Thor: Ragnarok has brought one of Marvel's biggest grudge matches into the spotlight by pitting the god of thunder against the Hulk in a literal gladiatorial bout. It's only the second time the two have met as opponents in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's the latest entry in a long, long list of fights in... well, just about every other medium. The question is: why?

Why are Thor and Hulk at each other's throats so often? When did it start, and why does it matter? To answer these questions, we have to go back -- way back.

The Early Years

Hulk and Thor's first proper fight occurred in 1965's Journey Into Mystery #112, a battle that would wind up being prophetic for more than one reason. In the issue, a literal group of school children pose the question to Thor about whether he or Hulk was stronger.

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Now, Journey into Mystery is Thor's home turf, so the story is appropriately Thor-focused as he recounts a tale about his last "encounter" with Hulk where he chose to go toe-to-toe with him without the aid of Mjolnir, but with all his godly strength intact, thanks to a deal from Odin. The issue ends without a clear winner, but the seed of the idea had been planted in the hearts and minds of every kid reading comics in the mid-'60s.

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This was the height of the Silver Age of comics, where the Comics Code and the "imaginary story" (read: non-canonical) were in their heyday; when comics readers of all ages were most primed for the hypothetical and the bizarre. And with the growing strength of Marvel's shared universe getting stronger by the issue, the "who would win?" hypotheticals were reaching a fever pitch just about everywhere. But there was one small problem -- the hypotheticals, combined with that same shared universe, often set precedents that creators and editors would then have to (at least, halfheartedly) maintain. This meant that actually giving definitive answers was a dangerous move -- so the earliest conflicts were vague out of necessity than any sort of genuine, merit-based, behind the scenes arithmetic.

Be that as it may, the fact that there was no real definitive answer in these fights was setting a sort of precedent all it's own -- the endless "who is the strongest Avenger?" debate took on the same circular logic as the "immovable force" versus "unstoppable object" question, maybe more so than any other set of superheroes at the time.

The problem was, both Thor and Hulk had abilities and strength levels that were so vaguely defined that there were no clear caveats or addendums that could be assigned to either side of the argument. Unlike characters like Iron Man, who depended on the level of tech he had available, or Captain America, whose effectiveness was contingent on the (superheroic) human body, Thor and Hulk both existed in the realm of extreme hyperbole by default, and therefore, were much less easy to construct a real case for.

How strong can Hulk get? How much can a literal god withstand? Who knows? Who decides? Needless to say, the kids of the mid-1960s were enthralled.

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The Modern Years

Of course, the camp and starry eyed fandom of the Gold and Silver Ages couldn't last forever. Eventually, the playful "who would win?" hypotheticals stopped having a place in comics -- or, rather, stopped having a place that could be easily explained by children on the page literally posing the question to various heroes.

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The revolution started in the Bronze Age, as the increased emphasis on "real world" issues in comics rippled outward. Thus, by the '90s and 2000s, confrontations between Thor and Hulk were starting to get some real narrative heft. Fights began being sparked by things like troubling potential futures, potential dictatorship, mind control, and other, more insidious, forms of manipulation.

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This shift also came on the heels of the beginning of the interrogatory phase of superheroes -- the stories that became preoccupied with the genuine implications of someone who is essentially all powerful and indestructible running around the city, hero or otherwise. Hulk and Thor were prime targets for this level of anxiety...well, for obvious reasons.

This concern spread outward to other characters as well, and affected both Thor and Hulk in ways that had nothing to do with their perpetual competition. Hulk was deemed "too dangerous" and launched into space while Thor was "killed" and unwillingly cloned into a half-crazed facsimile of himself in an effort to recreate his power.

Neither of them were too thrilled with the experience.

Still, their circumstances and the anxiety sounding them from the public served to highlight one strange fact: despite how frequently they were set up in conflict with one another, the two of them rarely had any real bad blood to share. Despite the dire circumstances they'd frequently find themselves coming to blows over, it was really nothing personal.

...Right?

The (More) Modern Age

So where does Thor: Ragnarok fall on this spectrum?

Appropriately, it's a mix of both "eras." Ragnarok capitalizes on the fact that the innate curiosity, the loaded "who would win" questions, are still very much a part of comics culture without wading too deeply into the all-too-logical concern that two indestructible god-like entities are probably more dangerous than they are fun.

The MCU has never spent too much time indulging in the logistical concerns of Hulk or Thor, preferring to keep them both isolated or off-screen during major conflicts where their overabundance of power could potentially prove to be narrative stopgaps. In this way, Ragnarok feels almost inevitable -- the grounded, semi-realism of the MCU at large is just too narrow to contain the likes of all powerful immortals, so why not make due with them off world somewhere?

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Ragnarok also gives some playful nods to the original source of the whole conflict -- the endless, unanswerable "who is the strongest Avenger?" question that has haunted them both since the '60s. But, unlike its Silver Age inspiration, Ragnarok is a little more willing to give a definitive answer -- if only because Thor is a perennial good natured punchline in the movie, so it's a bit easier to make the call without making either of them feel like the "loser." It accomplishes this, unlike The Avengers where the two last met in a fight, by upping the Hulk's intelligence overall to make the fight all the more unique... and by cutting out the "it was probably mind control anyway" excuses.

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All in all, Ragnarok manages to span the generations of Thor and Hulk conflict by dabbling in the best areas of every era, scooping out earnest heaps of wide eyed, pre-teen school yard debate and the more adult, logic-based hypothesizing, then blending them into a whole that turns on of comics' longest standing grudge matches, literally, into a playful rivalry between friends from work.