In every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without actively retconning away the previous story. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today, based on a suggestion by reader David M., we take a look at how Thor and Mjolnir had a special soul connection that apparently wasn't quite as permanent as Doctor Strange made it out to be.

The whole mess started in Thor #600 (part of J. Michael Straczynski's run on the series), when Loki manipulated things so that Thor's grandfather, Bor, would come back to life, but he would also see reality in a distorted way so that it seemed like he was being besieged by demons when he was actually seeing his grandson, Thor. Loki came up with this plan because Loki figured that it would force Thor into a corner - either let Bor go on a wild rampage on Earth while thinking that he is killing demons (which would naturally lead to the deaths of many innocent people) or stop Bor with the only thing that could possibly stop Bor - deadly force!

Cleverly, the regular art team of Olivier Coipel and Mark Morales drew the fight from Thor's perspective and then Marko Djurdjevic would draw the fight from Bor's perspective. Here is the moment where Thor is shocked to see that the person running wild in New York City can actually wield Mjolnir! (Thor does not yet know that this guy is specifically his supposedly dead grandfather, as, well, why would he figure that out right away?)....

Finally, Thor has to put him down, using all of his might...

It was, of course, all a plot by Loki to get Thor to commit regicide, at which point Thor would have to be banished from Asgard, since that is a big "no no" in the Asgardian playbook.

The other problem for Thor, though, was that the fight was so epic that Mjolnir was splintered a bit in the battle, as shown in the following issue (art by Djurdjevic and Danny Miki)...

Finally, Thor meets up with Doctor Strange in Thor #602 and they figure out a way to fix Mjolnir. The problem is that it will take all of the leftover Odinforce that Thor had in his body PLUS some of Thor's own lifeforce. The downside of that is explained well by Doctor Strange here...

Seems pretty straightforward, then, right? If the hammer is ever destroyed or even badly damaged again, Thor will die. So it is a good thing that Mjolnir has not been destroyed since then, right?

Oh....wait....

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='That does not look good!']

In Thor #705 (by Jason Aaron, Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson), the Mangog is on the loose again and he is just WRECKING THE HECK out of everything. The remaining Asgardians are doing their best to stop him but they are having a seriously tough time doing so.

Finally, the new Thor (Jane Foster) comes up with a plan. Using the same chains that were used to bind the Fenris Wolf to tie up Mangog to Mjolnir. Jane then threw Mjolnir and Mangog into the sun, seemingly destroying them both...

Now, as you might have noticed, the explosion did not kill Odinson (or, even Jane Foster, in the end)...

So obviously that whole "soul bounding" thing was abandoned.

However, there are a few possible explanations for this. Thor died during Fear Itself, so there is an argument to be made that the soul connection was broken once Thor actually DIED, ya know?

Then there's the fact that Odinson eventually lost the ability to even CALL himself Thor when he became no longer worthy of wielding Mjolnir, so there is a strong argument to ALSO be made that when that happened and Mjolnir's enchantments were altered so that it would be bonded with Jane Foster, then the original soul connection would ALSO be rendered moot.

I think either argument could make sense, but the main gist of it, though, is that the original Straczynski plot was, of course, abandoned.

Thanks to David for the suggestion! If anyone else has a suggestion for an abandoned comic book plot, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!