Warning: Spoilers for Miguel O’Hara: Spider-Man 2099 (2024) #4 ahead!Miguel O’Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 has seen many strange things in his time, but none so paradoxical as an undead foe’s workaround to wield the counterpart to Thor’s Mjolnir. Questions abound when the undead villain Terror reveals that he can summon the mighty Stormbreaker hammer – by cannibalizing a worthy hero’s heart.
O’Hara and Terror come to blows in Miguel O’Hara: Spider-Man 2099 (2024) #4 by Steve Orlando, Chris Campana, Jonas Trindade, and Jim Campbell after the latter lures a suspect whom Spider-Man was tailing into his murder den. Terror uses the brawl as an opportunity to test the variety of replacement body parts he is using to bolster his decaying frame, including Beta Ray Bill’s heart.
The possession of a worthy hero’s heart alone seems to be enough to enable Terror to wield Bill’s Stormbreaker weapon, although this advantage doesn’t last long. The moment O’Hara kicks Bill’s heart out of Terror’s decaying chest, Terror is crushed under the hammer’s weight.
“Tormod the Keen Edge”: Thor Officially Forges a New Legendary Weapon To Do What Mjolnir Can’t
Using his All-Power as the ruler of Asgard, Thor just forged a mythic new weapon that opens up new abilities Mjolnir doesn’t possess.
Can Asgardian Hammers Be Wielded Only By Those With A Worthy ‘Heart’?
The enchantment of worthiness has long been a thorny issue plaguing those who would wield Asgard’s mightiest weapons, with “worthiness” usually depicted as a state of mind rather than a state of body. For example, when Thor deems Toranos “worthy” in Al Ewing, Martín Cóccolo, and Matthew Wilson’s The Immortal Thor (2023) #5, the titan is immediately stricken by the compassion and humility that such worthiness bestows. By contrast, when undead Thor appears in the Marvel: Zombies franchise, his newfound monstrous nature leaves him unworthy of Mjolnir, and he must make do with a cinder block replacement.
Terror’s use of Bill’s heart to confer worthiness directly contradicts existing lore. Rather than needing to become worthy to wield the hammer, it seems that, by incorporating Bill’s living heart into his body, worthiness becomes transitive and Terror can wield Stormbreaker, with the hammer acknowledging the call of “Bill’s” heart. If this holds, then it means that Thor could theoretically be separated from Mjolnir should his heart ever be removed; or alternatively, he could confer Mjolnir to another person, worthy or not, via heart transplant.
Mjolnir Has A Lethal New Loophole
Asgardian hammers are known to have minds of their own; it’s possible, then, that some quirk of Stormbreaker’s own nature allows Terror to wield it against Spider-Man. Alternatively, the weapon could parse the technicality of “worthiness” differently than Mjolnir has in the past. Either way, this is a disturbing loophole in every sense of the word, opening up gruesome avenues for the worst of Thor’s enemies to become worthy – if they only have the “heart” for it.
Miguel O’Hara: Spider-Man 2099 (2024) #4 is available now from Marvel Comics.
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