We’ve wanted to know why Odinson has become the ‘Unworthy Thor‘ for quite some time now and in issue #5 of the series we finally see why he can no longer wield Mjolnir. Not only that, but quite a bit more happened in the book that will lay the groundwork for his upcoming return as the ‘Mighty Thor!’ While we’ve seen Odinson boozing and living in a depressed stupor after Nick Fury whispered a secret to him that caused him to no longer hold the hammer that made him the God he wanted to be, we’re finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
It isn’t every day where you see a God fall from grace and eventually find a path towards redemption. Honestly, what initially felt like a gimmick just to give us the new Jane Foster version of Thor has made Odinson a more compelling character.
Entertainingly enough in this issue, we saw Odinson throw down against Thanos’s minions, win, and that wasn’t even close to the most interesting aspects of the issue.
So what has Aaron had in mind for the entirety of this arc?
“Everything I’ve done over the last few years with making Thor Odinson unworthy and bringing Jane Foster in was about telling a very specific story with her and with a different sort of Thor. But I also wanted to give Thor Odinson his own journey, so I wouldn’t just push him aside. I like the idea of watching him wrestle with his unworthiness and seeing how that changes him, how it makes him a very different sort of character. I think this [limited series] gave us the biggest version of that kind of story that we’ve done. We’ve seen a darker, angrier, very different kind of Thor Odinson.”
Thor lost his hammer back during the “Original Sin” story arc from 2014 when Nick Fury whispered three words to him. We haven’t known what they were since it happened and now we do: “Gorr was right.” For those who were unfamiliar with the book before that, we saw that Gorr the God Butcher was a creature turned God who felt that no God was worthy and had some solid reasons to back up his claims. It looks like Odinson had been harboring doubts about his worthiness since the event and this is what finally crushed him.
Aaron explains:
“The idea with this mystery stretches back to the beginning of my run on Thor. We still see the effects that Thor’s battle with Gorr the God Butcher had on him, and the overall meaning of what Gorr did and why. I think as long as I’m guiding Thor’s ship, that idea of worthiness and what it means to be a god in the Marvel Universe will remain prominent themes. And I think this reveal shows that these questions still plague Thor Odinson, and I don’t expect that to go away anytime soon.
While we won’t see Odinson wielding Mjolnir again for quite some time we did see that the hammer which belonged to Ultimate Thor had been able to remain through the events of the “Secret Wars” and it will be coming to play in a big way in the 616 Universe rather quickly. Odinson decided to pass on raising it after a quick use but said that it would call to someone else, and it did.
I suspect that someone else will not be the hero we’re used to as the hammer:
will have its own big arc, when someone else comes along and picks up the hammer, and gets transformed by it in a different way. This hammer is a little different in that it’s a relic from a dead universe, a holdover from the Ultimate Universe that somehow survived through the events of Secret Wars. The exact nature of that hammer, how it differs from the hammer of Thor in the mainstream Marvel Universe, how it affects someone who wields it, we’ll answer those questions in the pages of MIGHTY THOR.”
Honestly, we’ve had a great build up of Thor turning over a new leaf, learning to be a God again on his own terms, and a hint at a new villain for him to go up against. The ‘Unworthy Thor’ story arc was a much better one than I would have initially given it credit for and Aaron has made me glad that I stuck through it and can’t wait to find out what happens next.
Do you feel that Fury’s three words were enough to make Thor unworthy? Who do you think might be the new holder of the Ultimate Mjolnir? Will you be checking out the ‘Mighty Thor’ when it released? Share your thoughts below True Believers!
Source: Marvel
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
