Painfully nerdy question to Marvel fans.

[Zhukov]

What exactly does it take to kill a native of Asgard?

(Spoilers follow for Marvel movies and possibly comics. You've been warned.)

Just something that occurred to me while re-watching some of the Marvel movies. So the Asgardians (?), Thor's mob, can evidently be killed. We see their soldiers dying all over the place and Thor's mother gets killed. They react to danger and threat in a way that suggests they fear injury or death and wish to avoid it much as a regular person would.

However, Thor frequently gets beaten and thrown about beyond the capacity of a regular human (even after accounting for action movie rules where a bear-knuckle punch to the head from a large man can be shrugged off or, at worst, result in a few hours of unconsciousness). He also gets stabbed in the torso by Loki at one point, and bleeds, but gives it no more regard than I would a stubbed toe. Likewise, Loki gets slammed about by the hulk hard enough to break the masonry and suffers no ill effect beyond being a bit dazed.

So yeah, given that they are evidently more durable than us Earthlings, what exactly are their limits?

TL;DR: "If someone shot Thor three times through the temple with, say, a 7.62mm firearm at point blank range, would he die?"

 

[Vivi22]

TL;DR: "If someone shot Thor three times through the temple with, say, a 7.62mm firearm at point blank range, would he die?"

Probably not because a bullet likely wouldn't be powerful enough to go through his head.

Asgardians are made of heartier stuff than humans so pretty much all of them can take more abuse than we can, and they'll heal faster when they do get hurt. Some things to keep in mind are that when we see Asgardians getting killed in the movies, it's pretty much only been at the hands of frost giants, dark elves, or other equally mythical beings, often either possessing physical strength and abilities equally beyond our own, or with advanced weaponry that was likely created with the specific intent of killing beings as strong as Asgardians.

Moreover, we need to keep in mind that when he has his hammer, Thor is well above any Asgardian except Odin in terms of power. Him being able to be stabbed by Loki and keep fighting, or take blows that might kill others of his kind (I'd imagine the Hulk would tear through most without too much trouble) isn't that strange in that respect.

And of course, we must always account for the fact that every writer/director is going to have a different idea of what they can survive so power levels frequently vary.

 

[vesago]

most likely it would take something from Thor's native dimension say, a dwarven or ghiants sword

 

[Little Woodsman]

Well, that's a tough question.
A lot depends on the writer for the particular bit being taken as an example, and the needs of the narrative.

For the Loki example... well remember Loki isn't actually an Asgardian, he's a frost giant (just a 'runt' for his species). Frost giants seem to be even more resilient than average Asgardians.

The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (1986 edition) states "Thor possesses the superhuman physical attributes of an Asgardian, but as the son of Odin, lord of the Asgardians, and Jord, elder goddess of the Earth, his strength, endurance and resistance to injury are greater than those of the vast majority of his race.. {snip}.. superhumanly strong (the average Asgardian male can lift about 30 tons over his head, Thor can lift over 100 tons above his head ..{snip}.. and is resistant to conventional injury. (Asgardian flesh and bone is about three times as dense as similar human tissue)"
Keep in mind though that the Marvel Universe has been completely rebooted multiple time since that was published...

For your example of being shot in the temple 3 times with a 7.62 mm firearm, even assuming the highest-end physical resilience we can extrapolate for Thor from the available data, he'd still probably die.

I'm gonna hazard a guess (and please note that this is a guess/extrapolation) that for the MCU Asgardians, it would take major penetrating and/or cutting damage to a vital organ to kill them, but at the same time that their primary opponents are aware of this and use appropriate weaponry/attacks against them.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Hard to say since I mean Thor did "died" before (however this is comicbook we're talkin about so death is never pernament if you're a well known character in Marvel) and I think his cause of death were not by mortals means (like getting shot).

 

[Queen Michael]

Firing a 7.62mm firearm at Thor's head at point blank range would indeed be 100% lethal.

To the shooter.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Agents of SHIELD might offer a good reason for this:

In the first season, the team meets a random Asgardian. He's no one special, just a stone mason. During the episode he gets stabbed through the chest. As he lays bleeding out on the floor, Coulson tells one of his team (Skye maybe?) to reach into the wound and keep his heart beating. When asked why, Coulson replies that Asgardians have a much faster healing rate than a normal human. They just need to keep him stable until his body's recovery kicks in on its own.

And sure enough, it does.

I think we can also throw in the theory that they are not from our realm, which is why it's harder for them to die on Earth (Loki being tossed around like that), but can easily be thumped back on their home planet. Pretty sure the weapons/metals being used in other realms are far beyond anything we use on Earth, which is why the baddie in Thor: The Dark World is able to kill three Asgardian soldiers with two little knives in about four seconds.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Apparently there's some debate in the comics about whether or not they're bulletproof or whether it's armour protecting them or other means.

I mean here is Thor deflecting bullets ...

Also as others have said, Loki is a frost giant (more durable), and Thor is the son of Odin so they have even greater durability than the average Asgardian (who have three times higher tissue density than humans).

 

[Tsukuyomi]

One possible explanation was in Earth X; namely that the Asgardians aren't...actually gods. They are very, very, very advanced Mutants who were tinkered with by Celestials and others to the point that they all boast the same mutation: their very existence and nature is defined by how others perceive them. As Loki put it: "We NEED humanity. We're immortal because someone down there THINKS we are, we have these forms because when we first came to Earth, they thought we were their gods, so their gods we became." Later on in the book they are literally killed by the Celestials by, it's implied, the Celestials simply looking at them and thinking something along the lines of 'you're all dead'.

It's not the most unique explanation, and I'm pretty sure Earth X isn't anywhere near canon, but I at least find it an interesting thought as to why they're so hard to kill.

 

[LordLundar]

Well Thor and Hulk routinely go at each other to find out who's stronger but I doubt they're going all out. If we're going with Thor as the benchmark (which is not really fair as he one of the more powerful Asgardians, trumped probably only by Odin and maybe a couple others) then it would be "A lot" and "more than what could be called on at a moment".

Thor is a cosmic level hero and deals with cosmic level threats single handed. Probably a more accurate response would be "a very very angry Hulk" and "Squirrel Girl."

 

[Johnny Impact]

My understanding is that Asgardian citizens are like Captain America. They can do things regular humans can't, but are not bulletproof. Thor and Loki are scions of royal bloodlines, invested with mystic power. This is how they can stand up to Hulk. Either would still be a nasty customer without his Asgardian magic. Witness Thor drilling through half a dozen military security dudes while completely powerless in his movie.

The reason everyone, Loki included, is able to take heavy impacts without apparent serious injury is it's a comic book universe. Getting smashed into concrete never causes concussion, brain damage, internal bleeding, et cetera (except to Wolverine, in which case it doesn't matter anyway). It's "hit point damage." The only time it isn't is when someone is dealt a single, obviously lethal blow like the one that killed Coulson.

 

[Erttheking]

I'd have to say no to the rifle bullets. Odds are it'd take something from Asgard, something reverse engineered from Asgard (Getting shot in the face enough times with that thing Coulson used would probably do the trick) or extremly advanced technology from the Human world. Our biggest and most powerful guns now, or something unique to the Marvel universe, you know, something Tony invented or the like. I imagine Cap's shield might do the trick if Cap smashes it into Thor's throat as hard as he can.

 

[Seishisha]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that asgardians have skin bones and muscles roughly 300% denser than a normal human, so basicly to cause them any injury requires atleast three times the force it would on a human, they also have a greatly enhanced vitality and surviving injury is easier for them, not to mention alot of asgardians have armor and weaponry forged by the dwarves which is its self notoriously strong.

Im pretty sure in canon the hulk fights thor and hurts him quite badly on multiple occasions, broken bones internal bleeding that sort of thing, and as your probably aware the hulk is one of the strongest physical forces in the MCU.

Frankly put conventional weapons and attacks from a human have little to no effect on asgardians, it would probably take somthing like an anti tank shell to hurt them, even some of the most powerful weapons in the marvel universe strugle sometimes, an example of this would be when thor's hammer mjolnir is broken because it hits somthing harder than itself, the thing in question is bor (thor's grandfather) ultimatly it kills bor but the hammer breaks apart in the process.