Thor during the Cold war

Moreover, Thor is also a superhero who symbolically acted during the Cold war. Created in 1962 by the famous editor Stan Lee, as well as the draughtsman Jack Kirby and the screenwriter Larry Lieber, he is inspired by the Norse mythology, and was the god of Thunder. He appeared for the first time in August 1962 in the number 83 of the comic-book Journey into Mystery. His alter-ego was Donald Blake, who was reputed to be an excellent doctor. The history of Thor began when the Chinese army, which was communist, whose leader was Mao Zedong, wanted to increase its empire and to propagate its ideas; this one, followed by its nation, thus invaded India on October 20th, 1962. This major event was called the sino-Indian war. However, that went against the capitalist values of Thor and this last finally decided to fight against China. Chen Lu, nuclear physicist, Chinese doctor and Communist, was then charged by China to eradicate Thor. It is at this exact moment that another supervillain appeared, the « Radioactive-man » (that is to say Chen Lu), in the number 93 of the comic-book Journey into Mystery.

Then, Thor was a superhero who had a superhuman strength. Indeed, he had a speed, an endurance and a resistance higher than the inhabitants of Earth and was also immunized against all of the diseases of the mortals. He also hold a weapon, the Mjöllnir hammer. It was the most powerful weapon of gods because it was indestructible, it resisted the bullets, and was able to destroy the mountains. Thor could also use it to track an enemy or to create vortices… This last was equipped with metal gloves, without which he could not use his hammer, and of a belt which would increase his strength (this one is called “the magic armour”). In certain versions, one even told that Thor would have a magic tank pulled by two goats, but that remained to be confirmed… So, we could say that Thor was a powerful superhero, in particular thanks to his superhuman strength and his Mjöllnir hammer which was his principal weapon.

Lastly, Thor was mainly used as a propaganda tool against Communism but also he was used to denounce political conflicts, just like his compatriot Iron Man. Indeed, he fought against the communist nations cuban (the cuban leader was Fidel Castro) and Chinese (the Chinese leader was Mao Zedong). His arch-enemy was the « Radioactive-man », a supervillain who represented the Chinese Communist regime. His dream was to dominate the world. He changed himself into a supervillain by injecting amounts of radioactive products, and finally became the one he himself baptized “the Radioactive-Man”. When Thor decided to fight against the Chinese Communist regime, this same nation responded by sending “the Radioactive-Man” to the United States to vanquish Thor, but he didn't make a success of his mission and was sent back to China by Thor. We can connect “the Radioactive-Man” with Hulk, because he was giant and his color of skin was green too. He also had a superhuman strength and many powers such as the emission of radiations; having for effects on his enemies nauseas, giddinesses, hallucinations and so on , but also the creation of force fields so powerful that they were able to cash the blows of the Thor's hammer. “The Radioactive-Man” also collaborated with “the Mandarin”, who was the Iron Man's arch-enemy. To put it in a nutshell, Thor and Iron man were linked by the same cause which was saving the world of Communism, and its supervillains like“the Mandarin” and “the Radioactive-Man”…