There have been several iterations of Thor, but not all Tey’s are made equal. The Best Thor of them all, Shortpedia Voices, announces definitively!
“That is the inscription engraved on the side of Mjolnir, the mystical Asgardian weapon of choice for the mighty God of Thunder.” Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor. However, as we have seen numerous times before, being merely deserving of wielding the hammer does not actually make you Thor. After all, everyone will raise Mjolnir from Vision (seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron) to Captain America in Endgame (such as the Hydra version seen in the latest crossover, the Secret Empire) and even Squirrel Girl.
If this isn’t a hammer, so what makes Thor somebody? Oh, we know that more than one deserving individual should be there, and that goes above the Odinson that we perceive from comics and film. We will soon also find out what it means to be Thor in the movies without Mjolnir, as Hela quickly breaks the hammer in the movie Thor: Ragnarok. Here, Shortpedia Voices looks at certain characters considered to be deserving of Thor’s powers and mantle. Not just that, we rate them from the lowest to the strongest to decide who is the best, most powerful iteration of the Mighty Thor, once and for all!
YOUNG THOR
The Odinson that we know and love was not always capable of wielding the hammer; it was essential to gain that kind of Godly duty. No, in his prime, there was a time when the man they would come to call Thor was just a headstrong, proud, swaggering child learning what it meant to be a God (sometimes when the hard way).
In Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic’s early Thor: God of Thunder, we see the young, pre-worthy Thor, where the past, current, and future iterations of the God of Thunder work together just to fight Gorr, the Butcher God. Before that, we know of the young Thor with Loki’s childhood, where his flamboyant personality and his father Odin’s respect would breed disdain for his adopted sibling. While he is the weakest version of Thor, the early aspects of what would make him the God of Thunder are still on show.
UNWORTHY THOR
Moving from a time when he was worthy to a time after the honor was stripped down, Odinson lost Thor’s title in modern Marvel continuity. Nick Fury disclosed a single, hidden reality to Thor as throughout Original Sin plot in a single instant, in a single sound, and with that eureka moment understood, the Odinson found himself incapable of raising the mighty Mjolnir.
It took almost three years to uncover precisely what Odinson was told to make him feel he wasn’t capable. Still, since then, he’s been on a self-discovery roller coaster, and the time is right for a search to reclaim what he feels is rightly his hen. He’s already a fearsome character, wielding the legendary Asgardian axe Jarnbjorn, though nowhere near the strongest version of Thor.
THROG: OF THUNDER’S FROG
Strangely, there have been many versions of the Frog with Thor’s abilities! The first appeared in the pioneering run on Thor by Walt Simonson. The God of Thunder itself was turned into a frog, joining forces against rodents with Puddlegulp and King Glugwort in a bitter battle. Yep, it’s happened.
In a comic called Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers, after this adventure, it is discovered that Puddlegulp was once a person named Simon Walterson, converted by a witch’s spell into a frog. Then a sliver of Mjolnir occurs, and Puddlegulp becomes Throg: Thunder’s Frog!
From there, in retrieving all the fabled Infinity Stones, he meets Lockjaw and the rest of the Pet Avengers. He’s no higher on the list because, yeah, he’s a Frog, but we figure that a deserving frog is much better than an unworthy Odinson!
RED NORVELL
Roger Norvell (known to his buddies as Red) was part of a film crew hoping to chronicle the Asgardians’ real lives, but Loki jumped in to help when they were shunned by Thor. You know that your personal path is going to take an unexpected turn if Loki tries to help, right? As an unsuspecting pawn of Loki and Hela’s attempts to bring on Ragnarok, Red is lured into Asgard. Still, once there, he becomes madly in love with Lady Sif.
Loki, acting on this turn of events, sends Red on trial to obtain Thor’s powers and win Sif’s attention theoretically. Meanwhile, Odin was informed of his adopted son’s machinations and planned to endow another with the forces of Thor in case Odinson was repealed during Ragnarok, as was foretold. These two conditions coalesced, and, thus, Red Norvell became the new God of Thunder for a brief time.
RAGNAROK
Thor was out of the scene during the first super-human civil war. Odinson is not around to take sides in the controversy around the notorious Superhuman Registration Act, actively working through the Asgardian Ragnarok’s death period. Tony Stark and Reed Richards weren’t willing to let a little thing like mortality stand in their way, either!
Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man could send their new God of Thunder into battle by creating a replica version of Thor. Project Lightning, later called Ragnarok (or Clor, for Clone Thor), was deemed a triumph and was almost as powerful as the real thing. So much so, really, that it was capable of overpowering and killing Goliath, a giant-sized hero.
The clone was later discovered to have been experimented on by Hank Pym’s Skrull imposter, which may help account for his insane, murderous tendencies.
2099 THOR
There’s a whole Church of Thor in Marvel 2099, and in New York, Pastor Cecil MacAdam heads a flock of Thorites. Driven to believe that he might become the hero of his religious convictions, MacAdam takes an offer from Alchemax’s evil head—Avatar—to become the next Thor and help Avatar battle the new wave of heroes entering the region.
Thor 2099 battles against the recently created X-Men and the 2099 iterations of Doom, Spider-Man, and Punisher, imbued with Godlike abilities from a hammer identical Mjolnir. Spider-Man kicks away Mjolnir, the principal root of Macadam’s forces, in a climate war. Unable to give up Thor’s helm too quickly, he pursues the hammer when it is tossed into the heart of Valhalla, a floating capital. In the blast, the city is devastated, and the Thor of 2099 is apparently killed.
Also Read, Best Iron Man armors: One might put Thor to shame
ULTIMATE THOR
The Thor of Marvel Universe 1610 is much dark and more complicated than his regular 616 counterparts, much like many of the Ultimate Universe. In this World, the radical theorist and social revolutionary Thorlief Golden, after experiencing a psychotic breakdown and spending over a year in a mental hospital, appears to be the reincarnated incarnation of the Norse God of Thunder.
His statements had a lot of initial doubt, but he turned out to be the real thing. However, at first, he declined Nick Fury’s invitation to join the Ultimates, since the Avengers version of the World is even more militarised. He only agrees to participate if the President doubles the international assistance spending by raising it. In total, he is a slower version of Thor’s 616, and his forces are even more fragile. At one point, Magneto also robs Mjolnir, which he uses to bring in the genuinely catastrophic Ultimatum case.
WAR THOR
In both Asgard and Midgard, the newest Thor on our list, the Battle Thor, aka the All-New, Supreme Thor, results from massive strife and upheaval. The War Thor is the shattered, jaded and furious alter-ego of none other than Volstagg, a long-time friend of the God of Thunder and a previously jolly member of the Warriors Three, wielding the weapon of the prominent Ultimate Thor.
Today, the Battle between Realms is raging around the cosmos. Volstagg was Asgard’s senator, serving on Svartalfheim with the displaced children of the destroyed Alfheim domain. However, when the battle arrives, and all the children are slaughtered, Volstagg gathers up Ultimate Mjolnir in his sorrow and takes on Thor’s War’s mantle. Time will say if he will be worthy or if he will be overcome by his suffering.
Also Read, All the characters who wielded Thor’s Hammer, Mjolnir
THOR ODINSON
From the original. Odin’s son. Loki’s brother. Thunder’s God. Thor the Mighty. Thor Odinson has possessed Mjolnir since Journey Into Mystery #83 back in 1962, competing for his homeland of Asgard and his adoptive home of Midgard (aka Earth). In both the comics and the movies, he was a founding Avenger and is a consistent example of the finest that Marvel has to deliver.
Of late, his fortunes were not that fantastic (see Unworthy Thor from the list earlier). Still, rebirth is not that far away with Marvel Legacy, just around the corner. His reputation is about to soar yet again with Thor: Ragnarok on the horizon, and he almost got it to the top of the chart. Who could probably be a better Thor than Thor himself, after all?
OLD KING THOR
This really is the greatest Thor, overcoming the destruction of Asgard, of all the other Gods, of the Earth and the sky, beating Galactus, slaying Gorr, the Butcher of God. King Thor is a God above all else, an inheritor of the Odin-Force (naturally called the Thor-Force), dubbed The Destroyer and seated on the throne of Asgard as the last All-Father.
He has lost an eye and an arm, but King Thor is not at all a hero (gaining a destroyer’s arm and an excellent eye patch in the process).
It takes the combined strength of King Thor, Young Thor, and Thor Odinson to beat the God Butcher, introduced in the previously mentioned Thor: God of Thunder, but when they do, King Thor claims the sword of Gorr for his own, making the old God much more powerful, and easily the strongest of all version of Thors.
OLD KING PHOENIX THOR
Old King Phoenix Thor, by far, is the most potent Thor in the current Marvel Multiverse. At the end of time, the last heroes are Thor and Wolverine in this iteration of the character, with Wolverine being the host of the Phoenix Force. Finally, after trouncing Thor, he is persuaded to help defend the World once again as Doom, with the strength of nearly all the heroes of the Earth, returns.
THOR HERALD OF GALACTUS
This is easily the most awesome power-up Thor has ever received. He was never exactly a weak man, but now he has all the strength of the God of Thunder; wields a magical hammer holding a tempest of God that can kill all star systems; the power of the All-Father themselves has been granted; and even wields the Celestial Power, meaning he ought to have all the abilities of every other Galactus Herald. Formally, he is the best Avenger, the most powerful deity in all of Marvel’s Pantheons, and the strongest Herald ever to represent Galactus.
What are you thinking? Have we skipped any variants of Thor that were meant to be on the list? In the below, let us see!
