Thor

If I had a Hammer

Born 1500 years ago to Odin and Frigga, the king and queen of fabled Asgard, Thor grew into a mighty warrior and protector of his home and people. Thought to be rash and even reckless by his father, Thor nevertheless looked forward to the day of his ascension to the throne. But, his adoptive brother Loki schemed in private to ensure that day never arrived. He manipulated Thor into attacking the Frost Giants, legendary adversaries of the Asgardians and Loki’s people, and Odin—hoping to teach his son humility—divested Thor of his magic hammer Mjolnir and banished him to Midgard, the realm also known as Earth.

Alone and unable to return to Asgard, Thor met scientists Jane Foster and Erik Selvig in the midst of their investigation into strange activity near a small New Mexico town. While his brother struggled with the limitations of mortals on Earth, Loki worked to ensure his own seizure of the Asgardian throne and planned to allow the Frost Giant king—his real father—into Asgard to slay Odin in his sleep. Back on Earth, Thor sacrificed himself to save the town from destruction and in doing so, impressed Odin enough to restore him to full Asgardian power.

With Mjolnir once again in his grasp and the admiration and possible love of Jane Foster, Thor returned to his home, routed the Frost Giants, and defeated Loki in battle. Chagrined at his loss and stinging from Odin’s condemnation, Loki chose to fall away from Asgard into a strange warp in space while Thor and their father looked on. Though happy to be back in Asgard, Thor’s thoughts were filled with adventure on Midgard with Jane Foster.

The Trappings of a God

Like all Asgardians, Thor possesses great strength, endurance, stamina, and long life, but it is his command over the stormy forces of nature that separate him from his brethren as a true son of Odin the Allfather. Thor can call down lightning and thunder at will and utilize them like a blacksmith uses his tools to work iron and steel—bending and shaping them into weapons. Once he believed it was his hammer Mjolnir that granted him these powers, but in truth the ability has rested within him the whole time.

For nearly a thousand years Thor holds Mjolnir’s grip in battle, a true companion if ever there was one. The incredible hammer was forged by Odin from the heart of a dying star and gifted to his son for his exclusive use. Odin even places an enchantment on it when he banishes Thor to Midgard, one that would only allow a “worthy” person to lift it and possess the power of the god of thunder. While Thor is with the Avengers on Earth, his comrades all try to handle the hammer, but only Captain America could move it slightly, a feat that its owner takes notice of.

After Mjolnir’s destruction by Hela, Thor forges a new weapon when the threat of Thanos arises. With the help of Eitri, a Dwarven smithy of Nidavellir, and an adolescent Groot, Thor crafts Stormbreaker, an immense axe with some of the same properties as his hammer, along with the ability to open the Bifrost.

The Dark Half

Thor develops a number of adversaries in his quest to protect Asgard, and also Midgard, from harm.

The relationship between Thor and Loki may rightfully be categorized as “complicated.” Raised as brothers, the two men know each other better than anyone, yet have been continually at odds, sometimes to notably extreme degrees. Loki’s scheming nature and unbridled egoism comes between him and Thor many times over, causing trouble that has literally impacted entire worlds. Still Thor, overcoming multiple betrayals, believes the man he calls brother can change and embrace the light. And it seems Thor’s belief in his is redeemed when Loki gives his life to protect Thor from Thanos—leaving Thor to deeply mourn his brother’s loss.

Among Thor’s more clear-cut enemies stand Frost Giant King Laufey, Surtur the Fire Giant, the dark elf Malekith, and Thor’s own half-sister Hela, the so-called goddess of death, all of whom have ill intent towards Asgard. Thor also finds himself imprisoned for a time on Sakaar by the Grandmaster.

Thanos earns Thor’s immense hatred after the tyrant’s crusade wipes out many Asgardians and kills loved ones of the god of thunder, making things very personal for him.

Warriors All

Thor grows up surrounded by warriors and fighters, and it is among that august group that he can count the majority of his close companions.

Heimdall, all-seeing keeper of the Bifrost Bridge, offers Thor advice and counsel whenever he requests it, and many times when he does not. Thor treasures his friendship with Heimdall, and they often fight back to back against those who threaten their home. Likewise, both Sif and the Warriors Three (Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun) are valued comrades of Thor, battling at his side over the years. They take pride in the fact that they always had each other’s backs in a fight, until the Warriors Three perish during Hela’s siege on Asgard.

On Earth, Jane Foster is a warrior in her own right, a woman who stands up for what she believes in and never backs down no matter how big a challenge she faces. These traits impress Thor from the moment he meets the young scientist, and their admiration for each other quickly grows into love. Whenever Thor is away from Earth, he counts the minutes until he returns to Jane Foster’s side. Unfortunately, the two part ways eventually. The Asgardian also feels a bond with Dr. Erik Selvig, Foster’s partner, and he looks to the scientist many times for insight not only into deep matters, but also for his knowledge of the world.

Of all of Thor’s Avengers teammates, Steve Rogers, Captain America, is perhaps the one that he trusts most with his life, though he will always remain a faithful companion to the others, including Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. The latter, in fact, more recently becomes a closer friend to Thor, as Banner’s alter ego the Hulk battles Thor in the gladiatorial arena on Sakaar and fights beside him in Asgard.

Thor also makes the acquaintance of one of the fabled Valkyrie on Sakaar, a warrior woman self-exiled from Asgard and her duties as one of its protectors. Though she at first opposes everything Thor stands for, she comes around to his desire to return to Asgard and vanquish its conqueror, Hela. In doing so, she becomes yet another staunch ally of the thunder god’s, as does the Kronan named Korg, who also fights with Thor on both Sakaar and Asgard.

While Thor encounters all of the Guardians of the Galaxy, he forges a special bond with Rocket, who accompanies him on his journey to create Stormbreaker in order to battle Thanos. Groot, who also joined that mission, becomes an ally as well.

For Asgard and the Avengers

When Loki made his way to Earth to capture the fabled Tesseract—one of the infamous Infinity Stones—for his own plans and schemes, Thor asked Odin to use dark magic to send him to the planet also, so that he could confront his brother. While there, Thor came across a small group of loose-knit Earth heroes attempting to stop Loki, so he took command of his brother himself. In doing so, he brought about a battle with Iron Man and Captain America. When the dust cleared and Loki had escaped, Thor agreed to work alongside the Avengers to bring his brother to justice.

Finally seizing Loki, the Avengers brought him into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, but unfortunately also into close proximity to Bruce Banner, whose alter-ego the Hulk turned out to be one of Loki’s true targets. Thor was forced to battle an enraged Hulk until the Avengers could sort out the situation and come together as a real team to defeat Thor’s wayward brother. Thor joined alongside the Avengers in New York and ultimately defeated Loki and the Chitauri army he led. With Loki bound as his prisoner, Thor bid farewell to his new Midgard companions and returned home with the Tesseract.

Back in Asgard, Odin charged his son with traveling through the Nine Realms and addressing hot spots of vandals, marauders, and other troublemakers. Unbeknownst to him at the time, Jane Foster came in contact with the Aether, another of the Infinity Stones, and unwittingly bonded with it. Discovering the event, Thor brought Foster to Asgard for examination and safekeeping, but when the Dark Elves invaded Asgard to take back the Aether, Thor’s mother Frigga died while valiantly defending her husband and her home.

After a series of clashes with Malekith, the Dark Elves’ ruler, both on the Elves’ home world of Svartalfheim and Earth, Thor managed to defeat his foe in the midst of a mixture of assistance, interference and subterfuge from Loki —who then feigned his own death—and wrested the Aether from him. Later, he approached Odin to tell his father he had no real desire to rule Asgard, not knowing that his brother had secretly replaced their father and was posing as him.

Returning to Earth sometime later, Thor rejoined the Avengers to hunt the global terrorist organization called Hydra in various spots around the globe. In the small nation of Sokovia, he and his partners recovered Loki’s powerful scepter from a Hydra base, but Tony Stark later used it to create an artificial intelligence dubbed Ultron, much to Thor’s chagrin. While they began to deal with the malicious robot, Thor came under the spell of the Scarlet Witch, a young Sokovian with incredible mind-warping powers, and received a hellish vision.

With his friend Dr. Erik Selvig, Thor traveled to the magical Water of Sight to look further into the troubling vision and learn more about the Infinity Stones. Back with his teammates, he brought lightning down to aid in the creation of another artificial being—this one a true ally, whom the Avengers dubbed the Vision. Together, they battled and defeated Ultron, but watched helplessly as the entire Sokovian capital was destroyed in the process.

Thor felt his next labor should be a comprehensive search throughout the Nine Realms to gather up the Infinity Stones. While on this quest he encountered and was captured by the Fire Giant Surtur, the being who was fabled to bring about Ragnarok, the ultimate destruction of Asgard. Thor defeated Surtur, and believing he’d stopped the advance of Ragnarok, flew back to his home to relay the news to his father. There, he found only Loki disguised as Odin. Angered, he broke the illusion and took his brother with him to Earth to begin tracking Odin’s whereabouts.

With help from the sorcerer Doctor Strange, the two brothers found their father living simply in Norway, but also near death. Upon his peaceful demise, his first child Hela, mistress of death, was able to leave the prison Odin placed her in millennia before and return to conquer the Asgardians. Thor opposed her instantly, but Hela shattered Mjolnir and left to invade Asgard.

Falling through space after his encounter with Hela, Thor crashed down upon the planet of Sakaar, where the infamous being called the Grandmaster ran a gladiatorial arena. Seemingly without his unique powers from his hammer, Thor became a fighter and found himself face to face with the champion of the realm, his old Avengers comrade the Hulk. Together with the green giant and Valkyrie, one of the fabled female warrior-protectors of Asgard, they flew off to Thor’s home to confront Hela with some help from Loki and the freed Sakaarian gladiators, too.

During the ensuing battle, Thor lost an eye to Hela’s immense powers, but also learned that his command over thunder and lightning rested within him, not in lost Mjolnir. With resumed confidence in himself, he saw to Surtur’s rebirth and the advent of Ragnarok in order to destroy Hela’s threat once and for all. Though this meant the loss of Asgard as well, as Thor realized it was important to save the citizens of his land more than the land itself. Finally embracing his role as king of his people, Thor led the Asgardian survivors and the allies who fought with him onto a starship, intending to hear to Earth.

At some point in the ship’s travels, Thanos interrupted its voyage to decimate the Asgardians onboard and take the Tesseract from Loki. Thor witnessed the murder of both Heimdall and Loki and swore to kill Thanos, a proclamation the tyrant shrugged off as he destroyed the ship and teleported away. Later, the Guardians of the Galaxy found Thor floating in space and upon rescuing him, the thunder god declared his intention to forge a Thanos-killing weapon on Nidavellir, the same place Mjolnir was crafted.

Thor left on his journey accompanied by Groot and Rocket, and during their travels, Rocket gave him a cybernetic eye to replace the one Hela had cut out. The trio arrived at Nidavellir to find it cold and inoperable, but with the aid of the Dwarf smithy Eitri, Thor restarted the forge and created Stormbreaker, a gigantic axe.

Using Stormbreaker’s ability to command the Bifrost to return to Earth, he arrived in Wakanda to join the fight against Thanos’ forces, who were attempting to wrest an Infinity Stone from the android Vision’s head. Thor destroyed many of the alien troops, turning the tide of the battle, and was reunited with Captain America and other Avengers during the fight.

However, when Thanos himself arrived, he successfully got ahold of the Mind Stone and added it to his Infinity Gauntlet. Determined to kill his enemy, Thor buried Stormbreaker in the tyrant’s chest. Unfortunately, Thanos was still able to snap his fingers, and with the combined might of all six Infinity Stones, wipe away exactly half of all life in the universe. Thanos teleported away, and Thor and those who were spared watched many treasured allies disintegrate before them.