By any measure, Thor is one of the most powerful entities in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With his powers to control thunder and lightning through Mjolnir, he's a shoo-in for the strongest superhero in the MCU. Even after his hammer was broken in Thor: Ragnarok, he proved to be quite a handful as he defeated Hela and helped stop Surtur.
However, all of this came to a crashing halt in Avengers: Infinity War because the Odinson was broken beyond belief thanks to Thanos, the Black Order and the army the Mad Titan commanded. Without his trusty hammer by his side, we;re taking a look back at how the Asgardian king was truly shattered.
Thor became King of Asgard after Odin died in Ragnarok and at the end of that film, and he needed to find his people haven. Their old kingdom was destroyed, so they needed to find New Asgard, which began with a space ship they stole and a trip through the cosmos with Valkyrie at his side. Sadly, Thanos' Sanctuary II intercepted them in Thor: Ragnarok's post-credits scene and at the start of Infinity War, we saw the outcome of that encounter.
Half of the Asgardians were murdered in an invasion, which left Thor with the burden of knowing he lost his subjects in a way no other king did. Thanos and the Black Order ripped through their ship, and the loss of thousands of innocents that he was tasked with protecting drove Thor into a deep depression. Seeing Thanos and his lackeys walking over the lifeless bodies of men, women and children was a chilling sight that shook MCU fans to the core.
Thor was just as wounded by the deaths of his closest allies. He already lost the Warriors Three in Ragnarok, and Heimdall was the first big name to die in Infinity War. The all-seeing Norse warrior was mortally wounded, and after he teleported a wounded Hulk to Earth using magic and a makeshift Bifrost, Thanos finished the job while the Odison was restrained.
The Mad Titan took things a step further when Loki tried to deceive him with the Tesseract. The God of Mischief attempted to stab his former benefactor, but Thanos saw it coming a mile away and strangled the trickster to death. Both deaths would damage Thor mentally since they were his brothers-in-arms. Loki's death was especially heart-wrenching since he had just redeemed Loki, only to lose him in the attack. They were the last of what Thor considered his inner circle and Thor's muffled screams proved how horrifying these deaths were for him.
Thor would channel all this anger into an appetite for revenge when he and Rocket Raccoon helped make Stormbreaker at Eitri's forge. After Groot provided a handle, they came back to Earth at the battle of Wakanda to fend off Thanos when he sought out Vision's Mind Stone. When Thanos tried to harness the full power of the Infinity Gauntlet, though, Thor flung his axe and damaged him badly, however, it was a costly miss.
He failed to go for the head, possibly out of a desire to taunt Thanos for his crimes against Asgard. Sadly, this moment of hubris would allow the Mad Titan enough time to snap away half of life in the galaxy.
In essence, Thor inadvertently spared him and allowed Thanos to complete this genocide. This was a petulant move and very expensive as the warrior watched Avengers wither away, not to mention half of the Asgardians who escaped the first attack would perish too. This compounded Thor's misery and would drive him into a downward spiral that saw him racked with guilt and feeling like a constant failure at the start of Avengers: Endgame.
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