(All Images Belong to Marvel Comics)
Glad tidings to you, and welcome to my little slice of the Rainbow Bridge! It’s good of you to find time in your quarantine to join me yet again as I obsess, digress and impress upon you the importance and magnificence of fictional weapons that were wielded by Thor, the Mighty God of Thunder. Pay no mind to the fact that Thor only technically wielded many of these weapons for maybe ten panels.
Total.
In over 50 years of Thor comic book history.
Anyway, let’s pay some mind to issue #10!
Thor needs more hammers!
See? I’m not pulling your leg when I make grandiose statements like that. It’s for serious! Of course, with Mjolnir out of action, Thor needs a lot of hammers to even try and carry a fraction of the smiting output that his old mallet could do in it’s sleep. But keeping up with demand of that pulverizing caliber has left the dwarven smiths helping out Thor a bit… tuckered out.
It has been a task saturated time for our Norse thunder dude, and in this issue he finally gets to take a second and have a nice, rational, and heart-warming conversation with his dad Odin. They talk clearly and respectfully to each other and this issue is very quiet and I’m going to stop here, because nothing happens…
I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU BOUGHT THAT.
The look on your face! Ha!
Naw, they talk. But mostly through Morse code, using hammers to tap-tap-tap out their thoughts and feelings right on each other’s faces. Turns out, old people are not good at expressing their feelings in healthy and constructive ways. Add a couple thousand years and a lot of bad and incredibly violent habits have set in. And this fight is on Thor too. He is his father’s son, so that temper is genetic and probably covered by insurance as an “Act of God.”
So Odin makes a clear statement.
To which Thor makes a counter argument.
As upsetting as this thunderous destruction of a father/son relationship is, I of course am heartbroken at the annihilation of hammers these two hard-headed Asgardians wreak upon Thor’s armory.
You brutes! You awful brutes!
On this upsetting note, I shall now tell the stories of some of the shortest-lived hammers in Thor’s rapidly dwindling arsenal.
For shame, Thor… For shame.
Name of Hammer: “The Point of Contention”
Cause of Destruction: Classic hammer-on-hammer crime.
Story: “I am tired of saying the word ‘hammer,’” said Isiran, a royal paige of Asgard. He was complaining to the guard accompanying him for yet another delivery of hammers to Odin. Isiran was pushing a cart full of hammers fresh from the forges of Nidavellir.
“We do as the All-Father commands,” answered the guard, Fjuld, “And the All-Father has decreed that we must make hamm-”
“Stop! Please!” begged Isiran, “Just say any. Other word. Please.”
Fjuld seemed perplexed for a moment, before speaking “The All-Father has decreed that me must make… mallets for Prince Thor to wage war. If Thor were to wield any weapon other than a h-… a particularly shaped bludgeon… would shake the confidence of the Nine Realms. The people like it when he smashes enemies with a… club? Cudgel? Nay, that’s not…”
Isiran interrupted Fjuld “Thank you, you can stop! Avoiding the word is just bringing more attention to it. It’s infuriating!”
Isiran lifted a… smashing device from the cart.
Fjuld reached out immediately to try and wrench the… gavel… out of Isiran’s hand. “Those are for the All-Father-!”
Both Isiran and Fjuld stared at the weapon in their shared grasp in wonder.
“Are we…?” began Isiran, “Are we worthy?”
Fjuld and Isiran stood in shocked silence for a moment. Fjuld was the first to break the quiet. “Uh…”
“They haven’t been enchanted yet,” stated a crestfallen Isiran.
“Nay,” confirmed an equally dejected Fjuld.
Both Asgardians set the… to hell with it! They set the HAMMER down on the cart.
“Can we make an oath to each other to never let anyone know that happened?” asked Isiran.
“Aye,” agreed Fjuld.
Both men looked quietly at the cart of hammers.
“WHERE IN HEL ARE MY HAMMERS?!” shouted Odin, from his antechamber. Both Isiran and Fjuld nearly jumped out of their skins.
“Coming, my lord!” replied Isiran.
“At once, All-Father!” answered Fjuld, “We have your… smiting implements!”
“My WHAT?!”
———-
And there you have it. A little taste of life in Asgard. The Point of Contention went on to have a storied history…
Oh right… Thanks a lot guys. Let’s roll on to the next hammer that was showcased in this issue.
Name of Hammer: “Ugly Cuss”
Cause of Destruction: A mean swing.
Story: Moldcrust the Dwarf was at a loss. He’d been trying to fold the enchanted stone (he would never call this sad offshoot of metal “uru”) into the right layers for 30 hours now. He felt like he had been using his own head as the anvil. Exhausted and dejected, he brought the half-finished weapon to the only dwarf who could hope to salvage this pathetic excuse for smithing work… his mother, Tinshine. As his mother examined the lump of metal, Moldcrust felt a sudden shock of shame go through him. How could he have brought this hideous mistake to her? She would look at it and see the exact representation of all his lack of talent. He could almost hear her scoffing at him. Could almost see her throwing the wretched failure into the smelting pit.
“Huh. Keep at it. Another 10 hours oughta smack some decency into the bugger,” said Tinshine, interrupting Moldcrust’s self-flagellation.
“…what?” exclaimed Moldcrust, exhaustion making him blink his bushy brows.
“This is pure Jotun iron,” stated Tinshine. “Piece like this ugly cuss would took me up to three days to shape it. How long you been fighting it?”
“Bout a day…” answered a mystified Moldcrust.
“That all?! Haha, aw Moldy there ya go, making ya ma so proud of ya,” said Tinshine happily. “…Moldy? Why you got that odd look on your face?”
“Nothing, ma, I just…” Moldcust’s face broke into a smile, “You… you know exactly how to fix things.”
“T’weren’t broken!” laughed Tinshine, “But as for those fool thoughts in your lopsided noggin, I can only hope to make a fix that could hold up. But you’d just worry it into dust. Now get back to work, Moldy!”
“Aye, ma, right away!” Moldcrust exclaimed. He waved at his mother with his new favorite hammer, and as he walked away he fondly thought upon the ways he would beat the lump of metal into a semblance of quality.
Nine hours later, he looked at the finished hammer, grunted, threw it onto the growing pile of hammers, and grabbed for a hunk of Svartalfheim rot iron. Time to get to work on yet another hammer…
———–
And so this hammer would go on to…
…right.
So father and son went on to break my heart. And each other’s jaws.
Baldur would eventually show up to break up the fight. Odin… was sleepy. While Thor wanted to wash his hands of it all. A tragic end to a not-at-all traumatic issue of Thor. Traumatic for the broken relationship… but mostly for the broken hammers.
RIP little smiters.
That brings this blog to close until next time! I swear it’s not as much as a bummer.