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.