How Captain America Uses Thor’s Lightning With Mjolnir, According to Marvel Writer

Current Marvel Comics writer Dan Slott has offered an explanation for why Captain America (Chris Evans) was able to summon lightning with Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) hammer in Avengers: Endgame. One of the biggest crowd-pleasing moments in the film comes when Cap uses Mjolnir to rescue Thor from Thanos, then proceeds to use the hammer to bring down lightning upon Thanos during a one-on-one fight. Aside from Thor himself and Vision (Paul Bettany), few people in the MCU have been able to wield Mjolnir, as only those deemed worthy can do so. The fact that Captain America was able to says a lot about his character.

Last week, Endgame co-writer Christopher Markus acknowledged that Captain America’s use of Mjolnir is a bit of a plot hole. While it was initially assumed that Thor’s lightning powers came from Mjolnir, 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok revealed otherwise when Thor used his abilities without the aid of the hammer. It was a big character-defining moment for him, one that was sorely needed for the God of Thunder. However, this caused a problem for Steve’s big Endgame moment. Markus himself said they acknowledged the plot hole in writing the movie, but ignored it in favor of keeping the moment because they knew it would be amazing to see.

Now Markus and his writing partner Stephen McFeely have a possible explanation to avoid this plot hole, courtesy of Slott. The writer of current series like Fantastic Four and Tony Stark: Iron Man took to Twitter to offer his take on it: Captain America was able to channel Thor’s lightning powers because Thor was nearby and “wills it to be so.”

For this explanation to be considered canon, it would mean that Thor has the ability to decide who can access his thunder-and-lightning powers if they are worthy of Mjolnir. While this would erase the plot hole, it does raise a few more questions. Namely, if Thor has that much control over the power, why hasn’t it been mentioned before? Also, it would take away from Captain America’s worthiness if he was given permission to use the lightning by Thor because it implies Steve was unable to access all of the powers of Thor on his own.

Despite the appearance of a plot hole, there is another, more likely explanation. One could say Thor’s powers are natural; he was born with them and will always have access to them. Mjolnir is just a way for him to control those powers, something he relied heavily on and was crippled by the loss of because he was not used to being without it. Ragnarok taught him to get past that mental block. Meanwhile, Captain America can use the lightning along with Mjolnir because, as said by Odin in the first Thor, “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.” Regardless, audiences didn’t seem overly bothered with this potential slip-up in Avengers: Endgame, as many have cited Steve’s cheer-worthy moment as a favorite in a film stacked with favorite moments.

Source: Dan Slott/Twitter

About The Author

Rachel Labonte
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Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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