TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN: Finally a Thorsday with Sal Buscema

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Finally a Thorsday with Sal Buscema - again

It has been over nine years since my last post on Sal Buscema's excellent stint on THE MIGHTY THOR where he finished the much applauded run by Walter Simonson who was still writing the book so it's high time to return to these battlefields with Today's instalment for SAL BUSCEMA MONTH.

Now attentive blog visitors may have noticed that the THOR cover above was NOT drawn by Sal Buscema but rather by Walter Simonson and those with an extremely good memory might remember that I already used it .

Which are two reasons why I should not be using this cover. The reason why I decided to ignore my rules and use it anyways is that while Walter Simonson left the art to Sal Buscema because he was simply burned out he still did all of the covers EXCEPT the cover for issue 372 and I already used that one in my very first post for SAL BUSCEMA MONTH. And even if I would be so inclined to use the cover for issue 372 again that would be in my next posting which will include artwork from issues 371 and 372.

As our last post about this era of Thor history was more at the beginning Today we take a look at the end of Sal Buscema's tenure on THE MIGHTY THOR with some choice pages from issues 375, 376, 378, 379, 381 and 382 the final Thor issue by Sal Buscema. I don't think I am going to say too much about the story since I don't want to spoil it for anybody who has not read them even if these issues came out 38 years ago. What I am going to mention is that one reason for picking this particular story is to showcase the real Thor, Loki, Executioner and Hel - or at least Marvel Comics version of them - for all those readers out there who only know the bastardized versions from the Disney movies. Because Hel is Loki's daughter not Odin's daughter, Loki is the god of evil not just the god of mischief, the Valkyries are not Asgard's elite female warrior force and Thor does not make quips every five seconds and is a god not a demigod like Hercules. I don't know where these false facts come from but you hear everywhere that Thor is a demigod and that is not true. Thor is a full blown god. His father is Odin and his mother in norse mythology is the earth goddess Jordi while in the Marvel Comics it is either Odin's wife Frigga - which Stan Lee did make up - or the earth goddess Gaia.