Rules of Thor’s Hammer:
We can argue upon what the greatest moment in Avengers: Endgame was. Thor summoning both Mjolnir & Stormbreaker, Tony’s ultimate sacrifice, Captain America lifting Mjolnir or the “Avengers Assemble” would get voted in this little contest. But the most number of votes have to be given to Captain America lifting Mjolnir and taking on Thanos. Even before the film, we knew that this was going to happen, but still, it turned out to be the greatest moment and the greatest fight of the entire movie. But over time, people have argued that a rule of Thor’s powers was kinda broken here. Let’s see what that is.
Thor is the God of Thunder. We’ve known that the Mjolnir helps Thor channel his thunder. But then Thor: Ragnarok proved that Thor actually doesn’t need the Mjolnir to summon lightning. He is not the God of Hammers. He is the God of Thunder and he can summon it with or without his prime weapon. So, just when these rules of lightning were made clear, Avengers: Endgame showed us Captain America picking up the Hammer and being able to summon lightning. We did not see Vision do it when he lifted the hammer for a brief period of time, and if the hammer only helped Thor channel his power, then why was Captain America able to make Thunder attacks.
The fans do get quite fussy over details like these, and as it turns out, the writers did consider this. But co-writer Christopher Markus claimed that they did not fret over the whole scene making a lot of sense. He explained it to /Film saying:
“There was certainly a debate at one point because particularly in Ragnarok, it establishes that Thor can summon the lightning without the hammer. I think Odin even says, ‘It was never the hammer.’ And yet Cap summons the lightning with the hammer. You get to those things and you’re like, ‘It’s too awesome not to do it! We’ll talk about it later.’”
Well, obviously we cannot argue with this! The scene looked absolutely awesome and we definitely wanted to see it in the film. But now let’s get to the real deal and explain why Captain America was actually able to summon lightning with the hammer. Yes, the hammer does not have any lightning of its own, but it helps the wielders summon the power of Thor. Thunder is Thor’s prime power, and here’s the whole hammer lifting spell from Marvel comics:
“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”
At the moment that Captain America wielded the hammer, he was able to “possess” the power of Thor. So technically, no rules were broken with this awesome segment. Captain America has done this in the comics and he did it even better against Thanos. The screams at the theatres were the most when Captain America V Thanos took place!
Chris Evans himself was extremely excited to lift the hammer. Marvel producer Trinh Tran described the day when Evans got to shoot the scene. She said:
“I remember how excited Chris was. Obviously he’s read his scene and knew what was going to happen, but when you’re standing there holding it and lifting it up, it’s a pretty amazing feeling. I think the excitement on him was so captivating. I know there were certain moments – people portal-ing in, him holding the hammer – there are certain moments where they’re so excited, and having him lift it up was gratifying knowing that what we had teased in Ultron kind of came to an end in terms of, he really can lift it. I can’t describe it.”
Red Skull had predicted this back in Captain America: The First Avenger. He said “you could have the power of the Gods”. And Steve did have those powers right from the start. He proved Tony wrong. Everything special about him did not come of a bottle, it came from within. It’s because Steve never stopped being a “Good Man”.
