Regular Rep: 6 Joined: 04 Apr 2008 Posts: 805 ONLINE | 
Mjolnir
Thor owns a short-handled hammer, Mjolnir, which, when thrown at a target, returns magically to the owner. His Mjolnir also has the power to throw lightning bolts. To wield Mjolnir, Thor wears the belt Megingjord, which boosts the wearer’s strength and a pair of special iron gloves, Jarn Griepr, to lift the hammer. Mjolnir is also his main weapon when fighting giants. The uniquely shaped symbol subsequently became a very popular ornament during the Viking Age and has since become an iconic symbol of Germanic paganism.
Chariot
Thor travels in a chariot drawn by the goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr and with his servant and messenger Þjálfi and with Þjálfi’s sister Röskva. The skaldic poem Haustlöng relates that the earth was scorched and the mountains cracked as Thor traveled in his wagon. According to the Prose Edda, when Thor is hungry he can roast the goats for a meal. When he wants to continue his travels, Thor only needs to touch the remains of the goats and they will be instantly restored to full health to resume their duties, assuming that the bones have not been broken.
Stories and myths
A detail from a rune- and image stone from Gotland, in the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm. The three men are interpreted as Odin, Thor and Freyr, due to the objects they hold in their hands: a spear, a hammer-like object and a scythe.
A detail from a rune- and image stone from Gotland, in the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm. The three men are interpreted as Odin, Thor and Freyr, due to the objects they hold in their hands: a spear, a hammer-like object and a scythe.
According to one myth in the Prose Edda, Loki was flying as a hawk one day and was captured by Geirrod. Geirrod, who hated Thor, demanded that Loki bring his enemy (who did not yet have his magic belt and hammer) to Geirrod’s castle. Loki agreed to lead Thor to the trap. Grid was a giantess at whose home they stopped on the way to Geirrod’s. She waited until Loki left the room then told Thor what was happening and gave him her iron gloves and magical belt and staff. Thor killed Geirrod and all other frost giants he could find (including Geirrod’s daughters, Gjálp and Greip).
According to Alvíssmál, Thor’s daughter was promised to Alvis, a dwarf. Thor devised a plan to stop Alvis from marrying his daughter. He told Alvis that, because of his small height, he had to prove his wisdom. Alvis agreed and Thor made the tests last until after the sun had risen — all dwarves turned to stone when exposed to sunlight, so Alvis was petrified.
Thor was once outwitted by a giant king, Útgarða-Loki. The king, using his magic, tricked Thor. The king raced Thought itself against Thor’s fast servant, Þjálfi (nothing being faster than thought, which can leap from land to land, and from time to time, in an instant). Then, Loki (who was with Thor) was challenged by Útgarða-Loki to an eating contest with one of his servants, Logi. Loki lost, eventually. The servant even ate up the trough containing the food. The servant was an illusion of “Wild-Fire”, no living thing being able to equal the consumption rate of fire. He called Thor weak when he only lifted the paw of a cat, the cat being the illusion of the Midgard Serpent. Thor was challenged to a drinking contest, and could not empty a horn which was filled not with mead but was connected to the ocean. This action started tidal changes. And here, Thor wrestled an old woman, who was Old Age, something no one could beat, to one knee. Thor left humiliated, but was heartened later when he met a messager who told he that he had in fact performed great feats worthy of a powerful warrior god for doing as well as he did with those challenges.
Another noted story of Thor was the time when Þrymr, King of the Thurse (Giants), stole his hammer, Mjölnir. Thor went to Loki in hopes to find the culprit responsible for the theft. Loki and Thor went to Freyja for council. She gave Loki the Feather-robe so he could travel to the land of the giants to speak to their king. The king admitted to stealing the hammer and would not give it back unless Freyja gave her hand in marriage.
Freyja refused when she heard the plan so the gods decided to think of a way to trick the King. Heimdall, the fairest of the gods (and possibly one of the prophetic Vanir), suggested dressing up Thor in a bridal gown so he can take Freyja’s place. Thor at first refused to do such a thing as it would portray him as a coward and womanish, but Loki insisted that he do so or the Giants would attack Asgard and win it over if he were not to retrieve the hammer in time. Thor reluctantly agreed in the end and took Freyja’s place.
Odin rode Thor to the land of the Giants and a celebration ensued. The king noticed a few odd things that his bride was committing. He noted that she ate and drank more than what he would expect from a bride. Loki, who was in disguise as the false Freyja’s servant, commented that she rode for 8 full nights without food eager to take his hand. He then asked why his bride’s eyes are so terrifying, they seemed to be aglow with fire, again Loki responded with a lie that she did not sleep for 8 full nights eager for his hand. Then the giant commanded that the hammer be brought to his wife and placed on her lap. Once it was in Thor’s possession he threw off his disguise and attacked all the giants in the room. Due to this ruse the giants were careful not to make the same mistake again.
Marvel Powers and abilities
Thor is the Norse god of thunder and lightning. Like all Asgardians, Thor is not truly immortal but relies upon periodic consumption of the Golden Apples of Idun to sustain his lifespan, which to date has lasted many millennia. The strongest of the Norse gods, Thor has performed feats such as lifting the World Serpent,[19] hurling the Odinsword, an enormous mystical blade, through a Celestial,[20] and matching other beings of enormous strength, such as the Hulk [21] and Hercules.[22] If pressed in battle, Thor is capable of entering into a state known as the “Warrior’s Madness”, which will temporarily increase his strength tenfold.[23] He also possesses virtually inexhaustible godly stamina, high resistance to physical injury (eg. rocketfire, falls from orbital heights) [24] and superhuman speed and reflexes.
Thor is a superb hand-to-hand combatant and has mastered a number of weapons such as the war hammer, sword, and mace. He is also very cunning and intuitive in battle, with many centuries of experience. Thor possesses two items that assist him in combat: the Belt of Strength, and his mystical hammer Mjolnir. The former item doubles his strength,[25] while the latter is used for control of his weather abilities; flight; energy projection and absorption; dimensional apertures; matter manipulation, as well as the most powerful of his offensives: the God Blast,[26] and the Anti-Force. [27]
After his resurrection, Thor has accepted his heritage as a child of the Elder Goddess Gaea, and has demonstrated the ability to create country-spanning chasms in the Earth itself. [28]
The first of Heracles' twelve labours, set by Eurystheus (his cousin) was to slay the Nemean Lion and bring back its skin.
Heracles wandered the areas until he came upon the town of Cleonae. There, he found a poor farm boy. This farm boy would sacrifice anything to get wealth. If Hercules slayed the Nemean Lion and returned alive within 30 days of leaving, they would sacrifice a lion to Zeus, the god of all gods. If he did not return within 30 days or he died, however, the boy would sacrifice himself to Zeus.
While he was looking for the lion, he made arrows to use against it, not knowing that it was immortal. When he finally arrived to where the lion was, he started throwing arrows at the lion, but the lion wouldn’t die. So Heracles trapped the lion inside a room. He closed both doors and forced him into a corner. In the corner, Heracles choked him to death.
When he returned to the King, king Eurystheus was shocked, so he gave Hercules the lion’s invincible pelt to wear around. However, he said “the tasks will be getting harder."
This task took the course of three months when he was eighteen years old.
Heracles and The Nemean Lion A savage lion, offspring of Typhon, a hundred-headed monster, and Echidna, half-woman and half serpent, lived in Nemea, a valley in Argolis. Eurystheus commanded Heracles to bring him the skin of this ferocious animal. Without a word, the hero hurried away to carry out his instructions. When he found that his club and arrows were of no avail, Heracles strangled the beast with his own hands and returned to town carrying the dead lion on his shoulders. Eurystheus was so frightened at this exhibition of strength that he told Heracles to re-late his deeds to him from a distance, outside the city gates.
Heracles and The Hydra The hydra, another child of Typhon and Echidna, was a poisonous water snake living near the well of Amymone, so named after one of the fifty daughters of Danaus. Brought up by Hera, for reasons of her own, it ravaged the district of Lerna, near Argos. Its foul breath was fatal to those who ventured too close, and it had nine heads, the middle one of which was immortal. As soon as Heracles cut off one head with a swipe of his club, two new ones, larger and uglier, grew in its place, which made the struggle difficult and discouraging for the hero. Heracles also had to contend with a huge crab sent by Hera, that kept biting him. He finally overcame the monster, aided by his faithful companion and nephew, Iolaus. As fast as Heracles lopped off the heads, Iolaus burned the stumps with a torch, thus preventing the growth of the duplicate heads. Head number nine—the immortal one—Heracles buried under a huge rock.
This creature, with golden antlers and bronze feet, was sacred to Artemis, having been dedicated to her by Taygete, a nymph and one of the Pleiades, ingratitude for having been rescued from Zeus, who was pursuing her. Heracles was required in this labour to capture the animal and to bring it back alive to Eurystheus at Mycenae. Heracles chased the stag in vain for a whole year before wounding it with one of his arrows. While carrying it to Eurystheus, he met Artemis, who was enraged at him for wounding an animal sacred to her, but when he explained the situation to her and convinced her that he was not exactly a free agent, she forgave him and allowed him to continue his journey.
The terms of this exploit are similar to those connected with the Arcadian stag. Heracles, commanded to take the boar alive and to bring it to Mycenae, chased it through deep snows, exhausted it, and then caught it in a net. The sight of the animal threw Eurystheus into such a fit of fear that he hid himself in a tub under the ground and repeated, with much more emphasis, his definite instructions to Heracles that in the future he should exhibit the proofs of his prowess outside the city gates.
The fifth labour was not as dangerous perhaps as the first four tasks, but it had its own difficulties. Eurystheus ordered Heracles to do a thorough cleaning job— In one day —of the stables of Ageus, king of the Epeans in Elis. In order fully to realise the unpleasant nature of this task, one must bear in mind the fact that Augeas had three thousand oxen and that the stables had not been cleaned for thirty years. Heracles carried out his part of the performance by turning the Rivers Alpheus and Pencus into the stable yards and stalls. Both Augeas and Eurystheus cheated Heracles in connection with this assignment. Augeas had promised Heracles that he would give him three hundred oxen as a reward for cleaning his stables, but refused to abide by the agreement—made in the presence of his son, Phyleus—on the ground’s that Heracles was under obligation to Eurystheus; while that tricky task-master, always looking for a chance to discount one of Heracles' labours, so that another might be added, used the same argument in reverse, claiming that Heracles had disqualified himself by entering into negotiations secretly with Augeas. For testifying against him, that is, for telling the truth, Phyleus was banished by his father. Heracles later invaded Augeas' kingdom and killed him and all his other sons.
These creatures lived near Lake Stymphalis in Arcadia. Reared by Ares, they were man-eating monsters, always hungry, with brass beaks, wings, and claws, and with feathers that served as arrows which they shot out on the slightest provocation, or without any provocation at all. Heracles' task was either to kill them or drive them from their nests. By means of a brass rattle—Athene’s gift—he frightened the birds and shot them with his own arrows as they flew away.
As in the cases of the stag and the boar, Heracles was instructed to bring the bull back alive. Minos, king of Crete, and son of Zeus and Europa, asked Poseidon to send him a bull for sacrificial purposes. The god of the sea responded by causing a beautiful snow-white bull to rise from the waves. Minos, attracted by the beauty of the animal, decided to keep it for his own herd and substituted another in its place. Poseidon punished him for trying to fool a god by driving the bull mad and by causing Minos' wife, Pasiphae, to fall in love with the brute and bear him a son, the monstrous Minotaur. Heracles bested the bull, threw him over his shoulders, and carried him home to Mycenae, where he set him free. The bull enjoyed a brief spell of liberty, wandering through Greece and devastating the country until it met its end in Marathon, where it was killed by the hero Theseus.
Diomedes, son of Ares and Cyrene, and king of the Bistones in Thrace, had a stable of mares to which he fed human flesh. Heracles captured the horses without much difficulty and was taking them to Mycenae when Diomedes and his Thracian followers attacked him. During the fight that followed, Heracles, unable to defend himself and look after the animals at the same time, turned them over to the care of his friend, Abderus, but the wild beasts tore him to pieces and ate him. Heracles defeated the Bistones, killed the king and threw his body to the mares, which immediately became tame after eating their master’s flesh. They were now easy to manage and Heracles had no difficulty in bringing them to Eurystheus, who set them free. They were soon destroyed on Mount Olympus by beasts which were as wild as they had once been.
Hippolyte, daughter of Ares and Otrera, was queen of the Amazons, a race of heroic women, whose name comes from the fact that they cut off their right breasts so that they might the better draw their bows (a—without, mazos-breast). Hippolyte had a girdle, her father’s gift and a symbol of her power, that Admete, daughter of Eurystheus, was eager to own. In order to please her—and without involving himself in any way—Eurystheus ordered Heracles to fetch it. After travelling through Europe and Asia, Heracles filially arrived at the court of the Amazonian queen, probably with no very clear idea of how he was going to carry out his delicate mission. To his great surprise and relief, Hippolyte received him with signs of friendship and told him that she would be only too glad to let him have the girdle for the asking. But this pleasant solution did not fall in with Hera’s plans. The goddess spread a false report among the Amazons that Heracles was carrying off their queen. They rushed to defend her, and Heracles, thinking that Hippolyte had played him false, slew her. On the way back to Mycenae, Heracles stopped at Troy and saved the life of Hesione by rescuing her from the sea monster sent by Poseidon. For this deed (one of his many extra labours and apparently thrown in by the hero for good measure) Hesione’s father, Laomedon, king of Troy, promised Heracles two divine horses that had been given to him by Zeus in return for the loss of his son, the beautiful Ganymede. Laomedon refused, as he always did, to keep his word; and Heracles later attacked Troy, killed the king, and gave Hesione to his good friend, Telamon, to whom she bore a son, Teucer, the famous archer and one of the great Greek heroes before Troy.
Geryon, a monster with three heads and three bodies and enormous wings, was a son of Chrysaor and Callirhoe, an Oceanid. He lived on the fabled island of Erythia in the Far West, the “red island”, so called because it lay under the rays of the setting sun. His magnificent oxen, also red—which Heracles was commanded to capture—were guarded by a giant, Eurythion, and a two-headed dog, Orthrus, son of Typhon and Echidna. After passing through many countries, Heracles at last reached the island and killed the giant and the dog. Later, hurrying off with the oxen, he was pursued by Geryon, whom he finally, slew with his arrows after a fierce contest. Before arriving at his destination, Heracles travelled through Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and Thrace. The oxen, after being delivered to Eurystheus, were sacrificed by him to Hera.
Heracles and the Golden Apples (with Hesperades) These apples were in the keeping of the Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas and Hesperis. Gaea had given them to Hera as a wedding present. The eleventh labour of Heracles was to fetch these apples. Easy as it appears this labour had one difficult feature: Heracles had no idea where they were. After covering much ground he found Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, and forced him to reveal where the apples were hidden. On his way to get them, he passed through Libya (where he killed Antaeus, the champion wrestler), Egypt (where he slew Busiris, and all his sons, whose custom it was to sacrifice a stranger every year to Zeus), and Ethiopia (where he killed Emathion, who had usurped the Ethiopian throne of his handsome brother, Memnon). His thirst for adventures till unsatisfied, he freed Prometheus from his chains and, following his advice, sent Atlas to bring him the golden apples. In order to carry out this commission, Atlas had to transfer the heavens from his own shoulders to those of Heracles) who agreed to hold the heavy weight while he was away. Returning with the coveted fruit, the tricky Atlas refused to take up the burden that belonged to him, telling Heracles that he would take the apples for him to Eurystheus. Heracles, as sly as Atlas when the situation demanded it, agreed to the proposal and asked Atlas to hold the heavens for just a minute while he arranged a pad for the convenience of his head and back. As the change was being made, Heracles picked up the apples and hurried away. When he reached Mycenae, Eurystheus gave him the apples as a gift, the first gracious sign exhibited by the taskmaster. According to another version of the eleventh labour, Heracles slew Ladon, a hundred-headed dragon, who stood guard over the apples with the Hesperides.
Heracles Commands Cerberus The twelfth and last labour of Heracles was the most difficult. It was to bring Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog of Hades, from his home in the lower regions to the upper world. Conducted by Hermes and Athene, whose friendship for him served somewhat to counteract the deadly opposition of Hera, Heracles made the trip down without any mishap. Hades, the prince of darkness, allowed him to take the dog on the condition that he did so with his bare hands, without using any weapons of war. The hero grabbed the growling dog in his powerful arms, tied him up, took him to Eurystheus for a good look, and then brought him back to the lower world. As in his other adventures, Heracles accomplished extra tasks while carrying out one duty. During the short time that he spent in Hades, he rescued Theseus, the would-be kidnapper of Persephone, and Ascalaphus, who had been turned into an owl for revealing that Persephone had eaten a part of the pomegranate.
Marvel Powers and abilities
Hercules possesses the typical powers of an Olympian, including superhuman speed, durability, and reflexes. His primary power is his superhuman physical strength; Hercules is physically the strongest of all Olympians. His strength is sufficient to lift and hurl a giant Sequoia tree, drag the island of Manhattan back into place,[31] and lift the Marvel Comics version of Godzilla. While the limits of Hercules' strength have never been measured, he has been strong enough to stand toe to toe with Thor and the Hulk.[2][32]
At times, Hercules has been punished by Zeus, a punishment marked by a “lightning bolt” tattoo on Hercules’s shoulder. As a result, Hercules' powers, particularly his strength and immortality, were weakened considerably. However, in the recent Ares limited series, Hercules is shown fighting on behalf of Olympus with Zeus' blessing, and it has been officially stated that his full strength and godly attributes are restored to their usual levels.[33]
At his full power, Hercules is functionally immortal, as are all Olympians, being immune to all known diseases, and his godly life force renders him capable of recovering from any conventional injury that does not severely dismember or disintegrate his body, but this was reduced at the time of Zeus’s punishment.[34] Hercules is immensely resistant to physical injury and has withstood the impact of high caliber machine gun shells, falls from tremendous heights, exposure to temperature extremes and powerful energy blasts without sustaining injury. It took two point-blank blasts from the god Michael Korvac to bring Hercules to the point of death.[35]
Hercules is an accomplished boxer and Greco-Roman wrestler. He is highly skilled with all forms of weaponry used in ancient Greece as well as the unarmed art of Pankration, which he is reputed to have created. His weapon of choice is his enchanted Adamantine “Golden Mace," forged by Hephaestus, the blacksmith of the gods. The mace is known to be as durable as Thor’s mystical Uru hammer, Mjolnir,[2] and to strike with equivalent force.[36] He is an extraordinarily gifted archer, as well as an extraordinary hand-to-hand combatant. He was educated by tutors employed by his foster father, Amphitryon.
Before attaining godhood, Hercules employed arrows dipped in the lethal blood of the Lernaean Hydra, and wore the virtually indestructible hide of the Nemean Lion. Hercules sometimes rides about on chariot built by Hephaestus, which is drawn by enchanted Olympian horses which can fly through space and into other dimensions.
Thor and Hercules are close rivals, but neither has hesitated to help the other if needed. The second meeting between the two gods was recently chronicled in the six-part series Thor: Blood Oath (2005).[37] The third meeting takes place in Journey Into Mystery #125 and Thor #126-130, when Thor battles the minions of Pluto to save Hercules from being trapped in the underworld forever.[38][39] Hercules has returned the favor and assisted Thor on several occasions, a notable example being the final battle against the Dark Gods in Thor (vol. 2) #10-12.[40] He also mentions that he is a friend of Thor and destroys the Thor clone in his name in Civil War #7. The two characters seem to regard each other as equals and have a deep amount of respect for each other.
p.s. no odin force...
so who’s the stronger god in myth and comics
|
First ]
»
VS. Forum
» Thor vs Hercules marvel and myth
