DC’s Version of Thor is Completely Unkillable | Screen Rant
Spoilers for Aquaman #66 ahead!
DC’s version of Thor, The Viking Prince, is completely unkillable. This revelation was made in the pages of Aquaman #66, a tie-in to DC’s Endless Winter event. Written by Andy Lanning and Ron Marz, with art by Miguel Mendonca and Marco Santucci, the issue is in stores now.
Despite being created 65 years ago, by comic legends Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert in the pages of The Brave and the Bold, the Viking Prince has largely been ignored in the DC Universe. After his initial heyday in the 1950s, the character would appear sporadically in various titles until he was dusted off for DC’s Endless Winter event. A native of 10th-century Scandinavia, the Prince’s real name is Jon Haraldson; he fell in love with a Valkyrie, a move that displeased Odin and as punishment, he decreed the Prince must die a heroic death before entering Valhalla. Furthermore, Odin complicated matters by making the Prince invulnerable to all known weapons. While this prevents the Prince from seeing his true love again, it makes him quite a formidable warrior, and that was on full display in the latest issue of Aquaman.
Like all Endless Winter tie-ins, the issue is set during two different time periods, one in the Viking Prince’s 10th-century and the other in the present day. In the past, a team of heroes including the Prince, Hippolyta, Black Adam and Swamp Thing have united against a great evil. Edwald Olafsson has transformed into the evil Frost King and is a crusade of revenge. The heroes confront the Frost King and he is able to overpower Swamp Thing and destroy him, The Viking Prince, on the other hand, cannot be killed by the King and is able to withstand the King’s attack. He tells Hippolyta his invulnerability is his “blessing and his bane,” referring to the curse Odin put on him. He informs her of its stipulation—that he must die a heroic death, and their battle with the Frost King wouldn’t be it.
Viking Prince is DC’s version of Thor. Both are rooted in Norse mythology, and both have ties to Odin. Both Thor and the Viking Prince are warriors of high integrity and courage and both are invulnerable; however, the Prince is a mortal and can be killed. In the pre-New 52 DC Universe, the Prince traveled forward in time and was eventually killed by an explosive, a weapon not known in his time—will that situation be duplicated here? Can this version of the Prince be killed at all?
It is not unusual for one comic company to have a version of another company’s character, and Viking Prince is clearly DC’s version of Thor, and much like Thor he is extremely hard to kill. Time will only tell if Viking Prince will stick around or slip back into obscurity.