KMC Forums - Beta Ray Bill Respect thread

for those of you who don't know who beta ray bill is

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bio

Beta Ray Bill is a fictional alien in the Marvel Universe created by Walt Simonson as a brief rival, then friend and ally to Thor. A noble and heroic warrior, he is one of the few beings counted worthy of wielding Thor's hammer, Mjolnir.

Origins
Beta Ray Bill's race, the Korbinites, once lived near the core of an unnamed galaxy - until, due to the machinations of Surtur, the galactic core exploded. A large proportion of the Korbinites died, while the remainder sought to leave to search for more hospitable planets. While ten thousand giant ships were prepared for the evacuation, they attempted to fashion a champion to guard the ships as they went, while the people travelled in suspended animation. The first attempt, to build a bio-machine called "Alpha Ray," failed miserably - being unstable in both body and mind.

For the second attempt, they took "the most ferocious beast of [their] empire, and bio-engineered it to produce a warrior of "unsurpassed strength and skill" for the body. And for the mind, they held great games to determine the physically acceptable champions, then subjected these to a series of psychological examinations, leaving most of them either dead or insane. Finally, they "fitted the souls" of the survivors to the bodies they had produced, and only one survived the "pain beyond imagining" of this final, "dreadful process", becoming known as Beta Ray Bill.

Despite his new body being utterly repulsive to his people, Bill went about his appointed task. Riding the sentient warship Skuttlebutt, he led the fleet in an attempt to find a new home, pursued by a horde of "demons" which came from the fiery core. He and Skuttlebutt managed to hold them off long enough for the bulk of the fleet to escape before turning and fleeing themselves.

Confronting Thor
Searching for a new home, they refuelled upon a star in an empty solar system - which was spotted by a S.H.I.E.L.D. deep-space probe, who saw that they were heading for Earth's solar system at superluminal speed. Worried, they contacted Thor, who immediately flew to the ship. Skuttlebutt's artillery proved ineffective, and Thor entered by ripping a hole in the side of the ship, whereupon Skuttlebutt awoke Bill. Mistaking Thor for a new breed of the demons that pursued them, they fought, while the damage caused by Thor forced Skuttlebutt to find an appropriate landing spot to seek materials and effect repairs: Earth.

Finally, Thor, having been out of contact with his hammer - Mjolnir - beyond the prescribed time limit, reverted to his mortal form and was knocked out by Bill, shortly before Skuttlebutt crash-landed on Earth. With Skuttlebutt seriously damaged and a cadre of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and artillery threatening them, Bill reached for Mjolnir, finding only a cane. Striking it angrily on the wall, however, activated it - and he became only the third being, after Odin and Thor himself, to be judged worthy of wielding the enchanted hammer. With Thor's power added to his own (and dressed in a variant of Thor's own costuming), he ordered the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to depart. As S.H.I.E.L.D. opened fire instead, and Bill prepared to retailiate, Odin, attempting to recall Thor to Asgard, instead took Bill, cloaked as he was in Thor's power, leaving a desperate Don Blake (Thor in his mortal form) behind.

When Bill arrived on Asgard, he found himself face-to-face with Odin, who caught Mjolnir when thrown at him by Bill and demanded to know what had happened to Thor. Bill angrily replied that he didn't know who Thor was and that he'd won the hammer in fair combat. Odin, recognizing a ring of truth in Bill's words, contained him for a few moments while searching for what had actually happened to Thor, before bringing him - in his true form - to Asgard. Convinced that they were not demons, Bill accepted Odin's apology for his anger, and acceded to his request for a discussion where he told them his history, minus the gruelling trials that he had undergone that had killed many of his rivals, finishing by explaining that the demons were slowly overtaking his people, and since they as yet had no sanctuary, he was loathe to give up the additional power afforded him by Mjolnir. After calming an angry exhortation from Thor, Odin explained that, due to the handicap of Thor's mortal form (a handicap he himself had imposed on his son), the combat he had won Mjolnir in had been less than fair, and that he had never dreamed that any other would be worthy enough to pick up the hammer, leaving a terrible dilemma. And that he had actually called Thor to Asgard with the intention of combating the same demons that troubled Bill, since the source of the demons was blocked to him, and he feared it.

A New Hammer
Over the Mjolnir conundrum, he resolved that Thor and Bill should decide in single combat who was worthy. Stripping all enchantments from them, he sent them to Skartheim, a fiery dimension of Asgard, where Bill and Thor fought. In the fight, both contestants were knocked out by the other. Bill recovered first due to his alien physiology interacting with the incredible heat of Skartheim which served to revive him. Bill returned to Asgard with the unconscious Thor in his arms and claiming the hammer before immediately collapsing himself. After being tended to by Odin's physicians, both Thor and Bill recovered - but Bill was reluctant to take the hammer he'd won, knowing it to have been forged for Thor alone and that Odin had rigged their contest by staging it in Skartheim. Asking for Odin's help, Odin had the new hammer, Stormbreaker, forged with the same enchantments as Mjolnir had been forged with - save one. Stormbreaker would be purely Bill's to carry, forever, while Thor retook Mjolnir. Thor, Bill and Sif then set out to battle the demons.

Sif leaped off as they arrived, intending to hold the demons back while Thor and Bill destroyed the demons' source - the only means to ultimate victory in the matter. While she was joined by Skuttlebutt, they succeeded, with the demons disappearing as the portal shattered. While Thor and Bill rejoined them, Sif spoke with Skuttlebutt - it curious as to why she would risk her life for Bill, while she learned Bill's full history, including the details of his self-sacrifice he had held from Thor and Odin. After they returned, Odin learned from Sif this story too and, as a result, gave Bill a particular gift after the victory feast. He bade Thor and Bill to cross hammers, and moved the enchantment which caused Thor to assume a mortal form from Mjolnir to Stormbreaker, allowing Bill to become his original self once more at will, from before he was fitted to the Beta Ray body, while Thor would no longer be troubled by the enchantment which had caused the mess in the first place!

Finally, when it became time for Bill to leave and resume guarding his people, Sif left with him, feeling dulled as a warrior, and curious about him.

Some time later, when Surtur's threat had come to a head, Odin recalled Bill and Sif to Asgard. While Thor, Odin and Loki battled Surtur himself in Asgard, Bill led the forces of Asgard against Surtur's army on Earth, and while Sif's disappearance after a rearguard action required Volstagg to talk him down, he led Asgard's armies, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and Karnilla's army to victory - personally (with the aid of Hercules, She-Hulk and Vision) destroying the demons' new source portal. Shortly afterward they discovered the severely injured Sif, but with the aid of Hogun's Elixir of Recovery, she swiftly recovered (much to Bill's relief) and teleported to Asgard to discover the Odin's apparent death and the shattering of the Bifrost Bridge which connected Asgard to Earth. While Thor mourned, and attempted to discover a way to get the Asgardians back home, he bade her & Bill to continue to lead the Asgardians - and to keep the knowledge of Odin's passing. Over the time they spent there, he talked more with Sif (who had come to care deeply for him), and fought the Titanium Man. Finally, at Sif's idea, he and Thor created portals from either end of the divide which bridged the growing divide enough to allow all the Asgardians to go through, while she bade him a sorrowful farewell, as she returned to Asgard, and he to his people.

Years later, long after Bill had found a new home for his people, Ragnarok loomed over Asgard and Bill, drawn by the Asgardian magic in his hammer returned to fight along side the surviving Asgardians in the final battle, reducing Fenris to a skeleton on his arrival as punishment for threatening a weakened Thor. In these closing weeks of Asgard, with many of their warriors dead, he renewed his acquaintance with Thor, and Sif who had lost an arm in the earlier fights of Ragnarok. Thor was reluctant to let him fight and die alongside them, but when Bill made it clear he would not leave, Thor placed him in the lead of their armies once more as he went to seek the Knowledge of Odin. Bill led the armies well, but in the very last battle between Surtur and Asgard's armies, Thor plucked him from the battlefield and, empowered as he was by this point, refused to let him return to the fight over his loud protests, and bade him to remember them when they were gone, and to go with his love and blessing, and to honour his memory. Very reluctantly, Bill went.

-wikipedia

I want spoil any more