greatest of us," Odin-El said. "I have made my decision. I will use his genetic template to build into the hammer Mjolnir, which I shall send to Midgard. Whoever finds it, if he worthy of holding the device, shall be endowed with great power ... and the very visage of Thor-El. Though Kryptgard may die, Thor-El shall live on."

To be concluded