ODIN

Bor and Bestla had three sons, and young Odin was only the first: Vili and Ve stood beside him when the brothers slew Ymir, built the cosmos from the giant's body, raised Asgard and, by Odin's own account, shaped humanity itself. The trio ruled as equals, which makes what happened in Muspelheim the founding sacrifice of Odin's reign. The full account of the brothers' end was finally narrated in Thor Vol. 1 #292–294 (1980), told by the All-Father's own sacrificed eye.

In Muspelheim the brothers found Surtur forging Twilight, the sword meant to burn the Nine Realms. Merging into a single colossal warrior, they shattered the blade, and Odin snatched away the Eternal Flame needed to kindle a new one. Escape had a price: someone had to hold the fire demon at the pass. Vili and Ve stayed. Their final act was to pour their godly energies into the brother who got out, and that tripled inheritance — their power fused with his — is the energy Asgard would call the Odinpower, the Odinforce.

So the most famous power in the Thor books is, at root, a survivor's inheritance. Every Odinsleep that recharges it, every galaxy-shaking blast Odin ever fired, spends strength his brothers earned and never used. Odin kept their fate quiet for millennia, and the secret only reached Thor through the strangest of witnesses: the eye Odin had given up for wisdom, which had grown vast and sentient in Mimir's well and remembered everything.