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In the chapter four (Thunder) of The Ultimates, by Millar, Hitch and Currie, Bruce Banner and Nick Fury travel to Norway to talk to Thor. Banner gets upset and calls Thor a "delusional crack-pot" and says that his "son of Odin" thing is garbage. He claims to know everything about Thor and have all his secrets from his (S.H.I.E.L.D.) files. Then Thor says that he has Banner here (pointing at his temple) and continues to say:

Thor: Have you told Betty Ross that you cry yourself to sleep every night or are you too busy fantasizing about hurting the Pyms for stealing your old job?

Banner: What?

Thor: These powers are neither mutant nor machine, human. If a demonstration from Mjolnir is what you require then I shall happily oblige.

And then Thor makes rain.

My question is, how is Thor able to read Banner that easily? Is it because his persona and businesses are common knowledge and just with some TV news and a little bit of psychology he is able to accurately figure out what's in Banner’s mind (or maybe just enough to taunt him)? Or does Thor posses any powers that allow this feat (the "these powers" he is referring in the dialog).?

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  • It seems, as Thor states in the last panel, that he has some form of power that presumably only his kind possess. Although, I've never associated Thor with mind-reading or anything of the like.
    – PartyKingThrandeezy
    Commented Nov 3, 2014 at 17:44
  • I'm not familiar with the Marvel Universe, so I'm unsure if that is a well known power of Thor (not the case), a power of this ultimates version of the character, if it is a power granted via Mjolnir (an ability to read people or judge character to see who is worthy), or if it is just psychology and perception. That's why I was hoping someone could help clarifying what is going on there.
    – Kreann
    Commented Nov 3, 2014 at 18:47
  • How much cash does Thor normally carry with him, that he can just make it rain whenever he wants to?
    – KSmarts
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 15:45
  • He was a nurse, they never say what of. He could have picked up the skill as part of his profession. A lot of times nurses have to determine the intent of a patient, think ER nurse, and whether they are BSing or not. That and the public information available on Bruce could be enough for Thor to make what looks like and accurate assumption.
    – Mike Browne
    Commented Jan 26, 2018 at 18:41

2 Answers 2

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Form the description of the character in Marvel's wikipedia it seems that is just intuition and knowledge of Banner gained from the media.

The wikipedia lists Thor's powers (Earth 1610 Thor, which is the "Ultimates" version of Thor, the one from the comic the reference is from) and nothing like "mind reading" is among them. Weather control is, which explains of course how he can make rain.

So, in the last panel, when he says "these powers are neither mutant nor machine" he is not referring to his cold reading of Banner, but to what Banner has on his report about Thor. Banner says "I have your secrets right here", Thor demonstrates that he has more Knowledge about Banner than what Banner has about him and then demonstrates that "his secrets", as Banner calls them or "these powers" as Thor himself calls them are real, by making rain.

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It's most likely as you said, he watches TV and makes these assumptions, but there is a chance (small) that he senses the electrical signals in his brain, seeing as he has dominion over lightning

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