Marvel played themselves when they established that non-Asgardians can lift it.
"Cable was right!"
Ok, I said I wasn't going to participate in this discussion, but I have to jump off the fence for a second. I would agree with this. Many see "worthiness" as a universal virtue or standard of moral excellence, but it really refers to Odin's categorical imperatives. Alright, back on the fence I go. Need more kettle corn.
How is it any different than in DC when a Green Lantern goes evil and the ring still responds? If the ring chooses the wielder and the Guardians can shut them down, how is there ever a rogue Green Lantern?
Same thing here with the hammer, its called bad writing. We sort of saw this mocked a bit by Hickman in Time Runs Out with Thorr's hammer, "whosoever holds this hammer, if he be unworthy"...
I also think this is something going to be addressed in the current Thor run by Cates. The number of people wielding the hammer has gotten out of control when you start to consider alternate timelines.
I vaguely remember there being a suggestion that Beta Ray Bill was worthy because he was the chosen protector of his species. I liked that idea. That the worthy aren't just any old heroic people but champions of kinds, the way Thor is arguably for Asgard. That would explain characters like Captain America and, I think, Wonder Woman being worthy. Black Panther would probably also qualify, although I don't know if he has ever tried. But, sadly, it doesn't explain any of the random people who have acted as replacement Thors over the years.
Back in the day I had this idea that Fury's whisper that made Mjolnir drop from Thor's hand wasn't directed at Thor. He was talking to Mjolnir. Thor didn't drop Mjolnir, Mjolnir abandoned Thor. And then Mjolnir chose Jane Foster. Why? Not 'because she was worthy,' but because she was weak and dying and *utterly dependent* on Mjolnir for everything, right down to her next breath.
Mjolnir rode that woman around like Yoda on Luke's back. Mjolnir wasn't an accessory to an already super-strong immortal Asgardian god-king, Mjolnir was *everything* to Jane Foster's Thor, and completely flipped a power dynamic that had existed for centuries. Thor uses the hammer? Not anymore, now the hammer hold all the cards, and picks who gets to be Thor.
And finally the 'Mother Storm' inside Mjolnir would 'die' snuffed out in some grand sacrifice, having itself learned the sort of lesson about nobility and heroism that Thor himself had to learn, and everything would 'go back to normal' and Mjolnir would go back to being just 'Thor's magic hammer.'
But that turned out to be all in my head, and the real story turned out not to make a lick of sense. C'est la vie!
This kind of makes me wish they had gone more into Jane's over dependence on Mjolnir both in terms of herself as Thor and the effect it had on her health because in hindsight that level of self-sacrifice is really not healthy but it was as much a power fantasy for her as it was for the reader.
I have always seen being worthy as having nothing to do with being good or evil according to human morality: for me it is more a question of corresponding to Asgardian (and therefore viking) values: being a great warrior, fighting for his convictions and his people, not doubting himself.
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