Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor. That’s the inscription on Mjolnir, the powerful hammer that belongs to the Norse God of Thunder. Thor carried the weapon through almost every major conflict in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before its destruction in Thor: Ragnarok. But Mjolnir is set to return in a big way in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder, and LEGO is giving the hammer it’s due with set 76209 Thor’s Hammer. This 979-piece set will be available March 1st for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £104.99. But is this set worthy? There’s only one way to find out. Like the Dwarves of Nidavellir, we have forged our own Mjolnir to carry into battle, and we’re going to tell you all about it.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with early copies of these sets for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Unboxing the parts and instructions

This set comes in a large rectangular package with a “cereal box” like tab on the top flaps that allow you to reclose the box after opening. The front of the box is mostly black, featuring an image of the completed Mjolnir, sitting upside-down on the included stand and crackling with electricity. Were it not for the LEGO logo and the blue stripe of greebling across the bottom, you might mistake this as the packaging for a standard prop replica.

The back of the box features the hammer upright, without the stand, but still coursing with power.

Some inset images detail the set’s dimensions, a photo of the movie prop, and images of the included Thor minifigure and Odin’s treasure display.

Inside the box are a polybagged instruction manual and two unnumbered bags which contain numerous Technic bricks and a few of the larger model pieces. There are also a total of nine bags numbered 1-5.

The parts

The set contains no completely brand-new parts or colors, but there are a few rarities. The Thor minifigure features a new torso printing based on his appearance in the first Thor movie. There’s also a printed tile featuring the name of the hammer. A Tesseract is included in the form of a Minecraft cube head molded in trans-light blue, which has only appeared previously in set 76201 Captain Carter and the Hydra Stomper.

A Vidiyo handle strap is included for the end of the hammer’s handle. The recent cancellation of this line means Thor’s Hammer is, as of this writing, the only active set to carry this piece.

I actually found the most interesting thing about this set’s inventory to be the lack of a brick separator. Brick separators are incredibly common in sets of this size, so I have plenty on hand. But it seems like quite an oversight considering this is the kind of set that will also be marketed to adult fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe who might just be dipping their toe into the LEGO pool.

Despite the lack of any new parts, I will say that I was quite happy with the set inventory overall. There are dozens of SNOT (studs not on top) elements in the form of both brackets and bricks. There are also many useful large tiles, in both the 6×6 and more recent 2×6 varieties. And if you’re in the market for 4×1 curved slopes, there are more than 150 of them.

The build

The build is divided up into five sections. The first four deal with the hammer itself, while the fifth stage is devoted to the stand.

Bag 1 is devoted to creating the internal skeleton of the hammer. You start by creating nine identical stacks of bricks and brackets and then stringing them end-to-end.

This gets reinforced by securing a series of long Technic bricks around all four sides, so that studs are facing out in all directions.

Bag 2 mostly involves surrounding the hammer’s handle with the 4×1 slopes in both reddish-brown and light-bluish gray to create a cylindrical handle. At this stage you also begin to build a rectangular frame onto which the hammerhead will be built.

One of the more interesting build techniques in the set happens in this stage of the build. Step 52 asks you to take a 2×3 plate, two 1×2 tiles, two round tiles with bars, and two 1×3 inverted tiles with holes and assemble them in such a way that what you produce is identical to a single 2×3 brick. I’m not sure what’s gained from this construction that the 2×3 brick would not have accomplished, but it does put some interesting parts into the set that wouldn’t have otherwise been included.

When you’re done with Bag 2 you have the mostly completed hammer handle with a rectangular frame atop it.

Bag 3 fleshes out the head of the hammer by building up depth on both sides. A frame of bricks and panels gets topped with slopes and tiles to create the head’s central mass.

Bag 3 also has you take a quick break from the hammer itself to construct a small display of items from Odin’s treasures – the Infinity Gauntlet, the Tesseract, and Odin’s Fire. The box and promotional images advertise that this display can be placed inside the hammer, but the instructions don’t detail that functionality. We’ll talk more about that later.

Bag 4 is devoted to finishing off the hammer. The bulk of this stage involves creating the two identical ends of the hammer. A 12×12 frame surrounded with SNOT elements is built up, topped with the large 6×6 tiles, and then surrounded with slopes.

These get connected onto the existing frame and then secured with more 6×6 tiles. The final step involves folding the Vidiyo handle onto some round 2×2 plates and pegging that to the bottom of the hammer’s handle to complete the weapon.

Bag 5 is the Thor minifigure and the display for the hammer. The base is pretty straightforward. Lots of dark-bluish gray plates and slopes (with a few trans-light blue slopes to break it up). There’s a clever use of turntables to offset the sections the hammer rests on, so it can sit at an angle.

Once placed atop the base, the hammer resembles it’s first MCU appearance, crashed in the desert in an Iron Man 2 post-credits scene.

The final model

The final hammer is decently sized and well proportioned, but I suspect it’s a little larger than it is in the movies. Mjolnir has actually undergone a couple of cosmetic shifts throughout all its appearances in the MCU, and this model isn’t entirely accurate to any of them, but it does a good job of capturing the weapon’s overall vibe. There’s no mistaking that this is the God of Thunder’s magical hammer. One minor quibble is that the onscreen version always contains a series of rune-like carvings on the sloping sections of the two ends of the hammerhead. I do wish some form of decal would have been included for the slopes on this hammer, if not a printed design.

The mostly hollow hammerhead means the final model doesn’t weigh very much, and it can be swung around with ease. Everything feels nice and secure, with the exception of the Vidiyo strap. The strap won’t come flying off on its own, but the clutch of the connection isn’t strong enough to be functional. Any attempt to hang the hammer from the strap will cause this section to disconnect. This makes the strap entirely cosmetic.

While the hammer doesn’t lock onto the base, it does rest easily and securely atop it.

The minifigure and Odin’s Treasures

The included Thor minifigure sports a black torso with new printing on both the front and back, as well as flat silver arms. His double-sided head is the same head that Thor sported in multiple Avengers: Endgame sets.

One side features a wry smirk, while the other side has an angrier face with lightning coming out of his eyes. He’s also sporting a cape and carrying the standard minifigure-scale Mjolnir.

The plate of accessories includes the Infinity Gauntlet, Tesseract, and Odin’s Fire (which powered the demon Surtur in Thor: Ragnarok). While all these artifacts are tied to Asgard in some way, they’re not really related to Mjolnir, per se. That said, the plate can be placed inside the hammer. This involves removing the tiles in the center of the hammer (but, remember, there’s no brick separator). Inside the hollow structure of the hammer, you can access the sides of two 2×2 brackets. The plate can clip onto these brackets and the tiles can be replaced, so that the artifacts can be hidden. But, if you want to get them back out, it will require disassembling much more of the hammer so that you can reach the plate to unpeg it from the brackets. (Unless you have some Pym Particles at your disposal to drop yourself down inside there.)

Something about this functionality feels like an afterthought. It’s advertised as a function of the model on the back of the box, but it’s not detailed in the instructions. I feel like replacing these artifacts with more minifigures would have made this set an overall better value. Part of the mythology of Mjolnir is that it can only be lifted by the worthy, and the MCU has shown multiple instances of even incredibly strong characters, like the Hulk, being unable to lift the weapon. It’s only truly been lifted by (so far) Thor, Vision, Captain America, and Hela (who destroyed it). A series of hammer-wielding minifigures might have felt more appropriate for this model than a smattering of vaguely Asgardian artifacts.

Conclusion and recommendation

I have to admit this set caused some initial disappointment for me. The inventory of parts didn’t seem that exciting and, once built, the advertised functionality was kind of a pain to make use of. But the more I’ve sat with it, the more it’s grown on me. Carrying Mjolnir around the house is a ton of fun. And I began to realize that if the “hiding the artifacts in the hammer” function hadn’t been advertised to me, I wouldn’t miss it. So the fact that I don’t want to make use of it more than the one time isn’t really a loss. The part inventory is a decent value for a licensed set, even if they’re not “new” pieces. I still can’t help but feel that a few more exclusive minifigures would have made this a must-buy, but even as-is it’s a pretty swell set. Worthy of the gods? Nah. But I’m not a god. And you probably aren’t either, so what the hey?

LEGO Marvel Superheroes 76209 Thor’s Hammer comes with 979 pieces and will be available from LEGO starting March 1 for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £104.99. It may also be available from third-party sellers on Amazon and eBay.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.