Mjolnir

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW! If you somehow missed all the trailers for ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and haven’t seen the movie yet, do not read ahead!

Well, that appears to be it for Mjolnir, meeting its ultimate fate in the hands of Hela early on in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ when she caught Thor’s beloved Hammer when it was thrown at her, and in the words of Loki, shattered it “like glass.” It is a sad moment for Thor and fans of the franchise, as the hammer of Thor has long been a symbol of the man’s power and has held a special place in everyone’s heart not only for the fun of trying to say its name but also for its reliability, being known for ALWAYS returning to Thor’s hand, no matter what. Hence why Marvel released the following “In Memoriam” video for Mjolnir which Chris Hemsworth posted to his Twitter account, allowing us all to have a bit of closure with the beloved instrument of the God of Thunder:

 

Of course the video shows a lot of the best moments of Mjolnir from its history in the MCU, ending with Thor’s speech about his lost hammer which occurs in ‘Ragnarok,’ and ends with a hilarious outtake from the movie (which I am pretty sure is an outtake as I do not remember seeing it in theaters) of Thor with an actual hammer, testing it out before throwing it just the way he would have done with Mjolnir. On a more serious note, it is great to see something permanent and lasting get destroyed/ die in the MCU. Up to this point there truly has not been much in the way of stakes in the cinematic world Marvel has built, especially in terms of major character deaths.

The fact that we can all be so sad over the loss of a HAMMER is all the evidence we need of that, it is the first major death in the MCU (meaning a loss of something that has been in multiple movies (sorry Quicksilver), is permanent (sorry Agent Coulson, but you lived on in ‘Agents of SHIELD’) and is well-known and beloved), and it is not even a real person. We will miss you Mjolnir, but hopefully, Thor will find a replacement weapon which will be a worthy successor.