The following contains some spoilers for Thor/Shazam, out now from DC and Marvel
“Always Kind of Wondered” is a feature spotlighting instances from comics where a comic book writer has clearly said, “Hey, why doesn’t Character X ever do Action Y?” The sort of things that typically occur when comic book fans grow up to become comic book writers, which wasn’t really a thing until the mid-1960s. Today, we look at whether Captain Marvel and Don Blake could wield Thor’s hammer.
An interesting thing about the concept that only someone “worthy” can wield Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, is that that was not part of the original concept of the character. When Thor debuted, the idea was that the hammer could only be wielded by Thor, so it really didn’t matter whether anyone else was “worthy” or not, as they simply weren’t Thor, so they couldn’t lift it.
Eventually, that idea evolved into it being that other people weren’t “worthy” enough to wield it. However, that was mostly expressed by other characters not being able to lift it because they were not Thor (they couldn’t use its powers if they weren’t Thor).
It wasn’t until 1978’s Avengers Annual #8 (by Roger Slifer, George Perez, Pablo Marcos and Ricardo Villamonte) that worthiness finally factored into things, as Thor is possessed by the villainous Doctor Spectrum and the end result is that Thor, since he was now possessed by someone evil, was no longer worthy of being able to lift the hammer…
Image via Marvel
And thus, that led to the moment that changed everything for Thor comics!
In Thor #337, Walter Simonson’s first issue of his epic run on the title, Thor is alerted by S.H.I.E.L.D. that an alien ship is headed seemingly straight for Earth. Thor goes to check it out, and he is attacked by the ship’s defenses. He tears into the ship, and he discovers Beta Ray Bill, who is there to defend the ship.
Thor and Bill battle, and in the process, Thor loses his hammer. After 60 seconds, Thor turns back into Don Blake, and Bill, shocked at the transformation, still knocks Don out. The ship that crashes on Earth to repair itself. Bill protects himself and Don from the crash. However, once he is on the ground, Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. tell him that he is surrounded.
Bill looks for a weapon, and tries to find the powerful hammer that he was just being attacked with, and instead finds Don Blake’s walking stick. He is frustrated that he can’t find the hammer, so he grabs the stick and smacks the wall in frustration, and suddenly, he is transformed into a version of Thor!
Image via Marvel
Beta Ray Bill, now with Thor’s powers, battles S.H.I.E.L.D. until Odin shows up, and plucks Beta Ray Bill away to Asgard, confusing him for his son. Don Blake, now, is seemingly trapped on Earth without his hammer!
Now, first off, that’s an amazing opening issue, but secondly, think of how ACCEPTED this concept is now, that anyone can use Thor’s hammer if they are “worthy” of it. It was a total game-changer, but then it suddenly became a whole thing of “Okay, so who ELSE is ‘worthy’ of wielding it?”
That especially comes out in major crossovers with other companies, as we see Wonder Woman IS worthy (Superman is trickier, which I’ll write about at some point in the future). Well, in this week’s Marvel/DC: Thor/Shazam! (by writer Al Ewing, artist Jethro Morales, colorist Erick Arciniega, and letterer Joe Sabino), we can add two new characters to the list of people worthy of lifting Thor’s hammer, and one of them is a total surrprise!
Can Captain Marvel wield Thor’s hammer?
Al Ewing’s story is a total delight, and one of the central aspects of the tale is that the magical transformation of Don Blake into Thor has been messed with, as the power of Thor has been stolen, and now Don Blake is stuck being unable to transform into Thor. He is transported to the home of the Wizard (Mamaragan), and he meets the Wizard’s Champion, Captain Marvel.
The Wizard wants to bring Thor back, and since THOR’S magic isn’t working, he figures that they can use Captain Marvel’s instead, and so Captain Marvel says, “Shazam!” and Don Blake is transformed into Thor while Captain Marvel turns back into Billy Batson (since this an alternate way for Blake to become Thor, his hammer remains as a cane).
Okay, so far so good, but then they are attacked by Mister Mind, who has stolen the powers of a number of gods (including Thor) to spell out M-I-S-T-E-R-M-I-N-D and give him a super powerful new body. Thor goes to fight him, but since Billy is vulnerable, he transforms back into Captain Marvel, but that then turns Thor back into Don Blake!
So Billy says “Shazam” again, and Thor is back, but then the big twist – Don Blake can’t transform into Thor via the power of the cane, but BILLY BATSON can! So Billy uses the cane to transform back into Captain Marvel, and sure enough, Captain Marvel can wield the power of Thor!
So they then defeat Mister Mind together.
Can Don Blake wield Thor’s hammer?
Okay, so we established that Shazam’s magic is being used to turn Thor back and forth, so that was used to bring Thor back to being Don Blake. However, since Billy used the cane to turn into Captain Marvel (and the cane into Mjolnir), that means, for a moment, that Don Blake now exists at the same time as the hammer, which is not something that he normally can ever do.
So Blake uses this opportunity to see if he can wield Mjolnir just as Don Blake, and not just transform himself into Thor, and, sure enough, he CAN (this makes perfect sense, of course, but it’s still cool)!
This was such a fun crossover event.
If anyone else has a suggestion, feel free to suggest other instances of “Always Kind of Wondered” to me at brianc@cbr.com!