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Long before Alex Ross created his own villainous version of Marvel’s Thor, Tim Curry showed him what the Devil should look like.

Ross was just 15 when Legend arrived in theaters, with Curry nearly unrecognizable beneath the enormous horns and crimson makeup of the film’s Lord of Darkness. Despite being the son of a Protestant minister ( or perhaps making the experience even more memorable because of it), Ross went to see the film, and Curry’s performance and imposing silhouette stayed with him.

“I’m a super Tim Curry fan, so that’s one of the biggest impacts of my 16-year-old life, or whatever age I was when that movie came out,” Ross told Popverse in an interview conducted before Curry’s death.

Decades later, that influence has resurfaced in Godhammer, a villainous Thor variant introduced in Ross’ new Marvel Dimensions original graphic novel from Abrams ComicArts and Marvel Comics. Godhammer’s towering horns consciously evoke Curry’s Devil, while his armor incorporates what Ross describes as “a Frank Frazetta riff on the costume,” paying homage to Frazetta’s Death Dealer.

This Thor variant called Godhammer is from the In-verse, a new Marvel alternate universe that Ross created as Marvel Dimensions’ hidden surprise, and the source of the book’s title. Although this cruel mirror-universe Thor was born with the same name as the hero readers know, Ross gave him a new moniker to distinguish the person he has become.

“Clearly this variant, mirror-universe version of Thor is still born Thor; that’s the personal name,” Ross explains. “But I decided that for all these characters you’re seeing in this edition here, you’re seeing the characters represented by monikers that are new nicknames given to them. Even though the personal names in this universe would be the same. So I’m going to identify Godhammer by that title instead of his personal name.”

The mask suggests some terrible physical transformation might have turned Thor into Godhammer, but Ross says the truth is more unsettling: Beneath it, he still looks like Thor.

“What I wanted to clearly show you is that despite the fact that he is this striking figure of cruelty, and with a mask covering his face, you figure something terrible must have gone on with Thor. Well… no,” Ross says. “Underneath the helmet, he’s just Thor. He’s awful, but he’s not like, ‘Oh my God, look at what happened to his face,’ or whatnot. You don’t know what this means internally to him. What is the journey that made him the worst version of himself?” 

You can watch Alex Ross's full conversation with Ashley V. Robinson in her interview series Popversations here: 

Interested? Here's where to find your closest local comic store, courtesy of Sweet, and here's a guide to how (and where) to read comics online. If you're looking for the best comics in recent memory, check out the Eisner Awards winners and the Harvey Awards nominees. And if you like free comics, here's everything we know about Free Comic Book Day 2027.