Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, is definitely one of the most iconic items in the entire Marvel
universe and perhaps its most defining feature is the fact that it can only be wielded by
someone who is worthy of its power, but today, I want to get to the bottom of what exactly
does that mean to be worthy and let’s put an end to this debate once and for all.
As many of you no doubt know, Mjolnir was enchanted by Thor’s father, Odin, the leader
of Asgard.
The spell goes as follows.
“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”
Typically, only men have been able to lift Mjolnir in the main Marvel universe with the
sole exception of Jane Foster.
When she lifted the hammer, the enchantment instantly changed to “Whosoever holds this
hammer, if SHE be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”
So right off the bat, we know that gender is not a factor.
I don’t think anyone was claiming otherwise, but it’s nice that we can at least confirm
this.
Moving on, we have what appears to be the main qualifications.
When Captain America briefly wielded the hammer, Thor claimed that one must be pure of heart
and have a noble mind.
Lots of people speculate that having a noble mind means that the wielder must be of noble
descent or at least have some important title such as CAPTAIN America, but in my opinion,
that just can’t be true.
Just look at Roger “Red” Norvell.
Although he was powered up by Asgardian artifacts, he could lift Mjolnir despite being just a
filmmaker.
Instead, I think that having a noble mind simply means that one must have good intentions
for using Mjolnir’s power.
This would make further sense considering that Loki is able to lift the hammer with
just a simple flip of morality during the Axis event.
Next up, Mjolnir itself said that it deemed Jane Foster worthy because of her strong heart.
Yeah… in this issue, Mjolnir literally took on human form and talked…
Because comics.
Now as crazy as this is, Mjolnir’s dialogue helps debunk a popular theory that I have
seen all over the internet claiming that worthiness is based on what Odin thinks.
Heck, Odin himself wasn’t able to lift the hammer at one point so it’s clear that Mjolnir
has a mind of its own and has its own standards for worthiness.
So let’s break down what Mjolnir said.
“Your heart is stronger than even your thunder, my lady.
That’s what makes you worthy”.
Now, you’d think that having a “noble mind” as mentioned earlier and a “strong
heart” are basically the same thing, but when discussing this with my good buddy, Auram,
he had this to say.
“The heart and mind are infamously separated in fiction.
One of those "My brain says one thing, but my heart says another" type of deals.”
Honestly, I could not agree more.
From what we’ve seen, a worthy candidate must have good intentions through in through,
heart and soul.
There’s also humility that must come with worthiness.
However, it’s safe to say that it wasn’t an initial requirement since Mjolnir was enchanted
before it was given to Thor and he was able to wield it before being banished to Earth
for his lack of humility.
Since then, it’s totally been a must have for all worthy candidates so let’s go ahead
it and include it.
Though it doesn’t matter how well you mean because you’ll need courage to back that
up as was explicitly stated in Thor Vol 2 #11.
Furthermore, it’s pretty clear that someone hoping to wield Mjolnir must have the spirit
of a warrior which would certainly explain why Captain America only seems to be able
to wield the hammer in the heat of battle.
So typically that’s where I would stop, but this is Comic Drake so I try to bring
you the most thorough research possible and I was able to find some interesting information
after delving a bit deeper.
Now this isn’t about Mjolnir specifically, but Thor’s hammer does have a relative in
the form of Stormbreaker.
This hammer is wielded by Beta Ray Bill and was a gift from Odin after Bill defeated Thor
in a battle over who would be Mjolnir’s master.
Like Thor’s hammer, Stormbreaker is forged from Uru metal and was also enchanted with
the same worthiness spell.
In fact, Bill straight up offers Thor his hammer during the Unworthy Thor series after
the God of Thunder was no longer worthy of Mjolnir.
Thor politely declines, stating again that he is not worthy.
This further implies that Stormbreaker’s enchantment is identical to that of Mjolnir’s.
Using that knowledge, we can deduce another qualification of worthiness.
In his miniseries, Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter, Bill is is on a quest to kill the devourer
of worlds, Galactus, after he killed his entire race.
Consumed with revenge, Bill started destroying worlds before Galactus could eat them.
Hoping to starve him out, Bill reasoned that the lives lost in the destruction would be
miniscule in comparison to the amount that Galactus would destroy as he eats.
Because of his actions, Bill was no longer able to lift Stormbreaker.
However, it’s unclear if it was because he was fueled by revenge or if it was for
destroying the planets.
I’ll leave that up to you guys, but I’m leaning more towards revenge because Bill
DID have good intentions, he just went about them in the completely wrong way.
This was everything that I’ve seen explicitly stated in the comics and from what I’ve
been able to infer based on context clues and by consulting with other comic book experts,
but there have been literally decades and decades of comics out there so I’m sure
I missed at least one detail.
So if you know anything that I missed in the mainstream Earth-616 universe, then let me
know politely in the comments down below.
Politely.
And hey, if you liked this video then you might like the one that I did on EVERY single
person who has EVER wielded Mjolnir in the mainstream Earth-616 universe.
It’s actually one of the best videos that I’ve ever done on this channel so you should
give it a watch!
It’s pretty awesome.