History ComicBook / TheBalladOfBetaRayBill

"The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill" is a 1983 storyline in the pages of ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor''. It was the first work of Creator/WaltSimonson on the title, and the first appearance of ComicBook/BetaRayBill.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Inverted. Thor begins the story longing to be a mere human, at least for one day... and, at the end of the story, he loses his human identity.

* ConservationOfNinjutsu: Lady Sif, a god-woman with a sword, against an endless wave of demons. Who wins?

** Odin and Sif realize that Beta Ray Bill no longer looks like his fellow aliens because of the enhancements made to turn him into a soldier capable of defending his entire civilization, leading to him feeling isolated from them. Odin transfers Mjolnir's enchantment to Stormbreaker, allowing Bill to turn into a normal looking alien by tapping Stormbreaker on the ground.

* BatmanGambit: The dwarfs won't make a new hammer for free: the Asgardians have to send a goddess to fight against their champion first. If she wins, they'll make the hammer for Odin; if not, their champion gets to keep the goddess as a love slave. But this request isn't what it seems. The dwarfs' "champion" is the freakishly huge dwarf Throgg, who has been using his great size and strength to bully and dominate the other dwarfs. Eitri ''[[GenreSavvy knows]]'' that Odin will send Sif and she'll will defeat Throgg easily, humiliating him so badly that he would never bother his fellow dwarfs again.

* BatmanGambit: The dwarves won't make a new hammer for free: the Asgardians have to send a godness to fight against their champion, and if he wins, he gets to keep her as a love slave. But this request isn't not for the reasons you suspect: Eitri ''[[GenreSavvy knew]]'' that Sif would win, and by doing so their champion (who was actually a bully) would be so ashamed that he won't bother the dwarves anymore.

"The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill" is a 1983 storyline of ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor''. It was the first work of Creator/WaltSimonson in the title, and the first appearance of ComicBook/BetaRayBill.

S.H.I.E.L.D. detected an alien ship heading towards earth, and sent Thor to deal with it. Thor found a powerful alien in it, and was defeated when he became the human Donald Blake again. The ship crashed on Earth and SHIELD surrounded it. Seeking Thor's hammer to use it in his defense, the alien found just a stick, and knocked the wall in anger with it... and got the power of Thor, and the stick became {{Mjolnir}} again. But after defeating SHIELD Odin had an urgent need of Thor, and teleported him to Asgard... not realizing, in the rush, that the guy with Thor's hammer and costume was not actually Thor. Beta Ray Bill was imprisoned and Donald Blake was turned to Thor and taken to Asgard, and things were clarified: Beta Ray Bill is the protector of his people, and confused Thor and Odin with the demons that were chasing him.

But there's a problem: for the first time, someone other than Thor has been worthy enough to lift the hammer, and he claims that he won it in battle. They tried to settle it in a fight to the death: Beta Ray Bill won, defeated Thor, but did not kill him. So Odin tried another approach: he made a new hammer, Stormbreaker, specifically for Beta Ray Bill. Both of them and ComicBook/LadySif returned to the ship, and destroyed the demons. Before leaving, Odin moved one enchantment from Mjolnir to Stormbreaker: Bill was now capable of turning into his normal self, that he had lost after so many modifications to turn him into a super soldier. And, on the other hand, Thor lost the power to become Donald Blake.

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Skuttlebutt automatically decodified Thor's language and loaded it into Beta Ray Bill.
* AnimatedAdaptation: An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'', with [[Recap/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroesS2E8TheBalladOfBetaRayBill the same name]], made an adaption of this story. S.H.I.E.L.D. was removed (and all planet Earth, for that matter), Thor does not have a Donald Blake identity in that series, there was no death match for the hammer or negotiation with the dwarves and they moved directly to forge a new one (hey, it has to be told in nearly 20 minutes!), and incorporated the Enchantress as a slave of Surtur, a subplot absent in the original work.
* BatmanGambit: The dwarves would not make a new hammer for free: the Asgardians had to send a godness to fight against their champion, and if he won, he would keep her as a love slave. But this request was not for the reasons you suspect: Eitri ''[[GenreSavvy knew]]'' that Sif would win, and by doing so their champion (who was actually a bully) would be so ashamed that he wouldn't bother the dwarves anymore.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Inverted. Thor began the story longing to be a mere human, at least for one day... and, at the end of the story, he lost his human identity.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Lorelei, helping a Troll being chased by hunters... and captured him, and gloated it to the hunters.
* ConservationOfNinjutsu: Lady Sif, a woman with a sword, against an endless wave of demons. Who wins?
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Thor was once an arrogant jerk. Odin had once turned him into a mere mortal, who could turn into Thor with an enchantment in the hammer. The idea was to make Thor appreciate patience and helping the weaklings. The enchantment was that "Whoever holds this hammer, if he's worthy, shall possess the power of Thor". It seems that Odin was also an arrogant jerk: he had never considered the chance that someone else other than Thor may be worthy.
* DuelToTheDeath: Thor and Beta Ray Bill fought in a wasteland for Mjolnir. They both fell unconscious over a piece of rock, in a river of lava, heading to a fall. Beta Ray Bill woke up first: he just had to jump to security and win. But he broke the rules, and jumped to security ''with'' Thor. He won the fight, but nobody died.
* GlorySeeker: Lady Sif can not stand the easy life, and wants battles and adventures.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: It began with Donald Blake in the park, thinking about this.

* ImprovisedWeapon: Neither Thor or Beta Ray Bill could use Mjolnir during the duel. Thor began to throw rocks as a replacement.
* LaughablyEvil: Loki will help Lorelei seduce Thor, simply because it would be fun.

* OneSteveLimit: The new character was meant to be named "Beta Ray Jones", but Walt Simonson changed his mind: there are too many "Jones" guys in the Marvel Universe.
* PaperThinDisguise: Odin, "disguised" to visit the dwarves. He was immediately recognized.

* ThisIsUnforgivable: Volstagg told Agnar that if he killed Balder, he may eventually forgive him, because he has also been young and arrogant once. Thor and Fandral may also forgive him, they have also been young and arrogant. But... what about Hogun the Grim? He has never been young. He will never forget... [[EyedScreen nor forgive!]]
* WowingCthulhu: Beta Ray Bill was the first character other than Odin and Thor himself to lift Mjolnir.

* DuelToTheDeath: Thor and Beta Ray Bill fought in a wasteland for Mjolnir. They both fell unconcious over a piece of rock, in a river of lava, heading to a fall. Beta Ray Bill woke up first: he just had to jump to security and win. But he broke the rules, and jumped to security ''with'' Thor. He won the fight, but nobody died.

* LaughablyEvil: Loki will help Lorelei seduce Thor, simply because it would be fun

* ImprovisedWeapon: Neither Thor of Beta Ray Bill could use Mjolnir during the duel. Thor began to throw rocks as a replacement.

* PaperThinDisguise: Odin, "disguised" to visit the dwarves. He was immediately recognized

S.H.I.E.L.D. detected an alien ship heading towards earth, and sent Thor to deal with it. Thor found a powerful alien in it, and was defeated when he became the human Donald Blake again. The ship crashed on Earth and SHIELD surrounded it. Seeking Thor's hammer to use it in his defense, the alien found just a stick, and knocked the wall n ager with it... and got the power of Thor, and the stick became {{Mjolnir}} again. But after defeating SHIELD Odin had an urgent need of Thor, and teleported him to Asgard... not realizing, in the rush, that the guy with Thor's hammer and costume was not actually Thor. Beta Ray Bill was imprisoned and Donald Blake turned to Thor and taken to Asgard, and things were clarified: Beta Ray Bill is the protector of his people, and confused Thor and Odin with the demons that were chasing him.

But there's a problem: for the first time, someone other than Thor has been worthy enough to lift the hammer, and he claims that he won it in battle. They tried to settle it in a fight to the death: Beta Ray Bill won, defeated Thor, but did not kill him. So Odin tried another approach: he made a new hammer, Stormbreaker, specifically for Beta Ray Bill. Both of them and ComicBook/LadySif returned to the ship, and destroyed the demons. Before leaving, Odin moved one enchantment from Mjolnir to Stormbreaker: Bill was now capable to turn into his normal self, that he had lost after so many modifications to turn him into a super soldier. And, on the other hand, Thor lost the power to become Donald Blake.

* AnimatedAdaptation: An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'', with the same name, made an adaption of this story. S.H.I.E.L.D. was removed (and all planet Earth, for that matter), Thor does not have a Donald Blake identity in that series, there was no death match for the hammer or negotiation with the dwarves and they moved directly to forge a new one (hey, it has to be told in nearly 20 minutes!), and incorporated the Enchantress as a slave of Surtur, a subplot absent in the original work.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Thor was once an arrogant jerk. Odin had once turned him into a mere mortal, who could turn into Thor with an enchantment in the hammer. The idea was to make Thor appretiate patience and helping the weaklings. The enchantment was that "Whoever holds this hammer, if he's worthy, shall possess the power of Thor". It seems that Odin was also an arrogant jerk: he had never considered the chance that someone else other than Thor may be worthy.

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