Mighty Mightor

Context

They say that we remember old shows and events from our childhood not as they really happened but by how we felt about them back then.

We sort of elevate them in our minds because we remember them as being great and we remember them as something we would think was great if we saw it as adults. So we remember them as better than they really were much the same way that we look back at ourselves as children and remember having thoughts and insights we did not really have then.

So I was very surprised when I rewatched ’Mightor‘ and it was almost exactly the way I remembered it except it was a little better than I remembered.

Echoes

This was absolutely my favorite childhood superhero, probably still my favorite. A few years later, Thor became my favorite superhero but it wasn’t until I was an adult that the fact Mightor was derived from the Marvel Thor became obvious to me. Similar powers and weapon and even the name “Tor” is one of the ancient names of Thor.

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So it makes sense I’d choose these two as my favorites. I like Mightor even better though because I love that feeling of a prehistoric setting, even a completely unrealistic one.

I think the show played to what we all dream about as kids. There we are, powerless in a world where every decision is made for us, a lot like Caveboy Tor. But then, Mightor takes us beyond that reality into a realm of ultimate childhood fantasy.

Suddenly, we are absolutely invincible. Nobody nor combination of things are as powerful as us. And, of course, we do the right thing. We are the protectors of all our friends and family. Not only are we more powerful but we are also wiser.

In our normal form, everyone else is bigger and tells us what to do. But transform into Mightor and we are bigger than them and far more powerful. Everything else is the same. We just are different on the outside.

Yet, suddenly, we are treated with total respect and admiration. As children, we knew it all along didn’t we? We didn’t analyze it like I just did but we knew that it was all about who was bigger.

As children, that’s how we thought. Characters like Mightor who start out just like us were our favorites because they provided the fullest escape when they did gain their powers.

On a less cerebral turn of thought, Mightor kicked ass. He never lost, never had to back down (even taking hostages was a momentary delay until he found a way around it), he was invincible and, best of all, invincible in a prehistoric world with a dinosaur as his best friend. What child could possibly not love it?

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Background

Video

The intro sequence of Moby Dick & Mighty Mightor is almost entirely about Mightor, as is just and right.

Powers & Abilities

When he holds his “Power Club” aloft and yells the name “Mightor”, Caveboy Tor transforms into the Mighty Mightor, possessing vast superhuman strength and durability and flight.

His pet, Tog, a winged dinosaur, becomes a super strong, super durable, fire-breathing dragon.

Mightor’s Power Club can fire an energy blast, be spun to work as a shield and always returns to him when thrown or when he stretches his hand out for it. For game purposes, flying to him is a power Mightor possesses rather than an inherent power of the club.

As Tor, he cannot access any of its abilities except the ability to transform to Mightor.

History

Mightor lived in an alternate reality where creatures from completely different geological epochs all existed at the same time. Dinosaurs separated by millions of years from each other, along with mastodons, mammoths, sabertooth cats and humans all existed together.

The only thing missing seemed to be the real evolutionary process of any of these creatures including man. It is a past completely unrelated to the evidence of what the prehistoric past really was. But there is little value in approaching this with adult knowledge and trying to make sense of it.

Caveboy Tor

Tor was a teenager who belonged to a tribe known simply as “the Cave People” or “the Cave Dwellers”. He was on a hunting expedition when he got separated from the rest of the hunters. He and his pet, Tog, came to a huge log that formed a bridge across a chasm.

Tog seemed to be sort of a mixture of completely different dinosaurs. He seemed sort of a brontosaur, kind of a stegosaur and a bit pterodactyl. He had wings. Mostly, he was a dog-o-saur. He was five feet tall standing on his hind legs and weighed 210 pounds with blue scaly skin and blue eyes.

There was an extremely huge Tyrannosaurus Rex on the log, threatening an old man on the opposite side of the chasm. Using only a club, Tor managed to dislodge the log and it slid off the cliff, sending the T-Rex plunging down.

Tor and the old hermit then traveled to a place where the chasm ended and the mountain merged back into one land mass.

Mighty Mightor

As a reward for risking his life to save the old man, the ancient hermit gave Tor a club that he called a “Power Club”. He showed Tor how to use it. All he had to do was raise the club high and yell the name “Mightor” and he found himself transformed into a being possessing godlike powers.

Even his pet, Tog, was transformed into a powerful entity, standing five feet, seven inches on his hind legs and weighing 280 pounds.

Vicinity seemed to make no difference. At least once, even when they were separated by a considerable distance, when Tor became Mightor, Tog also transformed into his more powerful state.

Although it was never shown, we may presume that when he wanted to change back, he raised the club and yelled “Mightor” again (though I suppose he might have yelled “Tor”).

Speculations & hermits

I make some completely unofficial assumptions now because there were certain questions that were never asked.

If the old man had access to that kind of power, why did he not just save himself? Where did he get that club to begin with? Did he make it himself? Did he find it? Why did it grant powers beyond anything else that existed in the setting? Why did we never see the Old Man again? What was his name? Was he a shaman? Was he a sorcerer?

These are questions that a nine year old may or may not ask but later, these sorts of plot points become relevant in a later era where we expect some internal rationale.

The Old Hermit was a very early incarnation of Odin, based on the idea that gods change throughout the ages, maybe even dying and being reborn as different gods. So Odin or Wotan or some completely forgotten name, he was the being who would one day be Odin. Was Tor his son? Or just a brave villager? Maybe he was a brave villager who became Odin’s son in future incarnations.

At any rate, it is all speculation and the Old Hermit was never to reappear.

Now let’s fight dinosaurs

Once he gained the power, Tor or Mightor battled the seemingly endless enemies of the Cave People. It might be an exiled tribesman who gained the power to train or control dinosaurs or other beasts. In fact, the ability to communicate with and control dinosaurs and other beasts seemed a mutation that showed up in several humans.

In other cases, the daughter of Chief Pondo, Sheera, would get kidnapped and Mightor would save her. Or her younger brother, Little Rok, who liked playing at being Mightor, would get into trouble and Mightor would save him.

Probably his greatest feat of strength was when another continent was drifting close. Since he needed to move it anyway, he decided to get rid of all of the more threatening dinosaurs by carrying them a few at a time onto that continent and then lifting it and flying it far out to sea.

I still wonder…

It was never stated why Tor did not reveal that he was Mightor. But I would speculate that he knew what would happen if he did. He would be worshiped as a god. Before he knew it, he would be in the Mightor form all the time. He would never be able to relate to his fellows as a normal person and friend. Sheera would fall in love with him because he was Mightor rather than for who he really was.

So I speculate that he maintained the secret until Sheera finally fell in love with him as Tor. Sometime after the chronicled events of the stories, they were married and he revealed he was Mightor.

Was he ageless as Mightor? Is he still around on that world? Did he allow himself to grow old and die as Tor? Is he reborn again and again as Thor in some form or another? Is Sheera also Sif? Was the Old Hermit also Chief Pondo alias Odin?

These are the sorts of crazy questions that a former nine year old asks when he remembers a favorite childhood show that never worried about such details.

Description

Tor is a teenager or young adult of average size for his world. He is in good shape but not extraordinary and he often pretends to be less than he really is. As Mightor, he is massively muscular.

In both forms, he wears a green loincloth with a yellow belt and brown boots. He also wears a yellow necklace of some kind. As Mightor, he wears a mask that is green with black about the upper face. A green cape extends from it and horns extend from either side of the mask. 

Personality

As Tor, he is very easygoing, shy and quiet. As Mightor, his voice is deep and booming. He exudes confidence. But anytime Sheera displays interest in him, he quickly makes an excuse and leaves. He never seems to interact with the tribe socially other than to show up and protect them.

Strangely, they seem not to wonder where he comes from or how he got his powers and they don’t seem to worship him as a god. Perhaps he had forbidden that and they just smile at how humble he is, a god, someone who could not possibly be anything else but a god to their view, who does not want to be fawned over.

Hanna-Barbara History

In the first “Mightor” story we ever saw, Mightor crossed over with Space Ghost who had been banished to the past by his enemies. Even Space Ghost’s Power Bands were not able to time travel. Nor could Mightor’s club time travel.

However, they realized they were both heroes and that, by combining the power of the Power Bands and the Power Club, they could send Space Ghost back to his own time.

Space Ghost also crossed over with several other characters. This established a timescale and continuity of that setting. Furthest back was Mightor. By the time of “Ancient Arabia”, there was the Genie, Shazzan.

In the XX^th Century, circa the 1960s, there were the adventures of Moby Dick and his friends and also “Dino-Boy” in a lost valley. By somewhere around the thirtieth century, there were Space Ghost and also the Herculoids.

Quotes

Tor: “It’s time for Mightor to appear.”

“It is I, Mightor, who speaks. Give up your evil plans.”

“Come on, Tog.”

“We’ve got to save Sheera.”

“We’ve got to save Little Rok.”

“We’ve got to save the village.”

Chief Pondo: “Mightor and his dragon have saved us again. Where were you, Tor ?”

DC Universe History

While I’m not an expert on DCU prehistory, Mightor could be adapted to it. He could have existed in the same time period as Anthro the Cave Boy.

Obviously, to fit properly into the DCU-BCE, we would have to “lose” the dinosaurs and present a history that at least conforms a little bit to real prehistory. DC did a great “realistic” take on Space Ghost and I’d love to see them do it with Mightor.

It would be interesting to see Superman or another character time travel to prehistory and encounter a Mightor that is a believable prehistoric man except with powers.

I would suppose that, realistically, in such an era, “good” would be defined as “totally biased in favor of my tribe and destroying/ driving out/ subjugating all the others”. Looking at the history of religion, that seems a realistic definition of social thinking that far back.

More possibilities

A time traveler might meet these enemies of Mightor that we knew from the cartoons and realize that all the tribes were fighting for territory back then and the presence of a super being totally tipped the scales, even if he was not quite so powerful as in the cartoons. So these “villains” may not be villains at all to us or a time traveler, just other tribes.

Mightor’s powers could be from a magic club he was given by a god or maybe a meteorite crashed and gave him powers and he forged part of it into a club. Or maybe there was no club and he was a mutant.

Another possibility is that he is the first in the line that eventually led to Black Adam and to Captain Marvel. I am not sure that the wizard, Shazam, really goes that far back but, with a little ad-libbing, he could have been the mysterious hermit that gave Mightor his powers and perhaps the club was just an extra present.

Since we don’t know much about what sorts of gods were worshiped back then, it gives some leeway in just making them up. Perhaps they were the same gods that gave Shazam his powers.

By Doug Mertaugh.

Source of Character: The 1960s Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon show Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor which had one season, 1967-68, though it stayed on the air with all reruns the next season. Created by Alex Thoth. Mightor was voiced by Paul Stewart. Tor was voiced by Bobby Diamond. Pondo, Tog, Ork and Bollo were voiced by John Stephenson. Sheera was voiced by Patsy Garrett. Little Rok was voiced by Norma MacMillan.

Helper(s): Wikipedia, William Chamberlin.