Marvel Studios Artist Reveals First Designs for Thor’s Hammer

Thor’s trust Mjolnir has seen its share of changes in the comics, and it was no different in the MCU, and Marvel Studios just revealed several of the early prototypes.

Marvel Studios artist Charlie Wen shared a host of different concept designs for Thor‘s hammer Mjolnir, which go from relatively simple and tame to otherworldly and stylized. This first pass as its called is all part of the process of figuring out the boundaries of the world, and just because they didn’t end up going with the others doesn’t make them any less cool.

You can check out the set of hammers below.

“I promised a few weeks ago that I’d take you back to the very early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I knew @ryan_meinerding_art way back because I’d hired him onto God of War, then a few years later, he invited me to meet with Kevin @kevfeige to talk about helping to develop more films for Marvel since Ironman was such a success. I was supposed to have a long lead time to develop the look and feel of the Avengers world years before production, which would have been incredible to have that kind of time- but I was pulled into developing the look and feel of Thor’s world first as it needed help. I began design passes for Thor & Asgard, but was asked to design his hammer (Mjölnir) first because Hasbro needed to begin production on its toy line (shortly after this, @kenneth_branagh joined on to direct the film!— huge fan since Henry V!). The first image is the initial pass that goes from more traditional to wacky. The purpose was to begin establishing with Kevin a sense of boundaries and comfort levels for the magical realms of the MCU (in comparison to the earthly ground of Ironman’s tech). It’s always necessary to go too far! In these stages, it was paramount to begin designing the MCU as a connected and cohesive universe. The following images are hammer designs that got approved for the film (and toy;). #marvel #throwback #marvelcinematicuniverse #thor #avengers #photooftheday #conceptart #charliewen_art.”

From left to right our favorites from the top row are 7 and 8, while the second row’s 5, 6, and 7 are also standouts. Row three really goes for the more magical and rune based designs, and 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 are pretty dang cool. Make sure to let us know your favorites in the comments!

Thor returns in Avengers 4, which stars Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Josh Brolin (Thanos), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Brie Larson (Captain Marvel), Danai Gurira (Okoye), Evangeline Lilly (The Wasp), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Don Cheadle (War Machine), Bradley Cooper (Rocket Raccoon).

Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and The Wasp are in theaters now. Other Marvel projects coming soon are Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.