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...
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00:00The Mighty Thor is virtually synonymous with his thundering warhammer, but unfortunately
00:05for him, Mjolnir didn't make it through Thor Ragnarok intact.
00:09The good news?
00:10In Avengers Infinity War, Thor gets his godly hands on an even more powerful weapon, Stormbreaker.
00:16If you're curious about its mythological roots and its cosmic comic book origins, here's
00:21the truth behind Thor's new hammer.
00:24The Norse arsenal
00:26Norse mythology is full of magical weaponry, so it's probably not surprising that Stormbreaker
00:31isn't the only other tool wielded by the god of thunder.
00:34In fact, Thor rolled into battle strapped with more magical weapons than anyone, including
00:39Tyr, the god of war.
00:40Mjolnir is the most important, but if you're only familiar with it from the comics and
00:44movies, it might surprise you that the whole thing about being worthy was never actually
00:48part of the original myths.
00:50Instead, Thor was the only one who could heft the hammer simply because it was really, really
00:55heavy, to the point where he even needed special equipment to lift it.
00:58The Megingjord was a magic belt that doubled Thor's already considerable strength, and
01:03the Jarngrepir, or Iron Grippers, were gauntlets that allowed him to control Mjolnir, despite
01:08its heavy weight and unbalanced handle.
01:10It's worth noting that the Megingjord actually does exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
01:14When Happy Hogan is clearing out Avengers Tower in Spider-Man Homecoming, he mentions
01:18it as one of the items that's boxed up for transport.
01:21"...and the Meging...the Meg...the...Thor's magic belt."
01:26Beta Ray Bill
01:27Unlike Mjolnir, Stormbreaker doesn't have its origins in classic mythology.
01:31Instead, it's pure Marvel Comics, where it belongs to another character, Beta Ray Bill.
01:36When legendary creator Walt Simonson arrived on the book in 1983, the first thing he did
01:41was tell a story about what would happen if someone else was worthy enough to heft Thor's
01:46hammer.
01:47That someone was a super-powered alien.
01:49Beta Ray Bill was chosen to defend his people as they traveled through space as refugees,
01:53and fought Thor to a stalemate due to a misunderstanding.
01:56During the fight, his noble heart allowed him to lift the hammer and take the power
02:00himself.
02:01Once Odin found out that someone else had taken his son's power, his response was to
02:05demand that Thor and Bill fight each other to the death in the fiery realm of Skartheim.
02:10Not exactly the best example of parenting, especially since Bill won that one, too.
02:15Instead of fighting to the death, though, Bill rescued Thor and brought him back to
02:18Asgard, a test of his worthiness that was Odin's plan all along.
02:22To reward Bill, Odin convinced Eitri and the dwarves of Nidavellir to craft a second hammer,
02:27Stormbreaker.
02:28It gave Bill all of Thor's powers, and with that, Thor and Bill became oath brothers and
02:32allies.
02:33While he hasn't really appeared in person, we do know that Bill, or at least someone
02:36who looks an awful lot like him, does exist in the MCU.
02:40In Thor Ragnarok, you can briefly spot a sculpture of Bill's head at the Grandmaster's gladiator's
02:45gladiatorial arena, along with a villain called the Bi-Beast.
02:48No, really.
02:49The Mace, the Storm, and the Frogly
02:52Beyond Stormbreaker, there are a couple of other Asgardian weapons of note in the Marvel
02:56universe.
02:57The most prominent is probably Thunderstrike's mace, Thunderstrike.
03:01And yes, the dude and the weapon both have the same name.
03:04It turns out Erik Masterson is not an exceptionally creative superhero.
03:08He was bonded with Thor for two years in the 90s, and when they were separated, Odin gifted
03:12him a magical mace he could use to continue fighting evil.
03:15It's functionally identical to Mjolnir, but with one major difference.
03:18Its inscription reads,
03:19"...the world still needs heroes."
03:21Drop that one on your opponents next time you get in some Marvel Comics trivia.
03:25There's also Stormcaster, a hammer that Loki once gave to Storm of the X-Men, in yet another
03:29attempt to cause trouble for Thor.
03:31Considering that Storm can already call down lightning to obliterate whatever she chooses,
03:35and that she's already been worshipped as a goddess on Earth, this seems a little excessive.
03:40That might be why she didn't keep it.
03:41The Marvel Universe's weirdest hammer, however, comes from a story where Loki turned Thor
03:46into a frog.
03:47When he recovered his hammer, Thor struck it on the ground and transformed into a six-foot,
03:52six-inch frog with a helmet and a magic hammer, because comics are great.
03:57Several years later, another frog, who had once been human, was revealed to have hefted
04:01a sliver of uru that broke off of Mjolnir in that story, transforming himself into the
04:05tiny Frog of Thunder, Throg.
04:08Jarnbjorn the Iron Bear
04:10Thor wasn't always worthy enough to lift Mjolnir, and during his centuries as a hot-headed,
04:15arrogant brawler, he had another weapon of choice when it was time to go bust up some
04:18frost giants, an axe named Jarnbjorn.
04:21Norwegian for Iron Bear, the name is fitting.
04:24It's a weapon that's almost as tough as Mjolnir.
04:27And it's a good thing, too.
04:28When Thor doubted his own worthiness and found himself unable to lift it, Mjolnir found a
04:32new wielder in the form of a mysterious female Thor.
04:35The Odinson took up Jarnbjorn once again, because to a man without a hammer, every problem
04:40looks like you could probably solve it with an axe.
04:43Ultimate Mjolnir
04:44In terms of visuals, the MCU's version of Stormbreaker doesn't quite resemble Beta Ray
04:49Bill's hammer, although it has the same basic shape.
04:51And they call it an axe, but whatever.
04:54Same difference.
04:55Anyway, it bears a striking resemblance to the version of Mjolnir carried by Thor of
04:59the Ultimate Universe.
05:00If you're not familiar with it, Ultimate Marvel was a publishing imprint that kicked off in
05:042000 with a more cinematic style, but the characters didn't take long to diverge pretty
05:08wildly from their core universe counterparts.
05:11With Thor, readers were initially meant to be unsure of whether he was a mythical god
05:15brought to Earth or a delusional but extremely handsome mental patient.
05:19Either way, his suit and hammer were technological, not magical, at first.
05:23Eventually, his godhood was confirmed, and it was revealed that the techno-Mjolnir he
05:27carried was designed to look like his memories of his actual godly hammer.
05:31The Ultimate Universe was eventually destroyed, but the hammer found its way to the core Marvel
05:35universe, where it wound up in the hands of the extremely unlikely Volstagg the Voluminous,
05:40who was transformed into War Thor.
05:43The cinematic stormbreaker
05:45Thor's quest for a new hammer is a major plot point in Infinity War, and it lifts a lot
05:49from the comics.
05:50In this version, Nidavellir is a forge in space, orbiting a dying star, and the hammer
05:55forged by Eitri is basically an upgraded version of Mjolnir.
05:58In addition to the usual flying and smashing, it also gives Thor the ability to control
06:02the Bifrost, which was previously a property of only Heimdall's sword.
06:06There's one more really cool thing about the MCU's stormbreaker, though.
06:09In a representation of the disparate parts of the MCU coming together for Infinity War,
06:14the hammer is literally built from pieces of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
06:18While the heads were forged from Uru and Nidavellir, they were joined by a handle that was made
06:22from Groot's arm, bringing everything together.