Thor vol. 2 #5Thor vol. 2 #5
Title: “Heroes”
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Penciller: John Romita Jr.
Inker: Klaus Janson
Colors: Gregory Wright
Editor: Tom Brevoort
People all over New York are waking up listening to Chucky Diamond, who has the highest rated morning radio show ever. Peter Parker gets up. Thing says that he is going to kill Torch for setting his alarm like this. Another man, possibly Tony Stark, listens to the show for some reason while calling Chucky Diamond an insufferable bore. A man with posters of the Avengers, Captain America, and Thor gets up and gets dressed. Chucky Diamond is tearing into Thor as a fraud. He says that he isn’t a god or from Asgard, and that because of him the docks are still a mess from his fight with the Destroyer.
The man from before with the posters on his wall listens to the radio in his package delivery truck. Chucky Diamond says that Thor eventually transported Destroyer away and wonders why Thor didn’t do that in the first place. The man defends Thor and the Avengers while yelling at his radio.
Thor flies along admiring the morning’s beauty. Thor lands near the hospital and pounds his hammer to become Jake Olsen. As Jake walks to the hospital he spots Jane Foster. Desperate for a familiar face, Jake shouts out, “Milady Jane!” Jane turns and asks him what he said. Jake quickly covers and introduces himself as Jake Olsen. As they talk Thor decides that he doesn’t care if Marnot told him not to tell anyone he is going to tell Jane Foster that he is really Thor. Just as Jake starts to Keith Kincaid walks over. Jake had forgotten that Jane Foster was married. He says that he will see them later and leaves. Jane says that was strange. Keith says that there have been some problems with missing drugs from the ER pharmacy. Hannah walks through the door. Jane suggests that Hannah try to find out with the computer who has been stealing the drugs from the pharmacy. The radio is there and Chucky Diamond is on still talking about Thor. Hannah defends Thor as one of the good guys.
Chucky goes on to say that firemen, police, paramedics, and talk show hosts are the real heroes.
Jake gets into the ambulance with Demetrius to go to a heart attack. The radio in the ambulance is tuned to Chucky Diamond. Chucky says that Thor isn’t a real hero because he can lift a tank and fly so he has nothing to worry about.
The delivery truck guy pulls up outside Chucky Diamond’s station and grabs a package to take up.
In the ambulance, Chucky Diamond is saying that he thinks guys like Thor and Hawkeye are getting money under the table. Jake calls Chucky a jerk and turns the radio off! Demetrius says that Jake always loved Chucky Diamond. Jake says, “not anymore”.
The delivery truck guy walks up to the receptionist as she is taking a call from J Jonah Jameson that he loves Chucky’s show this morning. The man says that he has a package for Chucky Diamond, but that only he can sign for it. The receptionist says that nobody gets past her and that she will sign for it. The man runs past her down the hall.
Inside the house of the man having the heart
attack, Demetrius has the man all ready to go to the hospital.
Jake says that he doesn’t think that it is a heart attack.
Jake says that this man can’t breathe because he has an
obstruction or some trauma to his throat. Demetrius says that
Doctor Foster said to stabilize him and bring him in. Jake says
that the man would never make it. Jake says that he is going to
have to perform a cricothyrotomy so the man can breathe.
Demetrius says that he is not licensed. Foster is on the radio
telling Demetrius that Olsen is forbidden from doing the
cricothyrotomy. Jake tells Demetrius, and Jane Foster who is
listening through Demetrius’ radio, that he learned how to
do it from Dr. Donald Blake. Jane says, “Donald…
?” Demetrius grabs Jake’s arm and says that he
can’t. Jake shouts, “I SAY THEE NAY!” Jane
replies,
“What… did… he… say?” Olsen does the
operation and inserts the tube so the man can breathe.
The delivery guy barges through the door with a gun. He says that Chucky is a friend of Loki and the Absorbing Man.
While Demetrius and Jake are loading the man into the ambulance, D says that Jake has a lot of questions to answer. Jake overhears that there is a hostage situation at the radio station. Jake tells Dee to handle this on his own and runs off. Once far enough away, Jake turns into Thor and flies off.
Chucky is telling the man with the gun that
it was all just an act. The man says that the damage is already
done. Suddenly Thor crashes through the wall. Thor throws his
hammer between the man and Chucky Diamond causing the man to drop
the gun. As the hammer starts to return to Thor it suddenly veers
off and flies towards Diamond’s face. Thor catches it before
it hits. 
Thor looks at
his hammer and on the side of the hammer there are menacing
looking eyes and spikes all around it. The man starts explaining
to Thor that he was just trying to defend him. The face
disappears and Thor wonders if he really saw it. Thor calls the
man a “babbling fool of a mortal!” Thor says that he
needs no protectors and least of all one who would resort to
violence. Thor throws the guy to the police and tells them to
remove this coward from his sight.
Chucky starts sucking up to Thor and asks him to cut a promo for him Thor says that even if it would stop Ragnarok from coming that he still might refuse to do it. Chucky starts coping an attitude. Thor causes a gust of wind to come in and blow Chucky Diamond’s toupee off his head. Thor flies off.
Asgard has been transformed from a place of golden spires and heroism into a dark pit of evil. Perrikus says that the transformation is complete and tells Adva to open the portal. From the portal steps Majeston Zelia. Zelia says to let every god on every plane of existence know that Asgard is hers.
Lightning Crashes rating: 4 out of 10.
First the good. Romita did a great job with the art this issue. I only wish that the book itself were about something so it would matter. I think that with any book that has a mystery to reveal that it should be illegal to waste an entire issue the way this one did. Thor saw a face in his hammer and Zelia has Asgard officially. That’s all that really happened and that was about 7 panels total in the book. The rest of the book seems to be a fairly open slam on Howard Stern. The book is filled with people who hate the radio show and yet everyone, everywhere they go is listening to him. Seems sorta stupid to me. Thor’s big revelation is that Chucky Diamond wears a toupee- I don’t think Stern wears one so I’m not sure what the point of this all is. I didn’t care about Chucky Diamond before, don’t now, and never will- like I said it feels like a wasted issue to me in a story where we’re all finding things out month by month I think that this issue should have been much better utilized.