Thor
Character » Thor appears in 8599 issues.
Thor Odinson is the All-father of Asgard /God of Thunder, offspring of All-Father Odin & Elder-Goddess Gaea. Combining the powers of both realms makes him an elder-god hybrid and a being of no perceivable limits. Armed with his enchanted Uru hammer Mjolnir which helps him to channel his godly energies. The mightiest and the most beloved warrior in all of Asgard, a staunch ally for good and one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse/omniverse. Thor is also a founding member of the Avengers.
Why does everyone think Thor cannot fight....
The Hammer is Odin's. Odin gave it to Thor, becuase the handle was too short, it was supposed to be longer. After Thor owned the hammer and showed his ability and the usefulness of the hammer is when Odin put the inscripton and incantation on the hammer. Anyone who is worthy can use it. And yes it is heavy, how is something that size not going to be heavy? Thor is 6'6 625lbs The hammer weighs in the range of 25-50lbs. Thor is also a trained warroir. See you want us to accept what Dc says about Wonder Woman, and disregard what Marvel has said about Thor. And in the current storyline where Thor and the Sentry fight, show the entire scan. That is where the first puch happens, but it's a sucker punch. Thor was about to take on Norman Osbourne in his Iron Patriot armour, and the Sentry ambushed him. ..If you are not going to read the whole story don't try to use it in your arguments. Prometheus took out Batman like that, but everyone knows Prometheus can't beat Batman straight up. Also I agree with Mattbryce2000, do you really think during all that time Thor has taken the time to improve his battle skill? But you can believe what you want.
Personally, while I believe Thor is a capable fighter (and I am putting that lightly), comics often merge vikings and berserkers as a whole in to one single group when they were in fact two different (but closely associated) groups which diminishes the need for the skill factor. As a result the only Norse-esque villains Thor fights aall have the "Hulk Smash" mindset. In fact the only exceptions this are Loki (who never fights in close quarters), Karnilla (who wants to sleep with Balder), and The Enchantress (who cant make up her mind if she wants to sleep with Thor or kill/ flirt with him.) This leaves a pretty limited opposition in the brains combat. In fact the only one with brains and prowess who fought them demoralized him and the Asgardians "religiously" (Surtur).
Um, in a word, no. Thor may not be the greatest warrior in the Marvel universe, but he is a trained warrior. All the arguements against him make no sense here. Being able to win a fight does not make you a great warrior? Um, yes it does, by its very definition. A warrior is someone skilled in warfare, skilled in battle. There is no other prerequisites for it. Your weapons don't matter simply the acts and the results. "It doesn't take skill to wield a hammer." Actually yeah it does. It takes skill to wield any weapon with any degree of proficiency. Know your strengths and be able to exploit other's weaknesses. Thor knows that when he has that hammer he is practically unbeatable. Note he does not call upon all the abilities of that hammer unless he needs it. He knows that if he punches somebody once chances are they are not getting up.
And whoever on this forum said brawling isn't fighting is an idiot. Yes it is. Its not Jet Li style Kung Fu, but its still fighting, still combat. No one ever doubts that Muhammad Ali was a great fighter, but all we ever see him do is punch and duck and punch again. He doesn't do a back flip off the ropes and ninja kick someone. Even Wolverine more often than not jumps in slash slash, takes enormous damage because he doesn't even try to block anything and comes out on top simply because he has claws that can cut through damn near anything and a healing factor that keeps him from going down. But he is a great warrior? Not usually but he does have actual skill to fall back on and when the situation calls for it (or when Marvel is trying to add depth to an otherwise one dimensional character) he does show some of his martial arts training. He just generally doesn't need it. Check out any of his fights with Sabretooth, Omega Red, and the Hulk.
Whenever you bring up fights, you have to look at the titles they appear in. Marvel does a poor job of maintaining continueity in their comics in terms of who can actually fight who. When Hulk (or anyone for that matter) appears in a Thor comic, Thor is going to toss them all over the earth but come out on top. Whenever he fights someone that is his equal in terms of power or strength than it will be by some fair amount of strategy. When Thor appears as an antagonist in another comic (such as Hulk or Rulk) than it is to display some measure of badassery of that character an poor Thor is the punching boy for that demonstration. When Hulk is the antagonist in the Avengers, then all of a sudden Thor has difficulty fighting someone he has faced one on one on numerous occasions and the rest of the team then gets to display why they are so awesome.
None of this, however, ultimately answers the question posed. Is Thor a great warrior? Yes. He is not the Zen master that has for some reason come to define what it is to be a great fighter, but he is still a warrior of some considerable skill, which he has demonstrated. He is capable of more than simply hammer tossing. The fact that he does not often have to doesn't mean he can't (again look at Wolverine). It just means that, in that particular instance, he doesn't have to.
P.S. By the way the fight that was mentioned earlier, where Thor fought Gladiator in Galactic Storm, that wasn't Thor. It was Eric Masterson.
" @Vance Astro: The Hammer is Odin's. Odin gave it to Thor, becuase the handle was too short, it was supposed to be longer. After Thor owned the hammer and showed his ability and the usefulness of the hammer is when Odin put the inscripton and incantation on the hammer. Anyone who is worthy can use it. And yes it is heavy, how is something that size not going to be heavy? Thor is 6'6 625lbs The hammer weighs in the range of 25-50lbs. Thor is also a trained warroir. See you want us to accept what Dc says about Wonder Woman, and disregard what Marvel has said about Thor. And in the current storyline where Thor and the Sentry fight, show the entire scan. That is where the first puch happens, but it's a sucker punch. Thor was about to take on Norman Osbourne in his Iron Patriot armour, and the Sentry ambushed him. ..If you are not going to read the whole story don't try to use it in your arguments. Prometheus took out Batman like that, but everyone knows Prometheus can't beat Batman straight up. Also I agree with Mattbryce2000, do you really think during all that time Thor has taken the time to improve his battle skill? But you can believe what you want. "I don't believe what I want...I believe the truth.Thor can only carry Mjolnir because of magical enchantment not because of his strength.Wolverine has had alot of experience just like Thor but unlike Thor he's actually shown some fighting skill and has had quality training.I don't think Thor didn't prove his battle skill in all that time...he hasn't.Hypotheticals don't =truth.You believe what you want but as far as shown Thor is barely skilled at all.It shows in his repetition of tactics against people he lost to repeatedly.
Thor is a bad-ass fighter. Centuries of experience. Never gets written that way because having a hero who is that strong, durable and all-around powerful also be
shown as a master fighter makes the character seem to hard to challenge as an writer and to hard to relate to as a fan. Wonder Woman has always been described as a great fighter due to her amazonian heritage and training, yet it wasn't until her reboot in the late '80s by Perez and onward since that she has consistently been depicted as a great fighter. Before that all she did was fly her jet, block bullets with her bracelets and lasso her foes. DC decided to make her a great fighter through editorial mandate and after over twenty years of said mandate, she has plenty of demonstrated fighting skills. Marvel has only recently decided to try and have Thor live up to his great fighter status. He's behind WW in this regard by nearly twenty years. Company mandates and powering/skilling a character down for the sake of a plot/story, Thor is a great fighter and should be regarded as such. Wonder Woman should'nt be in his class in this ability, yet thats where things stand presently. Let's give 'em twenty years and then see where things stand. Logically, both are great fighters; one is the viking God of Thunder and the other is an Amazon princess with both having loads of training and experience. IMHO, all things considered, Thor would kick WW's ass if she forced him to engage her. But being the eternally noble, honorable and chivalrous dude that he is, he'd do just enough to defeat her without hurting or humiliating her to much. To do this he'd have to hold back while she would go all out. Still, she's got nothing on him. Thor for the win.
" minus his Odin power and deity ,he can be beaten up by flagsmasher "and Superman kicked his ass
What good is a fancy punching technique when you're staring down a Celestial (Beyonder retconned)? It might work well in the DC universe, which for all its great storyline is going off the incredibly flawed and ridiculous line of thinking that everything can be punched down, and that the most versatile power is the ability to fly fast and punch hard. .
@grimlock said:
" Thor can definitely fight but i don't think he is a skilled martial artist. minus his Odin power and deity ,he can be beaten up by flagsmasher "Read some comics then.
In a marital arts contest and everyone equal power then Batman would destroy him
but that's not to say Thor has some good moves
Thor has no real reason to learn karate at his current power level.
lol would actually be a bit weird to see him with that fighting style
But even if Thor had lost his powers his eons of combat experience would still give Batman a run for his money.
I'm seeing a thread fail here. This is where I'm at on the subject.
The question is why do people think Thor has no/none fighting abilities.
He obviously does. I don't think back when this thread was made anyone
even claimed that. What they claimed was that Wonder Woman was more skilled
in h2h combat and varied fighting techniques than Thor (which is true of her, same
goes for Herc). The OP got upset and posted this thread. Bottom line, Thor is a pretty
skilled fighter, he has done it his whole life, which has been close to an eternity. But
there's characters who have better/more fighting skill than he does, which is the case
with any character out there. The specific reason in Thor's case is that he learned to rely
more on his vast powers than delving in large sections of fighting tactics, since he didn't
need them.
So in other words: Can Thor fight ? Yes, he's alright. He's not Gwen Stacy or something.
Are there characters that are more skilled than he is ? Yes, of course. Many and by a lot
in many cases.
I pretty much agree with this.
I would think the story has just not been written to show his fighting skills or give it credit. Thor has plenty of fighting skills that prove he would be better then all of the rest combined and he is a god after all if he wanted to learn something he can just make it happen. For gods have that ability never put something past on a god because that is why they are called gods because nothing is beyond a gods reach.
To say She Hulk is a better fighter is a insult she is a lawyer and why would a lawyer have better fighting skills then a god whom has been putting his trade to work for more life times then any can even imagine.
Like saying wolverine needs his claws to fight Batman when he clearly would not just a simply hand to hand would do its damage his knuckles alone would hurt like holy hell they are covered with the metal and why does he always pull out those claws when he never hardly ever cuts anybody.
Thor is the most under rated character in Marvel history his character is way under rated not over rated his powers hardly ever used and his support cast as well sits on the side line and plays second fiddle to horrible characters like Jane.
So when they decide to truly show the fighting skills of Thor you can say I told you so. Because he can use sword and shield as well as spear , bow and arrows and any other weapon of war you can think of because he is a god and as a god it is in his domain to learn it if he has not already trained on it in what ever fashion he felt to do so. Imagine you lorded over the 9 realms you would have to learn all it took to keep them in line. Weapons you never even dreamed of and Thor would have learned them.
I just wonder why some think a person with not even one life time of knowledge could compete with a god with many many life times of knowledge.
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