4 Thor Stories Too Stupid For The Movies

4 Miles Morales: "Urban" Thor

Over the years, Marvel's What If series has answered a good number of important questions, like "What if Conan became a pimp?" or "What if giant snakes ate everyone?" or "What if Thor was half-Black?" The answer to that last one, apparently, is "He'd be into rap, of course."

In this comic from ... wait, 2022?! That can't be right. And yet it is: this is from the new What If ... ? Miles Morales series, which shows what would happen if the fan-favorite young Spider-Man took the place of other Marvel characters like Hulk, Captain America, or Wolverine. The other issues went by without much notice, but the Thor-themed one caused a ruckus when the internet pointed out that assuming Thor would say stuff like "By Odin's fade!" if he was Black is pretty unfortunate. 

It's also kinda insulting to the Miles Morales character himself, who has always stressed that he isn't the "Black Spider-Man" -- he's "Spider-Man." Merging him with another hero only to reduce both to a racial stereotype defeats the purpose of the creative exercise. Although, to be fair, it could be argued that a lot of the "cringey Black dialogue" panels were actually intended to be "cringey Zoomer dialogue" panels. 

This is kind of like when DC retconned Kid Flash as being Black in 2014, and the first thing he did was spray paint a wall, call Flash a chump, and get arrested. Anyway, it's worth noting that the Miles Thorales writer has since apologized for the comic and said he's donating what Marvel paid him ... which is probably not a whole lot considering how stingy they've been with creators, but still, that's a nice gesture.

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3 Thor Teams Up With Hitler

We'll start by noting that this isn't a mind-control or an alternate reality story: Thor seriously joined the Nazi Party in the regular Marvel Universe. The actual in-story explanation is that this Adolf Hitler fella is just really, really persuasive. 

In this 1978 issue, it's revealed that back in World War II, Hitler used a device to transport Thor from Asgard and told him that the mighty people descended from his old Viking pals are being slaughtered by the evil Allied Forces. At first, Thor isn't too happy about being teleported into our $#!%hole realm, but Hitler dazzles him with his charisma and "moving pictures" technology, and the mighty thunder god is fully on board with the Nazis within a couple of pages. 

In fact, Thor is so convinced that Hitler is a good guy that when this guy he met five minutes ago asks him to kill a foreign head of state, Thor just flies over to another country and does it. After beating the crap out of Captain America and other World War II superheroes, Thor breaks into Josef Stalin's office and unleashes a deadly dose of lightning power on him, which we don't remember from our history books. 

Of course, Thor later finds out "Stalin" was one of Cap's superpowered buddies in disguise. By then, Thor has already overheard Hitler ranting about exterminating the Jews, so he goes, "Whoops, my bad," erases Cap and the other heroes' memories of this whole embarrassing incident, and runs back to Asgard without so much as frying a single Nazi. Marvel's official explanation for this story is that Thor was younger and had yet to learn humility when this issue took place, and that's true: it wouldn't be fair to judge him for stuff he did when he was only, uhh, about 1,400 years old. 

2 Thor Hooks Up With His Own Split Personality, Tries To Destroy The Universe

Thor had a rough time in the '90s: he killed Loki in a fit of rage, got exiled from Earth, and had his hammer and powers taken away and given to some random divorced guy with a ponytail. Thor eventually gets his hammering license reinstated, but he still feels existentially lost. Luckily, this is when he meets a sexy Valkyrie who just gets him and almost immediately starts making out with her, despite the fact that he's supposed to be in a serious relationship with the goddess Sif. 

Thor's new side-piece convinces him that his dad is responsible for all his troubles, so he should stop obeying him and just do whatever he feels like doing (meaning "fight other heroes for no reason"). The only hitch with Thor's fiery lover is that no one else can see her, so Thor can't flex about how hot they look together. 

Yeah, turns out the "Dark Valkyrie" doesn't actually exist -- she's "Thor's madness embodied" as a result of all the untreated trauma he's been through. So his Tyler Durden, basically, which means that he must have been stroking his own hammer during all those scenes where they got hot and heavy. 

Dark Valkyrie starts telling Thor that he must burn Asgard to the ground and kill all his friends, and Thor thinks this all sounds perfectly reasonable (and she didn't even need a pencil mustache and a film projector). Thor ends up stealing an Infinity Gem and trying to destroy the entire universe because the hot lady who lives in his mind told him to. It takes a coalition of various heroes, including Doctor Strange, Silver Surfer, and, uh, Thanos, to stop Thor and Dark Valkyrie, who gets a physical body thanks to the Gem. In the end, Thor gets his sanity back by just hitting his fake girlfriend's real body with his hammer real hard, killing her. Domestic violence saves the Marvel Universe once again! 

1 Ultimate Thor Gets Blackmailed Into Parenthood

This nutty saga takes place in the Ultimate Universe, the hugely influential alternate reality that Marvel writers ended up using as a repository for their most regrettable ideas. First of all, this storyline involves Thor dating a 19-year-old human mega-fan of his, which of course, only ends up getting her killed. Thor decides to travel to the afterlife to get her soul back and meets Hela, the goddess of death, and at this point, it's important to point out that the two aren't brother and sister like in the MCU, because things are about to get steamy (not that the Ultimate Universe was any stranger to superhero incest). 

Thor manages to bring his girlfriend back to life, at the cost of ending up stuck in Valhalla himself. Eventually, Hela agrees to let Thor go back to the land of the living if he does a little favor for her. A sexual favor. Thor bravely agrees to pay the price. 

Thor "performs" his end of the deal admirably, and only then does Hela tell him that she can only send him back to Earth once some other mighty warrior ascends to Valhalla and takes his place. This doesn't sit well with Thor, but when he tries to deal with her the way he always deals with swindlers (with an ax), he stops upon realizing she's already like 9 months pregnant. 

In a cruel twist of fate, that mighty warrior who replaces Thor in Valhalla turns out to be ... Thor's recently revived girlfriend, who dies again while fighting Loki. Also, Thor's kid quickly grows into an adult, who takes after his uncle and manipulates all of America into a second Civil War in an attempt to wipe out everyone in the country. Thor ended up killing him shortly before the Ultimate Universe itself was mercy killed by Marvel.

Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment on every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com. 

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