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In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, find out whether there is a loophole around Thor’s hammer that allows Ghost Rider to wield it.
Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and twenty-sixth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.
NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I’ll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!
COMIC LEGEND:
There is an exception to the enchantment around Thor’s hammer that allows Ghost Rider to wield it.
STATUS:
False
Last week, in my Knowledge Waits column, I wrote about how there was a very obscure loophole when it came to lifting Thor’s hammer which is that if you used magic to collect dirt or metal or something like that, then you could use the metal or the dirt to lift Thor’s hammer. In other words, while Doctor Strange could not lift Thor’s hammer by himself, if he used magic to create an iron gauntlet, the gauntlet could then lift Thor’s hammer. The same thing happened when an ancient Elfqueen tried to lift the hammer in Avengers #212 (by Jim Shooter, Alan Kupperberg and Dan Green) and couldn’t, so she just animated the ground around it into a fist and used it to attack Thor with his own hammer…
Fun stuff.
In any event, after that column, reader Alan B. wrote in to ask about a list of other loopholes (I won’t link to it, as no point in picking on anyone) that he had read and whether they were accurate, specifically the bit on the list about whether a person having no soul would be able to lift the hammer. It’s an interesting thought, as to whether the lack of a soul might take someone past the restrictions of the hammer…
However, the tricky thing is that the example for how a being with no soul could lift the hammer was Ghost Rider holding the hammer in Avengers #214 (by Jim Shooter, Bob Hall and Dan Green) which, ironically, was only a mere two issues after the aforementioned use of the hammer by the Elfqueen. The thing is, though, when you look at the story, Ghost Rider appears to be utilizing a whole OTHER loophole…
At the time, the demon Zarathos was pretty much fully in control of the Ghost Rider’s personality when Johnny Blaze turned into the Ghost Rider, making him more of a menace than a hero, but the key here isn’t that the Ghost Rider has no soul, but it is clearly (as in the Ghost Rider even says it in the panels) that rather than actively lifting the hammer, he has just grasped on to the hammer as it magically returns to Thor. So really, it is just holding ON to the hammer rather than lifting it (and when it came close to actually being able to hurt Thor with the hammer, that wouldn’t work, as the hammer returned to Thor’s hands without injuring him).
A similar example that predated that issue of Avengers was Marvel Team-Up #70 (by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Tony DeZuniga), where Thor throws his hammer but after it is released, he realizes that he doesn’t want it to actually hit its target, so Spider-Man uses his webs to divert the hammer…
And in the process, Spider-Man ends up going for a ride with the hammer as it returns to Thor…
A number of years later, in Marvel Team-Up #148 (by Cary Burkett, Greg LaRoqcue and Mike Esposito), Thor and Spider-Man actually used this strategy intentionally, as Thor had been temporarily paralyzed in his legs, so he threw his hammer, telling Spidey to grab a hold of it while it went by so that it would take Spider-Man to the bad guys before curving back to return to Thor…
A couple of other interesting instances of this sort of thing include Thor #429 (by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz and Joe Sinnott), where the Juggernaut was trying to get a hold of Thor’s hammer and Thor ultimately decided to give him what he wanted (but not the way he wanted it)…
and Indestructible Hulk #6 (by Mark Waid, Walter Simonson and Andres Mossa), where the Hulk and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents traveled through time and met a younger Thor during a battle with the Frost Giants and Hulk thought that he was lifting Thor’s hammer…
but as revealed in the following issue, the hammer was just rising because it was magically returning to Thor, so Hulk just went on a ride with it (he was disappointed when Thor revealed the truth, especially when Thor let go of the hammer and Hulk plummeted to the ground while holding it since he couldn’t keep it lifted up without Thor’s help)…
In any event, the main thing is that no, being a demon without a soul does not mean that you can lift Thor’s hammer and Ghost Rider cannot lift Thor’s hammer (but hey, Ghost Rider has plenty of his own cool weapons, so he should be fine with that).
Thanks to Alan B. for the suggestion!
SOME OTHER ENTERTAINMENT LEGENDS!
Check out some entertainment legends from Legends Revealed:
1. Were the Little House on the Prairie Sets Destroyed So That No One Else Could Use Them?
2. Did Pretty in Pink Originally End With Andie and Duckie Together?
3. What Famous Talk Show Host Wouldn’t Appear on the Simpsons if They Made Fun of Him?
4. Was Chris Brown’s hit song, “Forever,” Really Originally Written for a Doublemint Gum Commercial?
PART TWO SOON!
Check back soon for part 2 of this installment’s legends!
Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com
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