Beta Ray Bill might boast a goofy name, but he wouldn't be loved by Thor fans if he wasn't a captivating character.
Introduced in 1983 in a way that didn't immediately broadcast is heroic destiny, the Walt Simonson creation was decidedly more monstrous than his contemporaries. Simonson did this to maintain a sense of ambiguity with the character, only divulging Bill's backstory with a series of references to the Korbinite race, an Alien species that resided within the cosmic vestiges of the Marvel Universe.
What makes Bill so important, however, isn't how monstrous he is, but rather that he was the first non-Norse character to pick up Mjolnir and wield the powers of Thor. Granted he only did so for a temporary period, but Bill found a fine replacement in Stormbreaker, a weapon bestowed to him by Odin in order to settle the contest between his son and the Korbinite.
Bill's been a persistent feature of the comics ever since, and in being the first to pick up Mjolnir, he sparked a trend other writers have been following ever since.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
