WRECKING CREW

 

WRECKING CREW

Roster: (l to r): Wrecker (Dirk Garthwaite), Piledriver (Brian Philip Calusky), Bulldozer (Henry Camp), and Thunderball (Eliot Franklin)

First Appearance: The Mighty Thor (Vol. 1) #148, January 1968 (Wrecker); Defenders (Vol. 1) #17, January 1974 (remaining members and team debut)

History/Powers: Years ago, Dirk Garthwaite, a small-time burglar wielding a crowbar, broke into a hotel room and overpowered its occupant, the Asgardian trickster god Loki, who had just requested mystical enhancements from Karnilla the Norn Queen. Accidentally receiving these enhancements, Dirk became the costumed Wrecker. After a battle with Thor caused his mystic power to be transferred into his trademark crowbar, Garthwaite was sent to Ryker's Island prison where he befriended fellow inmates Henry Camp, Brian Calusky, and physicist Dr. Eliot Franklin. Escaping from prison during an electrical storm, the foursome ventured to find Garthwaite's crowbar. Upon finding it, he had his three partners hold onto the crowbar with him during the lightning storm, and the resultant bolt of lightning split the Wrecker's superhuman strength between the four of them, creating Bulldozer, Piledriver, and Thunderball. Together, they formed the super-villain team known as the Wrecking Crew.

-The Wrecker possesses superhuman strength and a high degree of imperviousness to harm as a result of the magical power bestowed upon him by Karnilla the Norn Queen. The enchantment augmented his entire body, strengthening his bone, muscle, and flesh. The Wrecker possesses superhuman strength that enables him to lift (press) about 50 tons. Previously, when sharing his superhuman power with the other three members of the Wrecking Crew, the Wrecker could lift (press) about 10 tons. The Wrecker is capable of withstanding the impact of a .45 caliber bullet without it penetrating his skin.

 

The Wrecker has established a mental link with his enchanted crowbar. In the past when the Wrecker has lost his superhuman powers, the power has transferred itself into the crowbar. By making physical contact with the crowbar, the Wrecker can transfer the power back into himself. Also, by touching the crowbar, the Wrecker can magically transform whatever he is wearing into his costume. By concentrating on the crowbar, the Wrecker can use it to take mental possession of whoever touches it and cause an enchanted aura that can repel bullets to surround that person.

After first gaining his superhuman powers, the Wrecker was able to teleport individuals to Asgard from Earth and to create waves of force about him that could deflect bullets. It is not known whether the Wrecker is still capable of these feats.

The Wrecker wields a four-foot long cast iron crowbar which has become virtually indestructible through extensive contact with the Wrecker's enchanted skin. Wielded by the superhumanly strong Wrecker, the crowbar becomes a weapon of vast destructive potential. The Wrecker has used the crowbar to demolish entire buildings in minutes and to hold off the thunder god Thor in battle. The Wrecker has used the crowbar offensively as both a throwing weapon and a bat.

-Brian Philip Calusky was raised as a farmhand, but eventually turned to a life of crime. The Wrecker’s enchantment augmented his entire body, strengthening his bone, muscle, and flesh. Piledriver possesses superhuman strength that enables him to lift (press) about 10 tons. Piledriver has superhuman durability and is capable of withstanding the impact of a .45 caliber bullet without it penetrating his skin. He often uses large hands and feet as pistons, battering opponents or sending shockwaves through the ground.

 

-Henry Camp was a master sergeant in the United States Army who turned to a life of crime after a dishonorable discharge. The Wrecker’s enchantment augmented his entire body, strengthening his bone, muscle, and flesh. Bulldozer possesses superhuman strength that enables him to lift (press) about 50 tons. Bulldozer has superhuman durability and is capable of withstanding the impact of a .45 caliber bullet without it penetrating his skin. For his costume, Bulldozer has a specially-made armored helmet, neck and shoulder apparatus that gives him added protection and invulnerability when ramming an opponent. The helmet partially affects his peripheral field-of-vision.

-Dr. Eliot Franklin was a physicist who was nicknamed "the Black Bruce Banner" for his expertise in the gamma radiation research pioneered by Dr. Banner. Inventing a baseball-sized compact gamma bomb 10 times as powerful as Banner's original device, he was sent to prison after attempting to steal back his invention from an unscrupulous businessman who patented the device in his own name. The Wrecker’s enchantment augmented his entire body, strengthening his bone, muscle, and flesh. Thunderball possesses superhuman strength that enables him to lift (press) about 10 tons, though she has been temporarily boosted to Class 40. Thunderball has superhuman durability and is capable of withstanding the impact of a .45 caliber bullet without it penetrating his skin. Though originally empowered by Asgardian mystical energy imparted to him by the Wrecker's crowbar, Franklin's been frequently stripped of that energy, regaining his powers by absorbing either the same energy or replacing it with other forms of absorbed energy.

Thunderball was wearing the a chain-gang ball & chain when he was granted his powers, and the wrecking ball thus became his enchanted talisman much like the crowbar. The ball was virtually indestructible and could be hurled at a target, then return to his grasp much like Thor's hammer. Like the crowbar, it also served as a focus for the magic -- if his power began to weaken for some reason, Thunderball could revitalize his strength by coming into proximity with the ball or bar again. Dr. Eliot Franklin holds a Ph.D. in physics. He is a gifted physicist, as well as an expert tactician and planner.

-The Crew lost their power on many occasions, often with either Thor or Loki stealing their power away from them, or gathering it back into the Wrecker alone. On one extended period of powerlessness, Thunderball was recruited by the Secret Empire and designed his own powered-exoskeleton to fight in. It mechanical gave him at least Class 10 strength and protected him from physical injury. It could also produce high-voltage electricity, either on contact or channeled through the wire-guided wrecking ball which extended out from his right gauntlet to great lengths.

In recent years, the Wrecking Crew have been modified slightly so that they must draw upon outside sources of power in order to maintain their abilities -- thus, their strength and durability levels vary depending on how charged they are. They have proven capable of absorbing various forms of electromagnetic energy (both as ambient releases or from power blasts) and Asgardian magic to metabolize for their strength. Once they even managed to drain the mystically-enriched life essence of Hogun the Grim to power themselves.

BERZERKERS

 

BERZERKERS*

Roster (from left to right): Anodyne (Madelyne Pryor-Summers); Master Builder (Paul Domenic); Earthshaker (Jeanne Chretien); Lore Lord (Samuel Ross); Cornucopia (Carla Ballenger); Brawler (Jacques Moreau); Beastmaster (Boyd Wilson); Pathfinder (Nick Rodriguez); and Lord of the Plants (Philip Descard).

First Appearance: X-Men & Alpha Flight (Vol. 1) #1, December 1985

Powers: The "Berzerkers" received magically-inclined superhuman abilities after exposure to Loki's Fire Fountain. The Fire Fountain transformed the internal magic of a human being into an external expression, often causing personal aspects of someone's character to manifest as magical powers. The Berzerkers generally became larger and stronger than they were as normal humans as well, even if their gift did not relate to physical power. The side effect of the Fire Fountain was that it consumed the internal magic of people in order to create its effects, leaving those it transformed unable to imagine, dream, or create. The effects of the Fire Fountain were eventually reversed, turning those affected back into normal people.

As Anodyne, Madelyne Pryor became a healer. She generated a healing flame that, through contact, could repair any form of injury or illness in others (and likely herself). She could undo physical injuries, wipe away fever or disease, even eliminate fatigue to restore someone's stamina. In addition, Anodyne's power could erase mental or psychological problems, such as Aurora's personality disorder and Wolverine's berserker rage, leaving the latter unrestricted by his animal instincts. She could alter superhuman abilities from uncontrollable to controllable, as she did with Rogue's touch or Cyclops's optic blasts. She could even undo curses or purely mystical inflictions, such as Puck's "dwarfism" or the corrupting influence of Tanaraq on Sasquatch's psyche.

 

The Master Builder was an architect able to animate and reshape unliving materials. Prior to exposure to the Fire Fountain, he had a notebook filled with elaborately designed buildings and structures, and his power enabled him to form these structures seemingly out of nothing. The magical nature of his power means he may have literally conjured his structures from nothing, or perhaps he merely made use of nearby raw materials. Once created, he could also manipulate his structures in simple ways, such as barring a door or causing a walkway to move on its own. His lost internal magic meant that the Builder could only create things he had seen or remembered, though -- actual creation of new designs was beyond his abilities once he received his powers.

 

Earthmover was a geologist who developed power over rock and earth. She could animate large or small masses of geological material, forcibly pushing them in a given direction to create mudslides or speeding rocks. She could also manipulate tectonic activity to create earthquakes, cause cave-ins, and so on.

Lore Lord was a living library, able to access knowledge simply by focusing his mind on a given topic or chronicle. It was said that the "knowledge of the ages" flowed through him, meaning he could mentally recall "every book ever written, every story ever told". It was unconfirmed whether he merely meant every human book or story, but he could recollect vast amounts of information on any topic, translate languages, etc.

 

Cornucopia could conjure food and clothing at will. She could mend existing sets of clothes, or alter them in considerable detail to produce new garments. The mechanism by which she created food was never shown, but she could apparently summon an endless supply and variety of food out of thin air. Like Master Builder, though, Cornucopia could not create new recipes or clothing styles. She could only replicate what she saw or could otherwise remember.

Brawler demonstrated tremendous strength, endurance, and resistance to physical injury, even for the naturally powerful Berzerkers.

Beastmaster had a natural affinity for the animal kingdom. He could communicate with animal life and direct animals to carry out actions on his command. His abilities extended to Wolverine's animal side, allowing him to temporarily manipulate Logan's actions and blank out portions of his memory.

Pathfinder was noted to be a tracker, but his abilities were never fully shown. It's likely he had highly acute senses, the ability to detect spore and other traces of an animal or objects passing, and even a supernatural sense of direction or homing ability.

The Lord of the Plants was botanist by trade who gained the ability to manipulate plant life, causing it to grow at an accelerated rate and respond to his mental commands.

*The group was only referred to as "Berzerkers" in solicitation and promotional material, and never in the story itself.

TIME VARIANCE AUTHORITY (TVA)

 

TIME VARIANCE AUTHORITY (TVA)

First Appearance: The Mighty Thor (Vol. 1) #372, October 1986

Description: The Time Variance Authority (TVA) is an infinitely bureaucratic agency whose function is to monitor all realities throughout the multiverse and limit temporal incursions. They are of unrevealed origin, presumably self-appointed, and operate in a dimension called the “Null Time Zone” where time cannot be interfered with.

The TVA’s highest authority is its director, currently Mr. Alternity. Beneath him are various administrators, each of them clones produced from the same genetic material, and thus all identical. This managerial class cloning increases efficiency and enables them to promote from within expeditiously without friction. These administrators are Mr. Mobius M. Mobius, Mr. Orobourous, Mr. Paradox, and Mr. Tesseract. The most numerous TVA employees are the Chronomonitors, faceless men who sit before computers that monitor every event of the timeline to which they’ve been assigned. There’s a TVA Chronomonitor for every timeline in existence, with one created every time a reality comes into being. For all intents & purposes, Chronomonitors are infinite in number and their workplace, the Hall of Chronometry, is as large as the omniverse.

When time-travel or reality warps occur within their assigned timeline, a Chronomonitor will alert administrators through tachyon impulses and the administrator determines how to proceed. The TVA has the power to discontinue timelines, virtually erasing them from history. The enforcers of the TVA are the Minutemen, an army of soldiers produced via cloning and cybernetics, and wearing suits of power armor. The Minutemen are led by Justices, temporal patrol officers with the power to time-travel and solve the TVA’s problems; the most well-known of their number is Justice Peace. The TVA also employs various freelance operatives.

For the eternity of its existence, the TVA has accumulated (and continues growing) vast amounts of temporal energy. Retired TVA employees can draw upon that energy for quality of life purposes, living a near-immortal life in any time and at any location of their choosing. At the end of time (the final common endpoint of all surviving realities in the multiverse) just prior to the heat death of the universe, the final director of the TVA (known as “He Who Remains”) is fated to use all of the TVA’s accumulated energy to create a triad of hyper-evolving beings known as the Time-Keepers.

ABSORBING MAN

 

ABSORBING MAN

Real Name: Carl Creel

First Appearance: Journey into Mystery (Vol. 1) #114, March 1965; Daredevil (Vol. 1) #1, April 1964 (As Rocky Davis)

Powers: Carl "Crusher" Creel was a prison inmate who was given the power to mimic the physical properties of anything he touches after ingesting an Asgardian herb potion which was mixed into his drinking water by the Asgardian god Loki.

As the Absorbing Man, he has assumed any number of different compositions in the past including various forms of metal, plastic, glass, wood, stone, etc. Absorbing materials stronger than flesh and blood can give him superhuman strength and durability. Creel's transformations are instantaneous, enabling him to absorb the durability of bullets on contact faster than they can penetrate his body. He can assume non-solid states like water, ammonia, or gases, but finds it more difficult to maintain his astral presence in such as state, slowing his thinking and reflexes sometimes. The Absorbing Man is capable of reforming himself if injured in his different states. For instance, he can have a stone arm severed, but by touching the severed arm to his shoulder and returning to normal, he'll be whole again. Creel has frequently returned from being blasted to bits or being dispersed over a wide area, given time. The Absorbing Man can take on additional properties from contact with a specific object: He has adopted weather-summoning power from touching Mjolnir, the quantum power from the Quantum Bands, thermo-chemical production from a ship's engine, etc. He also seems to be occasionally capable of increasing his mass when touching something substantially larger than he is, matching its size as well as its properties, such as the height of a building or the spikes of a mace.

His wrecking ball acts as a mystical extension of his powers, changing composition just as he does. Loki once enchanted it to act like Mjolnir, giving the Absorbing Man the power of flight by hurling the ball through the air and grasping the hammer, but this seems to have been forgotten in recent years. Later, Creel demonstrated morphing abilities when in his altered forms, allowing him to shape his concrete or metal limbs into hammers, blades, or other such offensive shapes, or flattening himself out into a non-humanoid sheet of material. He is also not limited to one property of an item, but can become changed into its many different substances. For example, when absorbing a city building, his form can simultaneously include glass, wood, cement, metal, and even flesh.

His most powerful transformations have been into energy states such as cosmic, nuclear, thermal, or light. He has transformed into Adamantium, Uru (Thor's hammer), and the unique alloy of Captain America's shield. He's also absorbed the strength and power of individual beings such as Odin, the Hulk, the Sentry, and others. Though not inherently possessing superhuman strength or energy powers, he can gain virtually unlimited power depending on the properties of the materials he's adapted. There are unrevealed limits to the amount of power that he can rapidly absorb, and he has met defeat by either absorbing energy too quickly or absorbing energies that disrupted the powers that he already held. For a brief period of time, the Absorbing Man had the ability to overtake people's minds, even across vast distances. Aside from his superhuman powers, the Absorbing Man is also adept at boxing, street fighting techniques, and burglary strategies.

LOKI

 

LOKI

Real Name: Loki Laufeyson

First Appearance: Journey into Mystery (Vol. 1) #85, October 1962

Powers: Loki Laufeyson, the Asgardian god of mischief, is one of the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, though his human stature marks him as abnormally small for his race. His body is composed of carbon matter many times denser and heavier than a normal human being. Combined with the Asgardian magic inherent to his life force, he possesses Class 40 strength, superhuman endurance, and resistance to physical injury, toxins, and disease. Asgardian races also have much better vision and hearing than humans and phenomenal longevity, which can be extended into virtual immortality by occasionally eating Idunn's golden apples.

Loki is traditionally one of the top magical practitioners in Asgard, possessing considerable range and power. He is capable of, but not limited to, telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation between space, time, and dimensions, projection of force fields or force blasts, clairvoyance, astral projection, possession of other living beings or constructs such as the Destroyer or Thermal Man, invisibility, intangibility, elemental manipulation, and matter transmutation. He is an accomplished shape-changer able to assume various human and non-human forms, and has enchanted himself so that he can survive lethal attacks such as beheading without incident. He just picks up his head (which is still talking) and places it right back onto his shoulders. His vast knowledge of spells and sorcery allows Loki to perform even more feats given preparation time and the proper ingredients. In the past, Loki has temporarily or permanently enhanced the powers of various individuals or given them entirely new powers. He has also proven capable of granting himself new powers, such as temporarily obtaining the physical might to engage Thor in a test of strength. After dying and being reincarnated as a teenager, Loki lost all of his accumulated mystical knowledge. He relied solely on his wits and magical items or talismen he happened across during his adventures. When the adult Loki's mind returned and took over the young Loki, he regained his full mystical knowledge, but not his stamina. Loki was capable of summoning vast amounts of magic, but his young body could not physically weather the strain of using it as well as an adult could. He had to use his spells sparingly, as repeated spell-casting could quickly lead him to pass out. After manipulating Wiccan into re-ordering his personal reality, Loki now possesses a more adult form and greater mystical reserves than before, although he's still not at his peak. He later regained his full power.

THOR

 

THOR

Real Name: Thor Odinson

First Appearance: Journey Into Mystery (Vol. 1) #83, August 1962

Powers: Thor is the son of the Asgardian All-Father Odin and Gaea, mother spirit of the earth and one of the first beings in existence on this planet. As a result, he is more than three times stronger than even a normal Asgardian. Thor's body is composed of a form of carbon matter far denser and heavier than a normal human being, and further enhanced magically by the power inherited from his parents. He possesses superhuman Class 100 strength, enhanced reflexes, and is virtually tireless and invulnerable to harm. His vision and hearing are considerably keener than a normal person, and his lifespan is thousands of times longer than a mortal.

Most of Thor's abilities are typically drawn from Mjolnir, the enchanted hammer which marks his status as God of Thunder. Mjolnir is forged of a highly-resilient ore called uru, native to the lands of Asgard, and has been further enchanted by Odin to become virtually indestructible. Besides durability, Odin has bestowed a number of permanent enchantments on Mjolnir, which can only be negated by his will or by a power equal to or greater than his own.

Firstly, Mjolnir has been given the enchantment of worthiness. The inscription "Whomsoever lifts this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor!" is carved in the side of the hammer. Virtually no one can take the hammer away from Thor or lift it off the ground. Even some of Earth's Mightiest Mortals like Hulk, Hyperion, and Namor cannot even budge Mjolnir. When he cast the enchantment, Odin meant for only he and Thor to be worthy, but other extraordinary individuals have proven to be worthy of the hammer's power in the time since. Those who have been capable of lifting the hammer, at one time or another, include Beta Ray Bill, Dargo, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Superman, Rick Jones, Spider-Man 2099, and Thor's sons Wotan and Magni. Worthiness can be lost, as in two alternate futures Thor has proven unfit to carry Mjolnir after certain acts of "unworthiness", and of course the current plight of the Odinson.

Second, the hammer is enchanted so that it always returns to Thor's hand after being thrown. If it misses a target, Mjolnir completes a wide arc and returns to his hand; If it strikes a target, the ricochet causes it to rebound into his grasp. This enchantment is limited, in that it can be affected by outside forces knocking the hammer off course in its flight path. If the hammer is knocked off course and lands somewhere else, Thor can still bring Mjolnir back to his hand simply by willing it to him. This takes intense concentration, however, and he often cannot do so in the middle of battle. Thor can also use the hammer to fly -- by throwing the hammer and grasping onto the leather throng, he can be pulled through the air by Mjolnir. This flight is not governed by the normal laws of momentum, as Thor can correct his flight path in midair if he chooses, or "hover" merely by spinning the hammer over his head as he floats.

Mjolnir was also gifted with the power to cross time, space, and dimensional barriers. Thor often accomplishes this by spinning himself and/or the hammer at high speeds, creating a spatial or temporal vortex which swallows Thor and anything else within the radius of the vortex that he chooses to create. Thor could transport himself anywhere within the nine worlds of Asgard by using pre-existing spatial vortexes (on-ramps, so to speak) that connected the different realms. This is why he always traveled to Asgard by materializing on the Rainbow Bridge, instead of just teleporting to the exact location he actually wanted to go. It is possible for him to teleport within a given realm, such as from one location to another on Earth, but this is more difficult to perform and guide accurately. During a time when the Rainbow Bridge was broken, and Asgard was drifting further away from Earth in extra-dimensional space, Thor's ability to transport there became much more limited. Inter-dimensional teleportation to realms completely outside the Nine Worlds is even more difficult and used sparingly if at all. Originally, Thor could also use Mjolnir to manipulate vortexes of chronal inertia, traveling anywhere from the dawn of time to the end of existence. His time travel ability was siphoned away by Immortus years ago, as part of his long running schemes against the Avengers.

Naturally, the hammer also gives Thor the power to command the elements of the storm -- wind, rain, thunder, and lightning especially. Thor is capable of mystically summoning any such meteorological phenomena, without causing any disturbance or variation to surrounding environmental factors. It's magic. He can create cloud cover, a light drizzle, raging monsoons, thunderstorms, etc. Thor can create and direct high velocity winds as whirling cyclones or directed gusts to lift up or blow away objects in his vicinity. He can cause directed lightning strikes to hit where he chooses, or call down a bolt to strike Mjolnir and channel the electricity through his hammer directly. Instead of summoning weather, Thor can dispel natural storms at will as well.

Thor's hammer has many other mystical capabilities which he uses with much less frequency than the above powers. Mjolnir can be attuned to various forms of detection, allowing Thor to track down magnetic anomalies, radiation levels, mystical signatures, among other things. He can create air-tight and virtually indestructible force fields at will, produce blinding flashes of light from his hammer, generate magnetic fields to move and direct metallic substances, and project images directly into the mind of whomever touches Mjolnir. As a symbol of worship or faith, Mjolnir is also an anathema to certain supernatural creatures like vampires, burning them just as a Christian cross would. Finally, Thor is capable of using Mjolnir as a conduit for his own life-energy, the Godforce. This energy is tremendously powerful, and is only called upon in the most dire of situations. A blast of Thor's Godforce can level a city block, or atomize a superhuman living being.

In recent years, Thor has undergone a number of mortal identities. He was cast into the first one, Donald Blake, by his father in order to teach Thor humility and hide him from a foreseen battle where he was destined to die before his time. Co-inhabiting the body of medical student Don Blake, Thor was forced to care for the needs of others and deal with the handicap of an injured leg, which left him in constant need of a cane. After completing his studies and becoming a doctor, Thor was deemed worthy by Odin of reclaiming his godly heritage, and so events were orchestrated so that Blake found Mjolnir, disguised as a simple wooden stick, and struck it against a wall, triggering his transformation back into Thor. As decreed by Odin, Thor was capable of transforming himself and Mjolnir into Don Blake and a wooden cane and back simply by striking the cane/hammer once on a surface. The enchantment, however, held that if Mjolnir left Thor's grasp or was removed from his person for more than 60 seconds, both would revert back to their mortal states until they were reunited. The enchantment was only applicable in Earth space, meaning Thor could travel to Asgard or any of the other Nine Worlds and separate from Mjolnir without turning back into Blake. He was also free of the enchantment in outer space, beyond a certain upper limit of Earth's atmosphere.

Ultimately, Thor lost his Don Blake identity when that enchantment was transferred to Stormbreaker, the hammer of his new ally Beta Ray Bill. With the help of Nick Fury, Thor established a new civilian identity for himself as Sigurd Jarlson. He no longer transformed physically, but merely wore a set of glasses and tied his hair in a ponytail while wearing mortal clothes. Mjolnir itself no longer transformed, but it retained a small fraction of the old enchantment, allowing Thor to transform his civilian clothes into his warrior raiment by striking Mjolnir on the ground. Naturally, there was no longer any 60 second rule at this juncture. During this time, Thor was struck by curse from Hela, making his body fragile and vulnerable to harm, yet denying him the ability to heal or even the sweet release of death. After his arm was broken in the Mutant Massacre, Thor was forced to adopt a bionic sheath over his arm to protect it and allow him to move freely. He later suffered a tremendous beating, however, and his body was rendered virtually unusable. Although in constant pain, he remained active by forging a magical suit of armor and adorning it with runes to seal it from outside harm. Even this proved insufficient protection against his awesome battle with the Midgard Serpent, however, and Thor was literally reduced to base protoplasm by the force of the conflict. He mentally transferred himself into the Destroyer armor for a time until he was finally able to force Hela to reverse her curse.

Sometime after that, Thor's human friend Eric Masterson was critically wounded in one of his battles. Thor plead for Odin to save Masterson's life, and the All-father did so by combining Thor's godly life essence with Eric's, effectively merging them into a single being. Each man was now fully cognizant of the other's entire life but, much like the old Don Blake situation, only one could remain corporeal at a time. Eric Masterson could trade places with Thor by striking the wooden Mjolnir cane on the ground, and Thor could perform the reverse, with the 60-second rule in effect once more. The two were eventually separated, and Masterson was granted an enchanted mallet and took to calling himself Thunderstrike.

Thor briefly possessed the Infinity Gem of Power after separating from Masterson, which granted him incalculable levels of strength and power. He returned it soon after to Drax the Destroyer, though. Sometime later, a sickness struck Yggdrasil, the World Tree, and convinced it that the Asgardian gods were dead. As a result, Thor lost virtually all his powers and Mjolnir's enchantments, maintaining only a moderate level of enhanced strength. The gamma-powered Leader manipulated events so that Thor was temporarily supercharged with power, returning some of his abilities, but before this could be played through, Thor was consumed by the Onslaught.

Once he returned to Earth, Thor's powers were fully restored to what they had been before the events with Yggdrazil. In a battle with the Destroyer, Thor was brought to the brink of death. A being known as Marnot came to Thor's disembodied spirit and forced him to accept responsibility for the death of Jake Olsen, an EMT who died as a result of the Thunder God's battle with Destroyer. As penance, Thor was to return to Earth in Olsen's form and live out Olsen's life, continuing his work as it should be. Reborn as Jake Olsen, Thor could reassume his normal body by focusing a charge of Asgardian magic into his hand, shaping it into the rough shape of a hammer, and then striking it as he would Mjolnir. This would summon the real Mjolnir and transform him from Olsen into Thor.

At one point, Thor was seriously injured and needed time to recuperate, but his mortal life had responsibilities that Olsen needed to live up to. Odin split Thor into two autonomous beings to cover this problem, a Thor and a Jake Olsen half. Unfortunately, Odin was killed in battle with Surtur before he could reverse the spell, and Thor received the vast power of the Odinforce upon his father's death. Thor was now probably twice as strong as before, virtually indestructible, and capable of commanding all of Mjolnir's abilities on his own without the hammer. In addition, he wielded vast cosmic power allowing him to summon and manipulate light, heat concussive force, radiation, magnetism, and other forms of energy. He could rearrange molecular structures at their most basic level, and cast any number of enchantments reinforced by his own considerable mystical might. However, this Thor had lost touch with his humanity, his connection to the mortal people, since that aspect of his personality was in the Jake Olsen body. To summarize, Thor committed horrific acts, ruled the Earth with an iron fist for more than 100 years, and ultimately repented to go back in time and prevent himself from going any further. Future Thor re-merged Present Thor and Jake Olsen, and the Odinforce went into remission until Thor was wise enough to use it properly.

Following his death and resurrection, Thor was once again bonded to the Earthly essence of Don Blake, and contained the full power of the Odinforce, making him much stronger and more powerful than ever before. However, the Odinforce was still no match for Bor, father of Odin, who was pulled out of time and made to fight Thor by Loki. Mjolnir was shattered in that battle, and Thor went to Doctor Strange for assistance. Thor was forced to give up a substantial portion of his newfound power to bond his lifeforce to Mjolnir and reforge the hammer. With the resurrection of Odin, Thor also no longer contained the Odinforce at all. Circumstances occurred where Thor was killed and resurrected again separately from Don Blake, so the two of them no longer transformed back and forth.

Later, Thor was involved with an extended conflict with Gorr the God-Butcher, a man who used awesome supernatural power to become a serial killer of gods. Thor's faith in the relationship of gods and men was shaken by Gorr, which was exploited by Nick Fury during Original Sin. Thor no longer felt worthy of wielding Mjolnir, and lost the ability to lift the hammer. Believing himself no longer capable of claiming the name Thor, God of Thunder, he took to calling himself merely the Odinson. Suffering further, the Odinson lost an arm in battle with Malekith and the Frost Giants, and it was replaced by an artificial arm forged of Black Uru. The Odinson maintains his great physical strength and the ability to summon storms mentally. He wields the Celestial-killer axe Jarnbjorn now as his personal weapon. Odinson can no longer fly, and relies on his flying goats Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder for transport.