Avengers: Endgame had a large number of moments that made fans whoop with joy, but one of the standouts has to be when Steve Rogers picked up Mjolnir during the big final fight against Thanos, at last proving that he was worthy. This was a huge deal for Captain America fans, and it appears it meant a lot to star Chris Evans, too. In fact, he preferred wielding Thor’s hammer to his own character’s classic shield.
At least, that’s what Evans admitted to host Jimmy Fallon during a recent spot on The Tonight Show. When discussing the big Endgame scene, Fallon asked the actor whether picking up the hammer or the shield for the first time was the cooler moment. Evans replied:
“Hammer. Well, you know the shield was destined for the character. The hammer was kind of this period at the end of a sentence in terms of his worth, and it was nice. And the Russos really know how to build those moments. I’ll say the hammer.”
No one’s denying Steve picking up the hammer was epic, but the scene’s created a lot of conversation about how this could be possible when he only managed to get a squeak out of Mjolnir when he last tried to pick it up in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The explanation from Marvel is that Cap was actually always able to lift it and was simply trying not to embarrass Thor back in Ultron. Some fans prefer to think that Steve has just grown in worthiness since then, though.
Of course, there’s also the question of how Steve can summon lightning with the weapon as he does to strike Thanos. Avengers: Endgame co-writer Christopher Markus recently admitted that this contradicts the explanation of the function of Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok, but it was just too irresistible an opportunity to pass up. And it sounds like Chris Evans would agree on that.
