It’s the end of the world, and Thor feels fine! Well, maybe not, at least not if the trailers for the truly exciting-looking Thor: Ragnarok are any indication, but as the apocalyptic event that signals the end of Asgard and everything else looms in the MCU, let’s find out just what “Ragnarok” means!
Over the years, this quintessential element of Asgardian legend has played a background role in the unfolding story of the Marvel hero and his fellow warriors, at times galvanizing them into action to try to preserve the status quo and stop the destruction of all they know and love. But where did it all begin? We’ll do our best to dial it all back, but it’s important to note that we’re dealing with an endless cycle here. Brace yourself for confusion, True Believers! Spoilers from the comics follow...
Put simply, Ragnarök is Norse mythology’s version of the apocalyptic final days as found in the literature and traditions of cultures all around the world. A great final cataclysm that involves the gods engaging in one last battle and the world flooding, it’s not a time anyone is looking forward to, although it’s important to note that it is merely the end of a cycle, not the Absolute End of All Things. Following Ragnarök, an “Adam and Eve” scenario heralds a rebirth that starts everything all over again.
Translating as “Fate of the Gods,” this end of times was recorded in a 13th century text from other sources, and popularized through its adaptation into the German “Götterdämmerung” by composer Richard Wagner for his Ring Cycle epic opera. But enough of the real world, you want to know what this has to do with the Marvel Universe, don’t you? Of course you do!
So how often does the end of the world happen? Well, it seems that Ragnarök rolls around about every 2160 years, and the major players – Thor included – return in each cycle to play out basic variations of their previous roles in the saga.
We know something of the Thor that lived through the third Ragnarök cycle, while the eleventh sparked a massive war with the Frost Giants, and the twenty-third rampaged against armies of dead and living alike, causing a flood and generally being unpleasant to his own people. A red-haired Thunder God existed during the cycle that preceded the time of the New Testament, but then quite a few things changed. Discovering wooden statues as remnants of the gods that had experienced the previous Ragnarök cycle, the present Asgardians began to forge a slightly different path.
At this point, the Marvel Universe incarnation of Thor and the Asgard he knows came into play. During his lifetime, he’s spent a good portion of his time battling against the inevitable arrival of another cycle’s end and its harbingers (like Harokin), and on at least one occasion, sacrificing his own brother Loki to suspended animation in order to prevent its approach. But when his father Odin learned that Thor’s very presence with his fellow gods would trigger the end times, he sent him into exile on Earth, thus beginning the events that most fans know as the origin story of the Marvel Thor, Donald Blake and all. In later adventures, Thor has struggled to protect the Odinsword, as others conspired to pull the blade and initiate Ragnarök that way – there sure are a lot of ways to end the world, aren’t there? (Don't forget Surtur, the fire demon who is integral to the destruction of Ragnarök as well!)
There was also this weirdo named Price that once tricked Yggdrasill, the “world tree” that binds the Nine Worlds, into believing Ragnarök was happening so that he could engineer his own new human race; scientists are strange like that, and no, the experiment didn’t work out well at all.
One bizarre wrinkle in the saga of the Apocalypse, Marvel-style, is that Ragnarok is also a being! Well, in a sense. As it turns out, Tony Stark took out an insurance policy by holding on to a lock of Thor’s hair from many years back. During the “Civil War” rigmarole, he and his allies used it to clone the Thunder God so they’d have an Asgardian tank in their ranks! The Thor clone, also known as Ragnarok or Codename Lightning, went rogue as Frankensteinian creations tend to do, and murdered Goliath before being obliterated by Hercules. That didn’t stop him from returning via the good graces of folks like Norman Osborn, and later with the Dark Avengers; he even eventually proves worth enough to wield an alternate-reality version of Mjolnir!
We know that Ragnarök will play a role in the latest MCU installment, but will it truly be the end? Of course not! There are plenty more movies coming up, and it seems unlikely that they'll be changing the characters in the same ways that past versions of Ragnarök would suggest. Hemsworth’s Thor will be back, as will Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (yep, he's in the movie version of this story), and all the other Avengers too.
So, as with past Ragnarök-themed stories in Marvel lore, it’s a pretty safe bet that the end is averted… for now!
Find Arnold T. Blumberg on Twitter at @DoctoroftheDead.
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