Superman vs. Thor

[Great Rao]

I've been searching for any of the "Who is stronger: Superman or Thor?" threads on the forum (certainly there must be some!), but I can't seem to find one.

At any rate, I'm currently doing some maintenance/site-tweaking on "Superman Through the Ages!," going through all of the pages on the website, and I got a kick out of   this old art gallery submission that I just came across:

[Adekis]

Are we really doing this? A Superman vs. Thor thread?
I can tell you the reason why there isn't one here, there's no real debate. Everyone is on Superman's side.

Therefore, I will play Devil's advocate.
[bull]Thor would win because he is an immortal Aesir, a divine being whose Fortress resides not in the Arctic but in Valhalla, whose very will controls the elements, and who has no foolish qualms about driving his enemies to their death, unlike your pathetic Man of Steel! Ha! Ha!
Ha ha ha![/bull]

Okay, so I'm not that convincing, but it at least gives a starting point.

And Rao?
That's a really fun drawing. Kinda makes me wonder why they're fighting. 

[nightwing]

As I'm sure I've said before here, nothing bores me more than watching two heroes fight each other (which is why I didn't hop on the Marvel bandwagon as a kid).

That said, recently I've finally gotten around to reading the Lee/Kirby THOR run and I have to say it's wonderful stuff.  Not just because of the constant flood of kooky/cool characters and ideas (it's almost as chock-full of novel notions as 60s FF) but also because Thor himself is such a fun character and a breath of fresh air among the otherwise doubt-plagued, guilt-ridden sad sacks who make up most of the Marvel roster.  Not only does Thor one-up Superman by actually having cosmic-scale adventures with adversaries worth his time and effort, he also one-ups most of his stable-mates by being as confident (arrogant?) as they are insecure and as happy in his skin as they are miserable in theirs.  Time and again some new, impossible challenge presents himself and his immediate reaction is, in essence, "This is going to be FUN!" I can't remember the issue number, but in one story he's transported to a distant world and told they need saving from an unimaginable threat; a living planet (Ego).  Where any other hero -- even Superman -- would have at least a moment, and maybe much more, thinking "How can I possibly win?  And yet, I must try!", Thor's reaction is, "Everybody calm down, I'm here now.  Let me at him!" 

This runs so counter to Silver Age Superman stories, where the writers went out of their way to make the guy humble, I'd guess on the (logical) assumption that kids will accept omnipotence as long as it isn't paired with a swelled head.  Indeed, when we met Superman's many would-be replacements, or various guest characters in Legion stories, the tip off that they were "bad" was always a big ego.  And yet somehow with Thor it's endearing as all get-out.

So anyway, would Thor beat Superman in a fight?  Maybe, not that I care much.  Certainly he'd be less likely to hold back, which would help.  And he did get in a lot more practice against super-opponents, while Superman wasted a lot of time on bank robbers and con artists, and pulling stupid pranks on his friends.  It doesn't really matter how strong you are if you spend your average weekend trying to trick Lois Lane into opening a mystery box so you can yell at her for being too curious.  When a guy shows up with a magic hammer in fighting trim after a month of battles with frost giants, living planets and Galactus, he's probably going to clean your clock.

[Shazam!]

Somebody told me that Thor wouldn't be much without Mjolnir, the hammer and he draws his power from that hammer like I draw my power from the wizard.  I saw on you tube where people were making comparisons and talking about strengths and comparing me with Superman,  Thor, Black Adam, and even the Hulk.  The Hulk was the only other one who could pick up Thor's Hammer until the worlds collided and we got to meet them all.  I was supposed to be fighting him and I didn't fare as well.  That whole thing was weird. In a way it was great meeting them and all but it really stunk that we had to fight them to put the universes back into alignment.

[Uncle Mxy]

Busiek did a good job of this in JLA/Avengers, for those who want to see such things.