Standard Kirby/Lee superheroics with a boastful, bigmouthed foe rampaging towards a destination to try and cause the end of the universe. Loki is cowardly and evil, Thor and the other Asgardians are typically warrior-like (except Odin, who's conveniently out of action until the appropriate point in the denouement) and there's the requisite amount of cod-Shakesperean theeing and thouing. It's a well-chosen example of Lee and Kirby's Thor in that sense, enlivened by moments such as the plot stopping for Thor to lecture some hippies and a rather beautifully worked moment where one of the invincible foe's boasts is actually a clue as to his true nature (it alleviates the slight cop out of the resolution).

It's padded out with a reprint of Thor's origin story, but there's a decent excuse for this as the issue following the reprint recasts Thor's origin from an entirely different perspective. It amends him from a human who turns into God into a more Superman figure, that he was always a god masquerading as mortal. Fun but inessential. ( )