Mjolnir, Thor’s powerful hammer, rarely finds itself in the possession of others outside
of the Asgardian God of Thunder.
But over the years in the comics, we’ve seen a handful of Marvel characters prove
themselves worthy enough to wield it.
And we’re not just talking superheroes; there’s been a number of antagonists and
villains who have also managed to wield it, much to thor’s surprise.
So today we’re counting them down with our list of the top 10 villains who have lifted
thors hammer.
We’ll be considering character who are traditional villains, but also characters who have acted
in antagonist ways, or have previously been villains.
So with that in mind, let’s get to it.
10 Deadpool When Deadpool was first introduced, he was
a villain, debuting in The New Mutants issue 98 in 1991 as a super villain but gradually
turned a leaf to become the anti-hero we’re acquainted with today.
And really, that’s the only reason he finds himself on this list; because, if we’re
being honest, not a whole ton of villains have wielded Mjolnir, cause, you know, that
whole ‘being worthy’ thing.
Anywho, in Deadpool volume 1 issue 37 from 2000, the merc with a mouth is manipulated
by Loki to steal Mjolnir, and in return, the trickster god will release Mistress Death
from her stasis.
In case you weren’t privy, Deadpool had a thing for Death at one point in time, much
to Thanos’ disdain.
Deadpool gets the hammer and naturally begins abusing its power after he realizes that Loki
has been pulling him along.
He turns on Loki, getting cursed in the process.
Eventually though, it’s revealed that the hammer Deadpool was wielding was a fake, with
Thor confiscating the power replica from him.
9 Rogue Here we have a case of a villain becoming
heroic.
In 1994, Marvel’s What If series gave us a story that featured mutant Rogue wielding
Mjolnir.
From What if volume 2 issue 66 from 1994, in a story titled what if rogue possessed
the power of thor, Rogue absorbs Thor’s powers in the midst of a battle.
This leaves Thor in a vegetated state, and Rogue ends up turning on the Avengers, using
her new found Thor abilities to kill their butts, to the point where she kills Iron Man
and Vision.
After the battle, the remaining Avengers take Thor’s body to the Fantastic Four in hopes
of bringing him back, but it’s too late.
He dies.
Rogue, along with members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, try to break the Freedom
Force out of jail, but Blob and Rogue get into a fight, causing their jet to crash,
killing everyone but Rogue.
Loki decides to take advantage of the situation and her guilt by convincing her to come to
Asgard with him, where he seduces her, and convinces her to kill Odin while Loki takes
over Earth.
Luckily for the Earth, Rogue ends up meeting Thor on the astral plane, and decides to become
the Goddess of Thunder and live up to the standards that Thor set while he was alive.
The original story that this What if was loosely based on was when Rogue was a bit of a baddie,
and had seriously damaged Carol Danvers in the main continuity.
8 Beta Ray Bill – Thor 337 1983 Beta Ray Bill is a superhero, but when he
was first introduced into the panels of Marvel comics, he was an antagonist.
Debuting in The Mighty Thor issue 337 in 1983, he was the first outside of characters inspired
by Norse pantheon who was deemed worthy of wielding mjolnir.
Bill was the chosen protector of his alien race, the Korbinites.
SHIELD would detect an alien fleet passing through the milky way galaxy, and sent Thor
to investigate.
Upon approaching the advance ship, it perceives him as a threat, and wakes Beta Ray Bill out
of suspended animation.
Bill battles Thor, and Thor is transformed into his mortal persona of Donald Blake after
he is separated from mjolnir for longer than 60 seconds.
Bill knocks him out.
After its revealed that Bill and his race are not a threat, just fleeing extinction,
Thor is still unhappy; Bill has proven worthy of lifting mjolnir, thus beginning a rivalry
between the two, and Thor challenges Bill to a battle to the death to decide who will
wield the hammer.
Bill technically wins the battle, and even saves thor’s life in the process, so Odin
has his own special weapon made for him in order to have something that can help him
protect his people.
7 Air-Walker The Air-Walker is a curious case.
For starters, in the comics, we’ve seen on occasion that sentient constructs in the
primary continuity have been capable of holding Mjolnir.
The Air-Walker is one of them, and his history is all over the place.
So for starters, he used to be a mortal named Gabriel Lan, who first appeared in Fantastic
Four issue 120 in 1972 as a member of the Xandarian Nova Corps who, when on his space
ship, encounters Galactus who abducts him and consensually transforms him into his herald,
not dissimilar to the Silver Surfer.
This turns Lan into the Air-Walker, who becomes the closest thing Galactus has ever had to
a friend.
But tragedy strikes; when looking for planets for his master to consume, Lan is killed in
battle with an aggressive alien race.
Galactus manages to retrieve the last bit of his soul and places it into an android
body.
Galactus is dissatisfied though and ditches Lan, returning to the Silver Surfer.
Lan aka Air Walker ends up encountering the Fantastic Four, and is defeated.
Eventually his android remains are found by a villain called Machinesmith.
Eventually Air-Walker is reactivated, and he hunts down the Silver Surfer when, FULL
CIRCLE NOW, he comes across Thor.
The two duke it out, with Air Walker showing himself capable of wielding Mjolnir.
In the end, Thor destroys him.
6 Bor Bor is yet another example of a character
who acted as an antagonist force during his first appearance.
Bor is Thor’s grandfather who is resurrected by Loki, and finds himself in the middle of
Manhattan.
Bor, thanks to a lovely dose of Loki’s manipulative magic, looks around and thinks everything
surrounding him is a threat.
Naturally, he begins to go on a bit of a rampage, believing that he is in a realm full of demons.
Thor then shows up to stop his grandfather, but that doesn’t go as planned; for starters,
Thor doesn’t know he’s his grandfather.
And Bor thinks that Thor is a demon, responsible for killing his son Odin since he can’t
sense him anywhere in the Nine Realms.
Also, Loki’s magic makes Bor see Thor as a demon, to boot, so yeah, doesn’t help
much.
They battle, and when Thor throws his hammer at Bor, Bor catches it and merely tosses it
aside.
Loki ends up telling Balder that Bor is Thor’s grandfather, but by the time Balder gets to
Thor, Thor has killed Bor, and because he’s killed royalty, he must now face punishment;
banishment from Midgard, which was Loki’s whole plan all along.
5 Volstagg One of the most recent Mjolnir wielders comes
from The Mighty Thor issue 20 from 2017.
Heads up friends, mild spoilers here since it’s more recent.
Volstagg, one of the Warriors Three, found himself wielding a version of Mjolnir from
a different part of the Marvel multiverse outside of the 616.
Back when the Ultimate Marvel universe came to an end, it’s iteration of Mjolnir managed
to survive and found itself in the 616 continuity.
But here’s the thing; it wasn’t like its 616 counterpart, and instead was filled with
rage.
A lot of different characters vied for the right to claim it, including the likes of
the Collector and even some of Thanos’ minions.
But Volstagg got It after he was unable to save children from the Queen of Cinders and
her fires.
He lost his crap, went into a rage, and the hammer called to him, causing him to transform
into War Thor, allowing him to pursue a quest of vengeance.
Not necessarily the most villainous of intentions, but still pretty ruthless nonetheless, and
would be fitting of what the 616 hammer would consider worthy.
4 Red Hulk – The Hulk vol 2 issue 5 2008 Red Hulk aka General Thaddeus Thunderbolt
Ross is traditionally the arch nemesis of the Hulk, spawned out of Ross’ obsession
with pursuing the Hulk and hunting him.
And what better way to do that than to get on Banner’s level?
The character would find himself cheating Mjolnir’s enchantments in The Hulk vol 2
issue 5 in 2008 during an early rampage of his when he fought Thor in space.
For context, leading up to this, he also punched the Watcher in the face and stole the Silver
Surfer’s surfboard, so he was clearly in a mood.
While fighting Thor, he managed to beat the Asgardian god by using his hammer against
him, taking advantage of its momentum to drag both himself and thor through space, and used
the lack of gravity in space to swing it.
Thor was like, whoa, unexpected, and never forgot about that incursion, because a handful
of years later, he wouldn’t let Red Hulk get away with another victory.
3 Hela If you haven’t seen Thor Ragnaork, you may
want to skip this number, although, you really, really should watch it, because it’s fantastic.
Anywho, biases aside, let’s talk Hela and her encounter Thor in Thor Ragnarok, where
Thor learns that he and Loki are
her siblings.
2 Magneto – Ultimatium #5 2009 Magneto’s encounter with Mjolnir occurs
in an alternate universe, specifically, in the Ultimate universe, Earth 1610.
Seen in In Ultimatium issue 3 from 2009, the pinnacle story arc of the Ultimate Universe
that fan many fans shocked, disturbed and flat out angry, we see Magneto prove himself
worthy to Mjolnir’s counterpart.
When Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are killed, Magneto loses his cool, and ends up using
her electromagnetism to steal Thor’s hammer from him; something that was made possible
by the villain manipulating the environment around Mjolnir (a trick that never worked
in the 616 universe fyi), which he ten used to reverse Earth’s magnetic poles.
He also kills a bunch of different characters while wielding it.
1 Loki Out of all of the characters who have ever
wielded Mjolnir, hero and villain alike, Loki is one of the only individuals whose had it
in his possession numerous times.
And sure, Loki may be dabbling in anti0hero territory a lot more these days, but he’s
still very much considered one of the best Marvel villains of all time.
Hell, he was the first villain that the assembled Avengers team took on because Thor needed
a hand with his trickster god brother.
There have been three key times when Loki has wielded his brother’s hammer: Loki Agent
of Asgard issue 9, from 2014, Avengers and X-Men AXIS #9 in 2014, and of course, another
instance that occurred in an alternate timeline featured in What If #47 from 1984.
In the AXIS title, Loki found himself using the hammer when he and other characters were
hit with an inversion spell, leading the character to gain the powers of his brother, their roles
now reversed.
He would become a member of the astonishing avengers alongside doctor doom, sabretooth
and magneto.
That story continued in Loki Agent of Asgard, which came out the same year, beginning with,
I quote, “as thor fell from grace, Loki was transformed into a warrior for the side
of right, a hero for the ages.
Loki found himself against his brother, thurst into the role of champion of all things noble.”
And last but not least, What if volume 1 issue 47 from 1984, aka What if loki had found the
hammer of thor?
This one was based on Journey into Mystery issue 83, which was the first comic thor ever
appeared in.
The narrative in this one paints Loki as the to one who lifts Mjolnir first instead of
Thor.
There we have it friends!
What villains would you like to see wield Mjolnir in the future?
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