The movies of the MCU have been great when introducing the world to the great characters of the Marvel Universe and Thor has proven to be one of the most popular. In both the comics and the movies, Thor is a powerful hero who battles against some of the most dangerous villains around. People love the MCU version of Thor and some want to see more of his adventures.
The best place for this is in the comics, where for years, Thor has been proving that he's one of the greatest heroes of them all. However, there are a lot of differences between the two characters, ones that movie fans need to know about.
10 Mjolnir Is Much More Powerful & Important
In the movies, Mjolnir is a great weapon but it's kind of proven to be incidental to Thor's powers after its destruction in Thor: Ragnarok. A big deal is made of getting it back in Avengers: Endgame but it feels like it's mostly just there to show that Cap is worthy of it. In the comics, Mjolnir is a much more powerful and important weapon.
When Thor lost his worthiness to it, he was much weaker and not able to access most of his powers. In fact, without it, he wasn't even the God of Thunder anymore, while MCU Thor still had access to the vast majority of his powers when he didn't have Mjolnir.
9 He Is Way More Powerful
In the MCU, Thor is a very powerful character; he is, after all, the God of Thunder. However, he also gets punked out pretty often. Like most denizens of the MCU — with a few exceptions like Captain Marvel — Thor is much weaker than his comic counterpart. In fact, Thor in the movies would be rather easily beaten by the comic version.
In the comics, Thor has managed some extremely impressive feats, doing things that his cinematic counterpart could only dream of. He's much stronger, faster, and his powers are much more formidable, allowing him to win some pretty hellacious battles.
8 He Used To Require Human Hosts
In the movies, Thor was sent to Earth powerless to teach him humility. In the comics, a similar thing happened but instead of his powers being taken away, he was bonded with a doctor named Donald Blake. Later, he would be joined with another human named Eric Masterson, with Masterson's personality being dominant. Finally, his last host was paramedic Jake Olson.
This little wrinkle is very different than in the movies and is one of the reasons there have been so many versions of Thor. Thor hasn't needed a host in a long time but it's still a very interesting part of the Thor mythos.
7 Has Had A Lot Of Girlfriends
In the movies, Thor has pretty much only had the one girlfriend: Jane Foster. While Foster is also very important to Thor in the comics, she's nowhere near the only character he's been romantically involved with. Thor has dated his superheroic compatriots and even some of his fellow Norse gods, like Sif.
Thor has been around for a long time in the comics and romantic subplots are rather important in fiction. It's not extremely surprising that he's had more relationships. While Thor isn't exactly a romantic sort, his relationships are always pretty interesting.
6 Has Ruled Asgard Multiple Times Over The Years
In the movies, Thor was technically ruler of Asgard after Odin died but he was actually terrible at it, shirking his responsibility pretty much from the start. In the comics, Odin has also died numerous times and most of those times, Thor has taken over for him and treated his role as leader of Asgard much more seriously.
While Thor isn't exactly the type to rule a nation in the comics, he at least actually tried to rule Asgard whereas movie Thor barely gave it a chance at all. He took his responsibilities seriously, at least until Odin's inevitable return.
5 He's Smarter
In the movies, Thor is sort of like the well-meaning but dim-witted friend. This is actually pretty weird since Asgard in the movies is more of a technically-advanced place than Earth and Thor would have grown up around its technology and wouldn't have been nearly as surprised by Earth as he was in the first Thor movie.
In the comics, Thor isn't as smart as someone like Iron Man but he's not dumb either. He's been alive for thousands of years and has watched the human race grow and change. While he still has some fish-out-of-water moments, he's way smarter than the movie version.
4 Has Actually Learned Something In All Of His Years With The Avengers
In the movies, Thor is still relatively headstrong and impulsive, which has been a problem for him. The irony being, of course, that the whole reason he was depowered and sent to Earth in the first movie was because he was a foolish hothead and had supposedly learned his lesson. This is very different than Thor in the comics.
In the comics, Thor learned that he isn't always the strongest person on the battlefield and that running into the fray half-cocked can do as much damage as doing nothing at all. While it wasn't an easy lesson to learn, the fact that he did speaks volumes about how different he is from the MCU Thor.
3 Has Jarnbjorn As A Second Weapon, Not Stormbreaker
In the movies, after the loss of Mjolnir and Thanos's handy defeat of both Hulk and Thor, Thor went to get a new weapon, a hammer/ax hybrid that would be named Stormbreaker. In the comics, when Thor lost his worthiness to Mjolnir, he took up an older weapon of his, the ax Jarnbjorn. While the ax didn't grant him any extra powers like Mjolnir, it did allow him to kill Celestials.
Stormbreaker exists in the comics but it was a hammer made for the alien known as Beta Ray Bill, who proved himself worthy of the power of Thor. It also looks completely different from the Stormbreaker in the movies, which looks more like the Mjolnir of the Ultimate Marvel Universe.
2 He & Loki Have A Very Different Relationship In The Comics
In the movies, Thor and Loki's relationship started out rather antagonistically but got much better as the movies progressed and Tom Hiddleston's Loki got more popular with moviegoers. They worked together on more than one occasion and Loki even sacrificed himself to save Thor and the Asgardians from Thanos.
In the comics, their relationship is very different. It has pretty much stayed antagonistic the whole time. Even when Loki has been more on the good side of things, Thor still didn't trust him. There's just too much bad blood between the two of them for their relationship to ever be anything other than uneasy.
1 He's Much More Serious
Thor in the movies can be a serious character but he's honestly mostly comic relief. This has been a gradual transformation — his first two movies have a more serious tone to them and aren't as well-loved as when the character is more humor-oriented like he is in the Avengers movies and Thor: Ragnarok.
In the comics, Thor is not the quip-a-minute guy he is in the movies and this is probably the biggest difference. Anyone looking for the jokey Thor of Thor: Ragnarok is going to be in for a surprise. That doesn't mean comics Thor can't be funny, it's just not in the same way or as frequently as in the movies.