Today, we take a look at the comic book that revealed that Conan was worthy of wielding Thor's famous hammer, Mjolnir, and why Conan's wielding of the hammer caused him to choose to sacrifice the hammer.
Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me.
One of the most unsung Marvel Comics writers of the 1980s had got to be Alan Zelenetz. He is probably best remembered for co-creating Alien Legion with Carl Potts and Frank Cirocco, but he also did a number of comic books for Marvel during the early 1980s. I believe he left comic books to become a high school principal at Yeshiva of Flatbush, and that job, it appears, has led to some opportunities working in movies (one of his colleagues at the school was the father of Darren Aronofsky and Zelenetz was the Judiaca advisor for Aronofsky's breakout film, Pi. I don't know for a fact that it was that was what led to the film production career of Zelenetz. I know Carl Potts has been trying to get an Alien Legion movie made for a long time, so perhaps something from that? I guess the truth is that I just don't know enough about Zelenetz to really be making guesses about his life. Feel free to let me know, if you feel like it, Alan!).
In any event, one of the other things Zelenetz is perhaps known for is that he was the guy who was the regular writer on Thor directly before Walter Simonson took over the series. Zelenetz also had an on-again-off-again run on Moon Knight. Not only that, but Zelenetz both had a run on Conan the King as well as being the main writer on The Official Handbook of the Conan Universe, an offshoot of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (because Marvel didn't want to mix the licensed Conan characters in with the rest of the Marvel characters. The company probably should have thought of that, though, before giving Rom an entry). Suffice it to say that in 1983, if there was a writer at Marvel to write a Thor/Conan comic book, it was Zelenetz (Roy Thomas was at DC at the time, if you recall) and he did so in What If...? #39, with artwork from Ron Wilson and Danny Bulanadi.
HOW THOR MET CONAN THE BARBARIAN
One of the interesting aspects of the early What If..? comic books is that they didn't necessarily always follow the concept of "What if this major event had gone differently" that most of the series is most famously known for (you know, like "What if Spider-Man had saved Gwen Stacy? What if Dark Phoenix has not been killed? What if the Fantastic Four had agreed to make Spider-Man a member?" Stuff like that). Outside of the most unusual example, the issue where Roy Thomas just showed what happened in the Marvel Universe during the 1950s, there were plenty of issues where the divergence was simply "Character X did this totally different thing," like this story, where Thor is tricked (perhaps not even purposely) by Loki to end up in an alternate dimension, the world and time of the Hyborian Age.
The comic quickly sets up the ground rules for the story, which is that Thor, now detached from his world and the power of that world, is greatly reduced in power in this world. He still is quite strong, but not AS strong as he normally is and he doesn't have access to the powers he normally has via his Asgardian birthright or his fancy magic hammer. Plus, he doesn't even know that his hammer IS magic.
He encounters Conan when Thor wanders into a group of dudes right before Conan attacks them to steal their money. He and Conan spar and Conan is impressed by Thor's strength and they decide to become traveling companions...
In what will become a recurring bit throughout the story, Conan give Thor a sword from one of the guys that Conan attacked and tells him he really shouldn't be using a hammer as a weapon...
The two become good buddies, although Thor is A. unwilling to kill like Conan and B. is not a fan of robbing people, either, but he goes along with Conan.
However, when Thor learns about Conan's god, Crom, Thor decides to seek Crom out. He and Conan climb a ridiculously tall mountain, but Thor quickly can go places where Conan cannot, as a god and Crom gives him an audience. Crom lets him know that he is Thor of Asgard but Crom then basically tells him he doesn't want him here and that Crom is afraid Thor, now knowing that he is a god, might try to challenge Crom.
He forces Mjolnir away from Thor (as Odin's enchantment is weaker here) and throws it far, far away, vowing that Thor shall never reunite with it. Thor leaves, and I love how Wilson draws Thor's reaction. It is this total, "What the heck, dude? Why did you have to be such a jerk?"
HOW CONAN BECAME WORTHY OF WIELDING THOR'S HAMMER
The hammer is found by longtime Conan foe, Thoth-Amon, who uses its magical properties to come up with a way for Thoth-Amon to control the weather and be a real villain about it. Thor and Conan travel the world looking for the hammer and when they learn what Thoth-Amon is up to, they investigate (Conan still doesn't really believe that Thor is a god or that he has a magic hammer).
Thoth-Amon is about to use the hammer to sacrifice a bunch of innocent humans and Thor gets in the middle and calls down the lightning on both of them, incinerating Thoth-Amon but killing himself, as well...
Conan realizes that his buddy really WAS a god. As he dies (in a striking silent panel that you rarely saw in Marvel Comics of the era. Well done by all of the creative team), Conan is given the hammer and he is worthy to wield it (there is an unspoken question of whether the enchantment being weaker affects whether Conan can wield it, but the comic explicitly says that he is worthy of wielding it)...
In honor of his friend, Conan then travels that ridiculously tall mountain again, to give Crom the hammer as a sacrifice to show how foolish Crom was to worry about Thor being a bad influence on this world...
It was really cool to see Conan not only wield the hammer but be willing to give it up, while perhaps proving himself almost worthy of being a god himself. Good stuff. Marvel should revisit this universe now that it has Conan's rights again.
If anyone has suggestions about interesting pieces of comic book history, feel free to drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com.