One single horrid truth is all that it takes to strip Thor of his godly powers. After eons of lies told to Thor by Odin, the God of Thunder loses all faith in himself, stripping him of his powers and his hammer. Meanwhile, the tragic memories of Gorr the God-Butcher still linger in Thor's troubled mind.

The Unworthy Thor #1-5 (2016) - by Jason Aaron, Olivier Coipel, and Matthew Wilson - follows the God of Thunder as he seeks to regain his worthiness after losing the ability to wield Mjölnir.

After having learned a horrific truth from Uatu the Watcher, everything Thor believed about himself and his people was made a lie. To regain his powers, Thor embarked on a grueling quest to reclaim his lost power and rise as the God of Thunder once more. However, Thor’s fall from grace and subsequent rise to power is a far more complicated story than at first glance.

Unworthy Thor Suggested Reading Order:

• Thor: God of Thunder #1-24
• Original Sin #1-8
• Original Sin: Thor & Loki #1
• Thor: God of Thunder #25
• Thor (2015) #1-8
• Thors #1-4
• The Mighty Thor #1-14
• The Unworthy Thor #1-5
• The Mighty Thor #15-23, 700-706

The Conspiracy Of The Tenth Realm Of Yggdrasil

Thor Has A Long-Lost Sister And Too Many Questions

To be able to fully understand why Thor lost his powers, we have to take quite a few steps back and talk about the Tenth Realm: Heven. Eons ago, long before Thor’s birth, Asgard and Heven were locked in a brutal war. As the angelic forces of Heven encroached on Asgardian territory, Frigga and Odin held their best until reports of an assassin reached their ears. In Thor & Loki: The Tenth Realm #1, Frigga and Odin watch as the Queen of Angels plunges a dagger into the Asgardians’ infant daughter Aldrif.

In response, Odin used the full power of the Odinforce to sever Heven from Yggdrasil and curse the dimension to sink into an endless void. However, in truth, the Queen of Angels failed to kill the infant, who was instead raised by another Angel as her own. Raised to hate the Asgardians and her father, the infant now known as Angela grew to hate her lineage. When Thor and Loki learned of her existence thousands of years later, the two freed their long-lost sister and restored Heven’s place back within the Ten Realms.

The Original Sin Stripped Thor Of His Worthiness

Thor Was Told A Truth Too Horrible To Bear

Thousands of years later, we return to a modern age and Marvel’s Original Sin event. Previously, Uatu the Watcher had been killed, leaving the Avengers to launch an investigation into this cosmic death. While handling the subsequent chaos following the Watcher’s death, Thor peered into one of Uatu’s severed eyes, which showed him visions of Angela and the Tenth Realm. Thor chose to abandon the Avengers and begin his hunt to track down Angela and restore the damage that Odin had wrought. Once Thor and Loki restored the Ten Realms, the God of Thunder returned to aid the Avengers’ quest.

Gorr the God-Butcher, who slew millions of gods across time, was right.

Thor returned to the moon in a final confrontation with Uatu’s true killer, Nick Fury Sr. Realizing that he couldn’t defeat the God of Thunder directly, the ex-director of SHIELD simply leaned in and whispered one single phrase: “Gorr was right.” In an instant, Thor’s heart dropped as Mjölnir fell from his hand, crashing into the moon’s crust. Gorr the God-Butcher, who slew millions of gods across time, was right. The gods were selfish. The gods were liars. The gods condemn mortals and themselves for nothing. Thor couldn’t shake these unbearable thoughts and Mjölnir couldn’t forgive them.

Gorr the God-Butcher's Message Still Haunted Thor

Jane Foster's Comion Would Prove That The World Needs A Thor

Thor had lost everything. His prized hammer, which chose Thor for his comion, restraint, nobility, and humility, believed Thor’s own thoughts: “I’m not worthy. No god is.” In his mind, being a god and an Asgardian held no value. His people were murderous warlords who sought to expand their reach while denying true freedom to the other realms. As these doubts flooded Thor’s mind, Mjölnir left and found a new wielder who could embody the attributes that Thor once held dear. While it’s somewhat psychosomatic, this was Thor’s epic and his journey to prove his worthiness to himself.

As Thor embarked on a new journey to find himself and a new hammer, Mjölnir elected Jane Foster as its new champion. Realizing another had proven themselves worthy where he believed he could not, Thor gifted his name to Jane, not yet realizing who she was, and took the name Odinson instead. It wasn’t until months later that Jane revealed her true identity to Odinson before telling him that his powers were slowly killing her. Jane convinced the God of Thunder to let the hammer go, hurling it and the apocalyptic Mangog into the sun to be destroyed.

Love Ultimately Redeemed The Unworthy Thor

Jane Foster Proved Thor Didn't Need A Hammer To Be The God Of Thunder

By this point, Thor truly had nothing left. His quest, which brought him closer to his fellow Odinforce-wielding ally Beta Ray Bill, ultimately proved fruitless. With Mangog’s arrival, Asgard was torn asunder as the once glorious halls of gods were cast in endless flames. Jane Foster had sacrificed Mjölnir to save the few remaining souls who survived Mangog’s rampage. Soon, Jane, with no magic left to keep her alive, quietly ed away in Odinson’s loving embrace. Thor was more broken now than ever before. But death is not the end for Asgardians, nor is it for Jane.

Jane explained to Thor that her power came from belief but that his power was from within.

With his hammer destroyed, his true love dead, and his home in ruins, Thor beckoned the powers of the God Tempest, an elder god and the living embodiment of storms. Odin, having previously met Jane at the gates of Valhalla, stood by his son’s side as father and son called upon the living storm to return Jane to life. Soon, Jane arose and delivered a message of hope in the form of words and a small sliver of what remained of Mjölnir. Jane explained to Thor that her power came from belief but that his power was from within.

Following the conclusion of Jason Aaron’s Mighty Thor series, the God of Thunder’s powers returned just as easily as they had fled. Gorr had been killed by Thor’s past, present, and future. Jane was returned to life. And Mjölnir, although only a fraction of its previous self, had returned to Thor’s hands. Once again, the God of Thunder was worthy. While it wouldn’t be until the War of the Realms’ conclusion that Thor would regain a fully-forged Mjölnir, that’s a separate story for another day.