THOR: RAGNAROK

Ragnarok is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. He first appeared in Civil War #3 (July 2006) and is a cyborg clone of Thor. Ragnarok was created by Mark Millar and Steve Mcniven.

When the real Thor was missing in action, presumed dead, Tony Stark took one of his hairs, which he had retained from the first meeting of the Avengers, and helped Reed Richards and Hank Pym clone the Asgardian DNA within, fusing him with Stark technology. This resulted in the creation of a new, cyborg Thor. The clone was put into action during the superhero Civil War, sent to battle anti-registration heroes.^[1] The heroes were easily brought down by the clone, but Hercules helped the heroes to escape. The battle got out of hand when the clone murdered Goliath by blasting him through the chest, and set out to kill the rest of the anti-registration heroes. Reed Richards deactivated the cyborg with a vocal code, and later operated on his brain, to prevent such a mishap from happening again.^[2] The new Thor returned during the final battle between the pro- and anti-registration heroes. He faced off against Hercules and Storm of the X-Men who defeated the clone by ramming his own hammer into his skull claiming it was an insult to the Odinson, and yelling 'Thou art no Thor'.^[3] The clone's remains were taken to Camp Hammond and stored in the laboratory for experimentation. Baron Von Blitzschlag tells Pym he admires his work, showing the Thor clone to demonstrate this.

During the Secret Invasion storyline, it was revealed that the Hank Pym who helped create the clone was actually a Skrull impostor, who had placed a program into the cloned Thor's remains as a contingency in case of the invasion's failure. Unless a special code, which only the Skrull knew, was inputted every eighteen days, the clone would reawaken. With the Skrull imposter's death during the Invasion, this event came to pass during the Dark Reign storyline. Malfunctioning, and believing himself to be the true Thor, the clone believed he had been imprisoned in Camp Hammond. He threatened Baron Von Blitzschlag into returning his hammer to him, and set out to destroy the Initiative.^[4] The clone swiftly defeated the Initiative's forces and the New Warriors, who had arrived to help. During that time, he took on the name "Ragnarok", which the Baron had called him, declaring that he would "bring the end of all that is". Ragnarok was only stopped when Von Blitzschlag, whose electrical powers made him immune to Ragnarok's lightning, arrived on the battlefield. The Baron showed Ragnarok footage of his creation, and showed him that the real Thor had returned, and had formed a new Asgard above the city. Disgusted by what he perceived as Asgard's "indignity", Ragnarok left Camp Hammond to confront the real Thor.^[5]

During the Siege storyline, Volstagg encounters Ragnarok after being released from jail by the Broxton sheriff, who fights him on an open field to avoid more deaths, but Volstagg is defeated.^[6] Thor later fights Ragnarok and easily destroys him.^[7]

Norman Osborn later has A.I.M. work on rebuilding Ragnarok so that he can join his second incarnation of the Dark Avengers.^[8] Ragnarok is rebuilt under Norman Osborn's control and sent to confront the New Avengers.^[9] Ragnarok is heavily damaged in the fight, suffering multiple injuries while fighting Wolverine before Spider-Man throws Iron Fist at him, where Iron Fist's chi-punch nearly destroys him.^[10] Ragnarok reappears alongside the former Dark Avengers as one of the new Thunderbolts.^[11]