The Mighty Thor is virtually synonymous with
his thundering warhammer, but unfortunately for him, Mjolnir didn’t make it through
Thor: Ragnarok intact. The good news? In Avengers: Infinity War, Thor gets his godly
hands on an even more powerful weapon: Stormbreaker. If you’re curious about its mythological
roots and its cosmic comic book origins, here's the truth behind Thor's new hammer. The Norse arsenal Norse mythology is full of magical weaponry,
so it's probably not surprising that Stormbreaker isn't the only other tool wielded by the God
of Thunder. In fact, Thor rolled into battle strapped
with more magical weapons than anyone — including Tyr, the god of war. Mjolnir is the most important, but if you're
only familiar with it from the comics and movies, it might surprise you that the whole
thing about being worthy was never actually part of the original myths.
Instead, Thor was the only one who could heft
the hammer simply because it was really, really heavy, to the point where even he needed special
equipment to lift it. The Megingjörð was a magic belt that doubled
Thor's already considerable strength, and the Járngreipr, or "iron grippers," were
gauntlets that allowed him to control Mjolnir despite its heavy weight and unbalanced handle. It's worth noting that the Megingjörð actually
does exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When Happy Hogan is clearing out Avengers
Tower in Spider-Man: Homecoming, he mentions it as one of the items that's boxed up for
transport. “The meging… Thor’s magic belt.”' Beta Ray Bill Unlike Mjolnir, Stormbreaker doesn't have
its origins in classic mythology. Instead, it's pure Marvel Comics, where it
belongs to another character: Beta Ray Bill. When legendary creator Walt Simonson arrived
on the book in 1983, the first thing he did was tell a story about what would happen if
someone else was worthy enough to heft Thor's hammer. That someone was a super-powered alien. Beta Ray Bill was chosen to defend his people
as they traveled through space as refugees, and fought Thor to a stalemate due to a misunderstanding.
During the fight, his noble heart allowed
him to lift the hammer and take the power himself. Once Odin found out that someone else had
taken his son's power, his response was to demand that Thor and Bill fight each other
to the death in the fiery realm of Skartheim. Not exactly the best example of parenting,
especially since Bill won that one, too. Instead of fighting to the death, though,
Bill rescued Thor and brought him back to Asgard, a test of his worthiness that was
Odin’s plan all along. To reward Bill, Odin convinced Eitri and the
dwarves of Nidavellir to craft a second hammer: Stormbreaker. It gave Bill all of Thor's powers, and with
that, Thor and Bill became "oath brothers” and allies. While he hasn't really appeared in person,
we do known that Bill, or at least someone who looks an awful lot like him, does exist
in the MCU.
In Thor: Ragnarok, you can briefly spot a
sculpture of Bill's head at the Grandmaster's gladiatorial arena, along with a villain called
the Bi-Beast. No, really. The Mace, the Storm, and the Frogly Beyond Stormbreaker, there are a couple of
other Asgardian weapons of note in the Marvel Universe. The most prominent is probably Thunderstrike's
mace, Thunderstrike, and yes: the dude and the weapon both have the same name. It turns out Eric Masterson is not an exceptionally
creative superhero. He was bonded with Thor for two years in the
‘90s, and when they were separated, Odin gifted him a magical mace he could use to
continue fighting evil. It’s functionally identical to Mjolnir,
but with one major difference: its inscription reads "The World Still Needs Heroes." Drop that one on your opponents next time
you get in some Marvel Comics trivia.
There’s also Stormcaster, a hammer that
Loki once gave to Storm of the X-Men in yet another attempt to cause trouble for Thor. Considering that Storm can already call down
lightning to obliterate whatever she chooses, and that she's already been worshipped as
a goddess on Earth, this seems a little excessive. That might be why she didn’t keep it.
The Marvel Universe's weirdest hammer, however,
comes from a story where Loki turned Thor into a frog. When he recovered his hammer, Thor struck
it on the ground and transformed into… a six-foot, six-inch frog with a helmet and
a magic hammer, because comics are great. Several years later, another frog who had
once been human was revealed to have hefted a sliver of uru that broke off of Mjolnir
in that story, transforming himself into the tiny Frog of Thunder, Throg. Jarnbjorn, the Iron Bear Thor wasn't always worthy enough to lift Mjolnir,
and during his centuries as a hot-headed, arrogant brawler, he had another weapon of
choice when it was time to go bust up some frost giants: an axe named Jarnbjorn. Norwegian for “Iron Bear,” the name is
fitting – it's a weapon that's almost as tough as Mjolnir. And it's a good thing, too. When Thor doubted his own worthiness and found
himself unable to lift it, Mjolnir found a new wielder in the form of a mysterious female
Thor.
The Odinson took up Jarnbjorn once again,
because to a man without a hammer, every problem looks like you could probably solve it with
an axe. Ultimate Mjolnir In terms of visuals, the MCU's version of
Stormbreaker doesn't quite resemble Beta Ray Bill's hammer, although it has the same basic
shape. And they call it an axe but whatever… same
difference. Anyway, it bears a striking resemblance to
the version of Mjolnir carried by the Thor of the Ultimate Universe. If you're not familiar with it, Ultimate Marvel
was a publishing imprint that kicked off in 2000 with a more cinematic style, but the
characters didn't take long to diverge pretty wildly from their core-universe counterparts. With Thor, readers were initially meant to
be unsure of whether he was a mythical god brought to Earth or a delusional but extremely
handsome mental patient.
Either way, his suit and hammer were technological,
not magical… at first. Eventually, his godhood was confirmed, and
it was revealed that the techno-Mjolnir he'd carried was designed to look like his memories
of his actual godly hammer. The Ultimate Universe was eventually destroyed,
but the hammer found its way to the core Marvel Universe, where it wound up in the hands of
the extremely unlikely Volstagg the Voluminous, who was transformed into "War Thor." The cinematic Stormbreaker Thor's quest for a new hammer is a major plot
point in Infinity War, and it lifts a lot from the comics.
In this version, Nidavellir is a forge in
space orbiting a dying star, and the hammer forged by Eitri is basically an upgraded version
of Mjolnir. In addition to the usual flying and smashing,
it also gives Thor the ability to control the Bifrost, which was previously a property
of only Heimdall's sword. There's one more really cool thing about the
MCU's Stormbreaker, though. In a representation of the disparate parts
of the MCU coming together for Infinity War, the hammer is literally built from pieces
of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy. While the heads were forged from uru in Nidavellir,
they were joined by a handle that was made from Groot's arm, bringing everything together.
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