Mjolnir.
It’s Thor’s trusty hammer and whose name LITERALLY translates to “that which smashes”.
This hammer gives Thor all of his fantastic powers, but ANYONE can wield it if they’re
deemed worthy because of that enchantment that we all know and love.
“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”
So now, let’s dive into the people who wielded Mjolnir besides the big man himself in the
mainstream Marvel Comics universe.
Of course, there’s people like Red Hulk or Iron Man who moved it around in space and
Ragnarok who was worthy of an alternate universe hammer.
But those technicalities are boring.
Ultimate Magneto is especially lame because he’s both an alternate universe character
AND didn’t actually pick it up.
Heck, Superman AND Wonder Woman have both wielded Thor’s hammer, but the canon is
so ambiguous and loose that we’ll have to talk about those Marvel/DC crossovers some
other time.
No, today we’re going to mostly be focusing on the mainstream Marvel universe and those
who are actually worthy to wield Mjolnir’s awesome power.
The most noteworthy of those that have wielded Mjolnir was Beta Ray Bill, the Thorse of course!
Quick history, alien dude fought Thor, separated the god from his hammer, the alien picked
it up, and got his power.
Odin teleports them to Asgard and makes ‘em fight to the death over who would be Mjolnir’s
new master.
Bill wins, but refuses to take Thor’s life and to reward him, Odin gives Bill his own
hammer, Stormbreaker.
Fun fact, there are many other characters have knock off Mjolnirs.
Take Throg for example.
Yes.
That is a frog with the power of Thor.
If you think that’s weird, he actually has an even stranger history.
Simon Walterson was a professional football player, but after his wife died, Simon went
to multiple fortune tellers in an attempt to speak to her one last time from beyond
the grave, but when his money ran out, one of the magicians cursed him, turning Simon
into a frog.
It’s then that he took up the name Puddlegulp and actually appeared in a much older Thor
story where Thor too was transformed into a frog.
Now.
here’s where things get even crazier.
In that story, Thor picks up Mjolnir and turns into the Frog of Thunder, but it turns out
that a sliver of his hammer was left behind and Puddlegulp lifted it himself, where it
turned into a hammer and turned HIM into Throg.
So yes, since it was a piece of Mjolnir, technically, Throg was deemed worthy and he has his own
hammer now.
These days, Throg leads the Pet Avengers.
Yes, the animal sidekicks of Marvel Comics are part of a superteam.
It is just as amazing as it sounds.
Another Mjolnir duplicate was commissioned by Odin for Roger “Red” Norvell.
This guy was just a normal dude that Loki manipulated into taking Mjolnir, but how he
became worthy was pretty unique.
He donned Thor’s belt of strength and some special iron gloves that Odin crafted for
Thor back when he wasn’t worthy of wielding Mjolnir.
Presumably, it’s these gloves that bypassed the worthiness enchantment, but in real life
Norse mythology, they’re what the actual Thor needed for Mjolnir to fly back into his
hands.
It a nice way to tie it into the real life lore.
However, Red went on to die, but was later resurrected by Odin and given his own hammer
called Crusher.
The next guy that we’ve seen use Mjolnir is someone you guys might have heard of, a
little guy called CAPTAIN AMERICA!
However, the Cap can only wield the hammer when he contains the spirit of a warrior.
Which basically translates to the only time that Cap can lift Mjolnir is when he’s pumped
with adrenaline in the middle of a battle.
That explains why we get this little scene in Avengers 2.
“Come on Cap!”
Did you see that?
He totally made it wiggle!
He’s kind of worthy, but not all the way there.
What’s even crazier is that in the Marvel 2099 comics which take place in, you guessed
it, the year 2099, Captain America was taken out of cryostasis…
again… and actually becomes the Thor of the future!
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mention this, but in that very same comic, Miguel O’Hara A.K.A.
Spider-Man 2099 also takes up the hammer.
Now the 2099 universe is just one of the many possible future timelines of the main Marvel
Comics universe, but what makes Miguel special is that he regularly hangs in the mainstream
continuity.
It’s not like he’s Dargo Ktor, a future Thor who appeared in like… two comics and
then joined a team of other Thors.
Guess what they called themselves.
The Thor Corps.
I can not make this up.
Outside of Thor, it seems like his entire bloodline is also worthy of the hammer.
Take Thor’s father, Odin, for example who was the one that commissioned Mjolnir to be
crafted in the first place and was its first wielder.
Then when Loki resurrected Odin’s father, Bor, he manipulated the Asgardian into fighting
Thor and in the process, proved his worthiness.
If that wasn’t enough, BOR’S Father, Buri, has also shown the ability to hold the hammer
when he found Thor unconscious on his planet.
Now those are all just Thor’s blood relatives, but let’s not forget that his adopted brother,
Loki, was also able to wield Mjolnir during the Axis storyline where all the heroes became
bad and all the villains became good.
There have also been a few characters that were FUSED with Thor and acted as his civilian
identities.
Since they were all a part of Thor, it’s either been explicitly clear or implied that
they can all wield Mjolnir.
The first is actually the weirdest.
Dr. Donald Blake was a guise created by Odin for Thor when he was cast out of Asgard to
learn humility.
Though this was originally just an alias, Donald Blake ended up becoming his own being…
because comics...
Then there’s Eric Masterson.
He got caught up in the middle of a battle between Thor and a villain named the Mongoose.
When Thor was about to lose, Eric picked up Mjolnir and attempted to swing it at the bad
guy.
He was hit before he could attack, but this distraction was what Thor needed to turn the
battle in his favor.
Because of his heroism, Thor begged Odin to save Eric’s life, but instead, the All Father
fused the two of them together.
They eventually separated and Eric even acted AS Thor for a short period of time, but he
ended up getting the enchanted mace, Thunderstrike, and became a hero all by himself.
Finally, there’s Jake Olson.
After he was killed in the crossfire of an Avengers battle, his life was intertwined
with Thor’s.
By that, I mean they were LITERALLY FUSED TOGETHER and Jake acted as Thor’s civilian
identity for a while.
Jake’s soul eventually moved on to the afterlife and found peace, leaving Thor as himself once
again.
That brings us to the current bearer of the hammer as of this recording.
After Nick Fury whispered something into Thor’s ear, he was no longer worthy of Mjolnir’s
power.
Instead, it was taken up by his ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster!
Fun fact, Jane Foster has actually used the hammer before in a What If?
story, but that’s non-canon much like when Rogue and Black Widow used it.
Weird, mostly women use Mjolnir in the What If?
scenarios…
But yes, Jane Foster is the most recent wielder of Mjolnir as of this recording despite the
fact that she has cancer.
See, as long as Jane is transformed as Thor, the cancer goes away, but she has no hope
of curing the disease if she continues to use it.
Why?
Because every time that she transforms, the chemotherapy that Jane undertakes is immediately
purged from her body.
If it’s any consolation though, Jane seems to have most natural affinity for the hammer
with her proficiency being so good that Thor straight up gave her his own name because
she is lightyears better than him.
Dayum.
Now even though we’ve covered everyone who was worthy of Mjolnir, there have been plenty
of characters who got around that criteria.
For example, beings of immense magical power can bypass Odin’s enchantment as evidenced
by the time the demon Mephisto caught the hammer, instantly destroyed it, and then instantly
re-created it just because he could.
Wow, that has to be the greatest insult that Thor has ever received!
Then there was the time that Wonder Man temporarily had the power of a god and he was able use
Mjolnir’s powers, but it could also be argued that he only had temporarily had Thor’s
powers at the time.
The comic can be interpreted either way.
There’s also the time that Zeus himself grabbed the hammer, but as he noticed, Zeus
could only hold onto it for a short time before it went right on back to Thor’s hand.
This was also noted by the android Air-Walker who caught the hammer, but stated that it
constantly tried to return to Thor.
This is just one of the many times where it’s been shown that non sentient beings are able
to pick up Mjolnir with no problems.
Even the Asgardian Destroyer armor has been shown to pick up the hammer and we’ve seen
this concept tackled in the modern era with the literally named Awesome Android and of
course, Vision in Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.
What’s important to note though is that none of these robots and androids could actually
use the power of Thor, but instead, they could all use Mjolnir like an ordinary hammer.
You can also bypass the worthiness enchantment with a powerful spell of your own as evidenced
by Enrakt the Enchanter who used his magic to live inside of and control Mjolnir…
In fact, his spell was so powerful that it had to be undone by Scarlet Witch.
You can also get around being worthy if Thor’s hand is still on Mjolnir.
For example, Storm once forced the hammer to destroy Stormcaster, her own Asgardian
hammer made by Loki.
As you can clearly see, Thor’s hand is still on the hammer which bypasses the whole wortiness
thing.
This can be seen again in the Avengers Assemble comic where The Hulk (who was being controlled
by Thanos) grabbed Mjolnir and smacked Thor in the face with it.
Yet just like with Storm, Thor’s hand was still on the hammer, turning this into a “Stop
hitting yourself!”
situation.
But I’ll be the first one to admit that Thor’s history is MASSIVE so I’m sure
I missed some noteworthy mentions.
I can almost taste the comments that some of you guys are writing, completely ignoring
that I mostly stuck to the mainstream universe and yelling about how I didn’t talk about
that time that Deadpool wielded a fake Mjolnir or that time that Conan the Barbarian use
it.
But who’s the better hammer bearer that we talked about in this video?
Beta Ray Bill or Throg?
Click to cast your vote or tweet me @TrailerDrake.
If you want to learn more about one of the obscure hammer wielders then click that annotation
to see our history of Spider-Man 2099.