Bash Brothers stay together to the end! Or perhaps not...
Balder: What will you do when they take action to stop you? When they do violence? What will you do when men make war?
Thor: Then, brother, I will bring the thunder.
Ultimate Thor was a 2011 comic book miniseries by Jonathan Hickman and Carlos Pacheco. Set in the Ultimate Marvel universe, it is the ultimate adaptation of The Mighty Thor.
Once upon a time, Thor, Loki and Balder were a band of Bash Brothers, the proud sons of Odin. Loki betrayed them during WWII, and arranged that a Nazi military division (including tanks) was transported to Asgard, to lay siege to the city alonside the frost giants. The invaders destroyed the whole city, but not before Odin managed to punish Loki by trapping him inside the world tree, in the Room With No Doors.
Thor was reborn as a man in the modern day, and the European Super Soldier Initiative created weapons and power amplifiers that would allow him to fight as Thor. He is interned when he starts talking about himself as Thor, and Braddock tries to figure out if the weapons have some unexpected side effect, the man was nuts to begin with, or... is he the real deal? After some interviews with Dr. Donald Blake, he accepts to let Thor go free and be a hero. And just in time, because Hulk is attacking New York, and The Ultimates can not stop him.
Tropes:
- And This Is for...: Odin trapped Loki into the Room Without Doors saying "And this is for Balder!"
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Brian Braddock thinks that, if Captain America could be found in ice and brought back to life, then it shouldn't be too weird to accept Thor's story. His father replies that Cap's case was a combination of genetics and cryogenics, scientific stuff; Thor's claims of being a reborn god are something completely different.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Frost Giants finally destroyed Asgard and killed everyone in it. Loki manages to return to Earth from the Room With No Doors with all his godly power in tact.
- Big Damn Heroes: Thor and Loki save Balder from Frost Giants.
- Bolivian Army Ending: Issue 3. Asgard has been destroyed, and everyone has been killed. Only Thor still stands, against the complete armies of the nazis and the frost giants. To be continued...
- Canon Character All Along: Donald Blake is actually Balder reborn.
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: Thor and Loki are late to backing up Balder because, in Loki's words, they were partying.Thor: Beware, Balder, Loki lies. ... we were drinking as well.
- Composite Character
- Baron Zemo is actually a disguise of Loki in Nazi germany
- Thor, Loki and Balder call themselves "The Warriors Three". The original owners of the name (Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg) also appear, but not with that name.
- Donald Blake is actually Balder reborn
- The Constant: Mjolnir. Odin knows that some day Asgard will be no more, and created the hammer so that the Asgardian power remains even after that point.
- Continuity Nod:
- A rare acknowledge of anything from Ultimates 3 comes with the forging of Mjolnir, when it's shown to be made by Eitri, something Thor noted back then.
- The last issue includes several images from the first Ultimates miniseries.
- Crazy-Prepared: Loki was prepared for the chance of being trapped into the Room With No Doors, and arranged things by manipulating his old subordinate Helmutt to allow his escape with all his powers in tact.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: As Thor insisted on being a norse god reborn, Blake made a brain scan while they talked. It turned out that he had activity in the hippocampus and the neocortex while he talked about Odin, his brothers, Asgard, etc. That meant that, when he was talking about those things, he was remembering.
- Demoted to Extra: Hogun and Fandral are much less prominent then their traditional third, Volstagg.
- The Faceless: Donald Blake, up until issue 4, when he turns out to be Balder.
- Foregone Conclusion
- Of course that Thor will be allowed to leave and be a hero. This is a prequel to the Ultimates, who had been around for some time at this point.
- Of course that Loki finds a way out of the Room With No Doors. He was the villain of The Ultimates 2.
- Forever War: Year after year, the Frost giants keep attacking Asgard.
- Gender Bender: In the comics, Laufey is a male. Here, in keeping with the original myths, he's a she.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: The Frost Giants are aided by nazi soldiers, with machine guns and tanks, which allows them to take down Asgard.
- Gladiator Games: Asgard held those games to celebrate their (temporary) victory over the Frost Giants.
- Historical Domain Character: Zemo asks Heinrich Himmler for troops.
- How We Got Here
- The story starts with Asgard burning. Then we find out how did all this happened.
- On a higher scope, the whole story narrated the events until the point when Thor made his Big Damn Heroes entry into the fight of the Ultimates and Hulk.
- Humanity Is Superior: Zemo boasts that human knowledge and cunning will achieve what the Frost Giants, with just brute strength, failed to do for untold millennia.
- I Regret Nothing: Loki's last words before vanishing for all eternity into the Room With No Doors? "I'm sorry... for nothing. Nothing."
- Kick the Dog: Loki kills the old man who saved him from the Room With No Doors.
- Last Stand: Volstagg, the guardian of the wall, will stand in it even if it was destroyed. "Go, Thor, sing a song for us at the world tree. Tell them how Volstagg met his end. And that he did not meet it alone"
- Living Ark: Thor is revealed to be this trope by virtue of Mjolnir who Odin enchants with Asgardian Magic to ensure it would be able to bring Asgard back into existence after Ragnarok. Even after losing Mjolnir and the destruction of Asgard for the second and last time later on, Thor becomes becomes a walking Valhalla, as a living container of all the ghosts of the defunct Asgardian Gods and able to interact with them for guidance.
- Make a Wish: Hulk is destroying New York, and the Ultimates can not stop him. Nick Fury orders: "Ready the nuke. And, if you believe in God, soldier... pray for a miracle."
- Military Mage: Zemo adds the Frost Giants to his ranks of Nazis Schutzstaffel, complete with military uniforms, automatic weapons, and magical runes for good measure.
- Mood Whiplash: Loki explains that things will not last, that some day Ragnarok will come and end everything... and Balder replies with a snow ball. "Grim, always grim... and boring".
- Puny Earthlings: Invoked and Averted. The Frost Giant Mammoth initially dismisses the Nazi army as worthless metal and little men, and boasted that he attacked Asgard with titans for ages and failed. Zemo tells him off and makes him eat his words.Zemo: I offer victory, mammoth. The victory that only comes to those with knowledge and the cunning to use it. Do you want to wax poetic about your millennium-spanning defeat, or do you wish to see how we will win?
- Resolved Noodle Incident: The Ultimates 2 mentions that Loki escaped from the Room With No Doors, without explaining what it was or why he was there. All we needed to know was that Loki was on the loose (or just that a nutcase with super weapons thinks that Loki is on the loose). Now we know the full details.
- Sibling Team: Thor, Loki and Baldur form one. Tragically, it falls apart thanks to Loki's mommy issues.
- Skewed Priorities: World War II, 1939. Germany is in a delicate point of the war... and Zemo wants a hundred thousand men, to go on a wild goose chase. Himmler tells him "you are testing my patience".
- Stating the Simple Solution: The scientists are worried about the portable unit, it has a huge size, and there's no easy way to make it easy to be carried around. Thor simply draws some lines around the design, and says "Make me a hammer".
- Those Wacky Nazis: Zemo manages to convince Heinrich Himmler to give him 100,000 troops in exchange for invading the home of the Norse Gods, plundering their mystic treasures, and returning with them to take over the world in the name of Hitler.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Helmutt waited all his life for the signals, ever vigilant, and rescued Loki from the Room With No Doors. Loki displays his gratitude by killing him.
- Vagueness Is Coming: Thor writes the Poetic Edda on the ground of his room. Well, just the parts he remembers. Blake points out that he ends with an ominous sentence, which translates as "there is a storm coming".
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Loki would do anything, anything, to regain the love of his mother. Unfortunately his hateful mother demanded he bring about Ragnarok.
- You Talk Too Much!: Thor says this to Loki when he defeats him in the gladiator games, while he gave a grim speech.
