I didn’t read many comic books when I was a kid, but of the few I did read, my favorite character was Thor. I imagined having a hammer like mjollnir that always returned to me. My hammer would also blow up whatever I hit it with – even more destructive than Thor’s.

So it is with a bizarre mixture of anticipation, shame, and the expectation of mediocrity that I’m looking forward to SciFi’s “Hammer of the Gods.”

I use that phrase to describe an especially good mood – I’m swinging the Hammer of the Gods.

Norse mythology always bothered me, and to a degree it still does. I don’t understand the notion of knowing the battle that will end the world, knowing who you will fight, and somehow not doing your best to change the outcome. Not preparing to bring about a different outcome. I like Thor, I want him to do something that will allow him to defeat the Midgard Serpent without also dying.

I think the French version of that feeling is the word “Fatality” carved as graffiti on the wall of Notre Dame in Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris – usually turned into The Hunchback of Notre Dame when it’s made into a movie.

It also reminds me of Martin Luther’s ideas of predestination. What’s the point if you are just an actor in a play and you are either going or not going to heaven – and your faith or works mean nothing. They don’t change the outcome. I know Luther’s reasoning was more scholarly than that, but the final reduction becomes, “You got to fight, for your right, to believe in predestination.” Yeah, sign me up for that. Crank the Beastie Boys.