Destroyer
- For the communist villain, see Destroyer (human).
The Destroyer is a powerful humanoid mechanical construct created by Odin eons ago. Odin made the Destroyer to be the ultimate defense of Earth in case of a dire attack, and thus supplied it with an extreme amount of power: it is essentially indestructible, and can easily destroy virtually anything, including the similarly resistant uru that makes up the hammer Mjölnir. Odin stored the Destroyer in the Temple of Darkness, buried deep beneath modern-day Vietnam, where it lay inert awaiting activation. This activation would come when approached by a living being, at which point Destroyer would internalize the person's consciousness and then destroy the next other being it saw upon activation, mindless of anything other than its programmed purpose.
The Destroyer wasn't activated until 1965, as part of a plot by Odin's malicious adopted son Loki. Thor had retrieved the magical Norn Stones that would prove Loki's deception in the Trial of the Gods, and Loki arranged for him to enter the Temple of Darkness that Loki had unearthed. Thor pursued a hapless hunter, whom Loki magically influenced to antagonize Thor and activate the Destroyer. Thor found himself in full-blown conflict with the Destroyer, and though he knew the construct's power, fought valiantly until it easily cut Mjölnir in two with a blast of energy.[1] Eventually, Thor stopped the Destroyer by using the hunter's body as a shield: the machine could not bring itself to destroy its human form, and the hunter transferred his consciousness back to his own body. Thor took the hunter out of the Temple and destroyed it from within, collapsing the Destroyer inside to prevent further human incursion.[2]