brevoortformspring:

People seem to be very confused about the overall chronology, so I thought I should maybe lay some stuff out here, because there is one gaffe within it all that seems to be causing a lot of the problems. And that gaffe is Thor’s hammer.

So yes, going back, RAGNAROK NOW/AVENGE THE EARTH happens in UNCANNY AVENGERS. Thereafter. some time later, ORIGINAL SIN happens, during which Steve Rogers regains his knowledge of the Illuminati and what they’ve been doing.

The bit that people seem to be having difficulty with is the fact that Steve doesn’t act on this information immediately. But he does not—he doesn’t make a move until some point within the eight month period we’re now in, leading up to the TIME RUNS OUT issues of AVENGERS/NEW AVENGERS.

Part of that is that he’s dealing with other problems, primarily the loss of his youth and vigor, which happens in CAPTAIN AMERICA. This is where the Thor problem comes in, as because we were working on all of this stuff so far ahead of time, Thor appears in the immediate follow-up storyline in CAP, THE TOMORROW SOLDIER, with his hammer.

Given that Thor doesn’t do anything particularly important with his hammer in that storyline, just assume that that’s a “chronicler’s error”, and that he was actually wielding his axe, Jarnbjorn.

This all takes us into AXIS, where not only has Sam Wilson succeeded Steve as Captain America, but Wolverine has also died, in DEATH OF WOLVERINE. And Thor is again carrying Jarnbjorn.

And at some point over the next few months, we’ll get to the point where things begin to lay out as we see them in AVENGERS #35 and NEW AVENGERS #24 and thereafter. But we’re not quite there yet.

Also, as I mentioned earlier today, Thor having both arms in AXIS #1 isn’t a mistake. You’ll have to keep reading both AXIS and THOR to see what I mean—or you can not, and either simply take my word for it, or decide that I’m crazy and not buy any of it. Totally up to you. But Thor having both arms was an important bit of coordination between the AXIS crew and the THOR crew.

Simple enough, yes?

(And here come the questions…)

Steve acted pretty darn immediately in Avengers #29, gathering some Avengers (including Thor with his hammer) then got sent on his time jaunt. He’s in prime physical shape, so this is either before he loses the serum, or after he gets it back and is back in the uniform.

If before, him working closely with Tony in any later issue right up until the Time Runs Out eight month jump, where the Illuminati remain hunted, seems unlikely.

If after, you’ve kind of put a hard limit not just on how long Cap spends without the serum, but Thor Odinson without his hammer.