Thor’s mighty hammer Mjolnir is famous for being unliftable by any who are not deemed “worthy” of its power. Although a select few heroes, including Captain America, Rick Jones, Superman, and Spider-Man 2099, have been able to lift the uru hammer, as a rule the hammer’s magic makes it the ultimate immovable object. Thor’s actually taken advantage of this by placing the hammer on top of items or people whom he wants to trap – such as his brother Loki – essentially making the hammer the greatest paperweight in the world.
Humorously, in the DC Universe, Superman once saw the value in having an immovable object like Thor’s hammer and essentially crafted his own version of Mjolnir. Rather than make it a throwing hammer he could use as a weapon, however, he decided to make a more mundane tool – the housekey to his Fortress of Solitude!
Click the button below to start this article in quick view.
This unusual invention was showcased in All-Star Superman #2 which celebrated many of the oddball creations of Superman’s Silver Age comic books. During this period, Superman created a giant golden key for his Fortress of Solitude that was so huge, planes could see it from the sky (and actually used it as a way to help navigate through the Arctic). Superman boasted that the key was so heavy that it would take a hundred men to lift it – which basically made it a huge security risk.
After all, if anyone wanted to enter Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, all they’d have to do was assemble a crew of a hundred men and use the giant key (which could be easily spotted) to unlock the fortress doors. At one point in the Superfriends cartoon, several members of the Justice League did just that after Superman died (temporarily) and they needed to access the Fortress.
Eventually, Superman picked up on this flaw in his home security and decided to change the locks on the fortress by fashioning a different kind of key. Instead of creating a giant golden key, he made a small innocuous golden key which he used to unlock the doors to his hideaway. When Lois Lane pointed out that just making the key smaller didn’t make it more secure, Superman invited Lois to try and pick up the key.
To Lois’ surprise, the little key was so heavy she couldn’t even budge it. Superman then revealed that he’d made it out of super-dense dwarf star material and weighed half a million tons. This made him the only person on Earth who could lift the key – meaning he could basically hide it under his doormat with the knowledge that nobody could lift it. Unfortunately, since Superman later developed a special serum that could give anyone superpowers like his for twenty-four hours, this meant that anyone who drank the serum (as Lex Luthor later did) could pick up the key and invade the fortress.
Nevertheless, Superman’s house key was a fantastic invention – and basically DC’s answer to Marvel’s Mjolnir. Although more a product of super-science than magic, the new Fortress of Solitude Key could undoubtedly give Mjolnir a run for its money. Indeed, despite it’s non-threatening appearance, one wonders if Superman could disable Mjolnir simply by placing his housekey on top of Thor’s hammer.
About The Author
