In Donny Cates and Nic Klein’s Thor #6, the God of Thunder reaches his most powerful form ever to take on the universe-destroying Black Winter.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Thor #6 by Donny Cates, Nic Klein, Matt Wilson and VC’s Joe Sabino, on sale now.
In Donny Cates and Nic Klein’s new Thor series, the God of Thunder made a deal with the devil by becoming Galactus’ new herald. The Devourer of Worlds warned of the coming of something called the Black Winter, which threatened to destroy the entire Marvel Universe. To power Galactus up like never before, Thor leads the cosmic giant to five secret planets that, when consumed, would give him more and more power. Only when all five planets were gone were Galactus and his Herald of Thunder ready to take on the Black Winter.
Now, in Thor #6, the fight between all three characters reaches an end — and it’s one that no one could have seen coming.
Before, Thor had plenty of trouble allowing Galactus to destroy these five planets, but he knew it was what needed to be done to save everything and everyone. But when the Black Winter revealed it had no interest in destroying the universe, Thor realized he had been duped. And, in answer, he fights back against both Galactus and the Black Winter by achieving his most powerful form yet.
When Thor was first named the Herald of Thunder, he was given the Power Cosmic that comes with the position. These great powers were given to him on top of his abilities as the Asgardian God of Thunder, which essentially made him one of the most powerful heroes in the Marvel Universe. In fact, with this power, he was able to fight Galactus himself and nearly win when the two had a disagreement about the fate of the five planets he was set on consuming.
Eventually, however, Thor continued to lead the Devourer of Worlds to his target planets, and Galactus, too, became the most powerful version of himself. Then, in Thor #5, the Black Winter revealed that the only thing it was after was Galactus himself — and that was all Thor needed to turn on him.
In Thor #6, the Asgardian lets out the anger he has been keeping bottled up inside of him ever since he started acting as the Herald of Thunder. This time, he strikes Galactus without holding back, and he uses all of his abilities to take all of the Devourer’s power for his own. Thor drains Galactus of the Power Cosmic, leaving him nothing but an empty shell, near death.
But Thor doesn’t stop there either. As the Black Winter arrives to collect Galactus, Thor decides to put an end to its threat as well. Therefore, he combines all of the Power Cosmic inside of him — Galactus’ and his own — with the power of his thunder, and he uses Galactus’ body as a conduit to create a massive bomb. With this, Thor reaches power levels he never has before — and likely never will again.
The blast makes the galaxy itself shake, and it’s so powerful and devastating that it actually kills the Black Winter, one of the primordial cosmic forces in and outside of the known universe. This is no small feat, and yet Thor did it all by himself.
Once the Black Winter and Galactus are nothing but ash, Thor is all that remains of the confrontation. It’s likely most of the power he took from Galactus to create the blast that would wipe out the Black Winter is now gone. However, he still appears to have at least part of the Cosmic Power that made him the Herald of Thunder — given that he still has his new arm and his cosmic costume.
It’s not every day a God of Thunder can take out two gigantic cosmic forces older than the universe itself. But Thor just did it. Truly, he is the strongest Avenger now.
