Thor #197

Issue Details

Synopsis

Thor faces Kartag, the guardian of the Twilight Well, so that he can return to Asgard with some of its water. Meanwhile his homeland is being ravaged by Mangog.SynopsisSatrina leads Thor and the Warriors Three to the Twilight Well at the Edge of the World. She hopes that the well's keeper, Kartag, will crush Thor. This giant guardian of the well boasts that he has guarded the well for "two thousand centuries" and no one has approached the well and lived.The Warriors Three attempt to intervene on the thunder-god's behalf, but the sorceress Satrina causes hands of rock to scoop them up.Thor and his adversary plummet to the cave floor near the well, but even this fall does not kill the giant. He rises and drags Thor into the well. As Thor loses consciousness he sees visions of what is really going on in Asgard -- Odin and all of the members of the realm eternal are unable to check the attacks of Mangog... and Thor is their only hope.As Volstagg and the others watch Kartag pull the lifeless body of Thor out of the water, three hooded, bent shapes appear nearby. The Norns (fates) reveal that Kartag has been their servant, and their intention was not to kill Thor, but to test him -- to see if he was worthy of the water from the well.Thor wakes up and is given sheepskins for holding the water from the well. Kartag is ordered to go with Thor to fight the demon, Mangog.Satrina, Kartag's lover, didn't recognize the Fates or their purposes. She just felt that they were undoing her work and stealing her lover. She attacks the Norns (obviously to no avail), until she realizes who they are. Tearfully repentant, she watches as Kartag disappears with the four men she just tried killing.Returning to Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, Thor finds the approach to Asgard ripped asunder and the golden city MISSING! Odin had sent Asgard on a journey to another time and plane, so that if Mangog succeeded in destroying Asgard, the earth would not be lost also.Since the Twilight Well and the mystic...