Destroyer (Thor)

Fictional history

The Destroyer is an enchanted suit of armor forged by Odin, and when it first appeared it was hinted that the Destroyer had been created as a weapon to face some dark menace from the stars. It is first seen residing in the Temple of Darkness in Asia. The Destroyer is used by Thor's arch-foe Loki on several occasions, and each time has actually come close to killing Thor. First, it was used by a hunter whom Loki had lured to the temple using his mental powers. At one point Thor was imprisoned in the ground, but Loki saved him by making him intangible briefly before the Destroyer could strike him with an elemental transmutation beam. Thor forced the hunter's consciousness to leave the armor by using the hunter's body as a shield before the Destroyer could fire at Thor, then burying the Destroyer under thousands of tons of rock when the hunter tried to return to it. It is next salvaged by Karnilla and animated by Sif, who attempted to use it to battle the Wrecker when Thor was temporarily deprived of his godhood and all his powers but his strength by Odin as a lesson, only for the Destroyer to proceed to attack Thor before Sif broke her connection with it. At one stage Thor offers the armor to the World Devourer Galactus, in exchange for the release of Galactus's current Herald, Firelord. Galactus accepts, and the Destroyer acts as his Herald, detecting Counter-Earth for him and going on to battle the Fantastic Four until finally recaptured for reuse by Loki.

Years later the menace from the stars is revealed to be the Celestials, with the Skyfather gods (Odin, Zeus, etc.) having pooled their resources a millennium before to create the Destroyer as a weapon to stop the arrival of the so-called Fourth Host of Celestials. At the penultimate moment, Odin enters the Destroyer armor and then absorbs the life essences of all present in Asgard (with the exception of absent Thor), growing to a height of 2,000 feet (610 m). The Destroyer then draws the Odinsword, and together with the Uni-Mind confronts the Fourth Host, who dissipate the Uni-Mind and melt the Destroyer armor into slag, scattering the life-forces of the Asgardians. The Asgardians were later revived by Thor gathering power from the other Skyfathers. The armor, however, is not completely ruined and several years later Loki reforms the armor in a bid to destroy a severely weakened Thor, who has been reduced to pulp after killing the Midgard Serpent due to a curse by Hela which made his bones brittle and made him incapable of healing or dying. Thor, however, wrests control of the armor from the host—an enthralled Frost Giant named Siggorth—through sheer force of will and goes on to defeat Loki. The Destroyer, depicted as thinking and speaking for the very first time, tries to take control of him but fails. Then the death goddess Hela is defeated by the Destroyer—attired in Thor's raiment and wielding his hammer—attacking her realm, forcing her to restore Thor to his true form and undo the curse that left him in such a dire condition. The Destroyer is left in a crystal in Hela's realm, and is eventually animated by the goddess Lorelei. Lorelei battles several Asgardians and becomes trapped in the dimension of the Great Beasts.

The Destroyer is later deployed by trolls, who empower it with the spirit of the Maestro, an evil future version of the Hulk. Although the Hulk fails to defeat the Destroyer in combat, he is able to enter the Destroyer because he and the Maestro are the same spirit, allowing him to fight the Maestro for control and defeat it from within. Thor has two more encounters with the Destroyer, with the armor almost killing him on the first occasion and breaking his jaw on the second. The armor is eventually retrieved by Loki and occupied by the entity Desak, although Thor—equipped with the Odinpower—decapitates it with one throw of Mjolnir.

The armor was later under the control of the god Balder when Thor was on a quest to locate his missing brethren, the Asgardians. Doctor Doom takes possession of the Destroyer armor and uses a copy of the Destroyer armor to attack the Asgardians.

After Thor loses the ability to wield Mjolnir, and the hammer is claimed by an unknown woman, Odin, working with the restored Serpent, decides to dispatch the Destroyer to make her rescind Mjolnir, despite even Thor accepting his replacement as a worthy heir. With Cul animating the Destroyer, Odin unleashes it on the new Thor, but although she is unable to hold her own, she receives aid from Odinson, Frigga, and the various women that Odinson had identified as possible candidates for his successor's true identity, Frigga forcing Odin to stand down as she confronts him with the knowledge that he has essentially become the villain with his unprovoked attack on the heroes.

Powers and abilities

The Destroyer is forged of an unknown metal and enchanted to be more durable than Uru. All of the Sky Fathers imbued the Destroyer with a portion of their power. Although the Destroyer can act independently for brief periods, in general the construct is lifeless until animated by the life-force of a sentient living being. When so animated, the Destroyer retains a rudimentary base personality that will eventually subvert the host unless that host is a particularly strong-willed individual, such as Thor or Loki. Odin is also able to cast a spell that can force the animating persona from the armor and deactivate it.

The Destroyer armor possesses vast superhuman strength of unknown limits. While inhabited by the lifeforce of a sentient being, its strength is immeasurable. It possesses enough superhuman strength to easily overpower even the likes of Thor, and Hulk. The Destroyer armor is maintained by the lifeforce of a sentient being and is not subject to physical fatigue. While inhabited, the Destroyer literally possesses limitless superhuman stamina in all activities.

The Destroyer armor is practically invulnerable to all forms of physical damage. The armor can withstand high caliber bullets, tremendously powerful impact forces, falls from tremendous heights, exposure to absolute extremes of both temperature and pressure, and powerful energy blasts from the likes of Thor and Odin without sustaining damage. While possessed of the lifeforce of all the Asgardians, the Destroyer could withstand powerful blasts of energy from beings as powerful as the Celestials. The Destroyer has withstood a million tons of pressure without even falling over; while the near-omnipotent Celestials were able to melt the construct with energy blasts, its melted form was later easily reanimated to its original state.

The Destroyer armor is capable of firing extremely powerful bolts of energy, primarily for destructive purposes. It has such power that the simple energy that crackles within can shatter planets. The armor can project beams of intense heat, electricity, plasma, and magnetic force. The armor is also capable of manipulating the molecular structure of most materials and matter itself for a variety of purposes including, but not limited to, transmutation such as the creation of impenetrable substances. Its most devastating weapon, however, is a beam fired from the armor's helmet, where a person's face would be in an ordinary suit of armor, that is capable of disintegrating practically any known substance in existence. The Destroyer must keep its visor open in order to build up the energies to use in this attack. The beam is even capable of destroying material as durable as Uru.

While the armor itself has no weaknesses, the spirit inhabiting the armor will begin to grow more progressively violent while spending extended periods of time within the armor. Also, after a time, it becomes nearly impossible for an inhabiting spirit to maintain control over the armor while attempting to use it for non-violent purposes in non-combat situations. In time, the armor itself will dominate the inhabiting life force. Only a being of extreme willpower, such as Thor or Odin, is able to hold control over the armor.

Secret Wars

During the Secret Wars storyline, there were alternate versions of the Destroyers present.

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