Infinity War: Thor’s ‘Fluctuating’ Power Levels Explained By Directors

There are a few Marvel fans who have taken the issue with Thor being unreliable in terms of his capabilities and power. Now, Anthony and Joe Russo have offered an explanation.

During the Q&A session after the screening of Infinity War, Joe Russo linked Thor’s inconsistencies to his state of mind.

“The thing that we love most about Thor is that he’s a very emotional character,” Joe Russo said. “And as godlike as he is, there’s a massive insecurity inside of him about his role, who he is, who he truly is, who he’s truly meant to be, and he carries around a tremendous amount of guilt. And I think that he, like any great athlete, can have moments when he takes himself out of the game and other moments when he is inspired and passionate and driven. And I think he also has an ego and his ego can sometimes get the better of him, which is why we’ve said in the that you could ultimately put the blame for the snap on Thor because he threw the ax at Thanos’ chest rather than his head so that he could tell Thanos that he got his revenge. But this is what we love about the characters is ultimately they’re very human and they make human mistakes and if the characters didn’t make any mistakes and they weren’t flawed we think these stories would be a lot less interesting.”

A major part of Infinity War comprised of Thor’s quest for a new weapon to replace his shattered hammer, Mjolnir. He created the Stormbreaker and the Russo Bros. also commented on whether Stormbreaker’s power can actually rival that of the Infinity Gauntlet.

“It certainly has the ability to counteract the Infinity Gauntlet,”
Said Joe Russo.

“I think that key moment, though, is that Thanos was caught off guard,” added Anthony Russo, referencing the moment Thor embedded the ax in Thanos’ chest. “He literally just didn’t know the power of what was coming at him. I mean, maybe he could have used the Stones in a different way had he understood what that weapon was, but it came out of nowhere.”

Avengers: Infinity War was the third Marvel film directed by the Russos, who previously helmed Captain America: The Winter Solider and Captain America: Civil War. The dynamic sibling team will also be directing the highly-anticipated Avengers 4.