Marvel’s Frog Thor: Who Is Throg, Frog Of Thunder?
Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor… even if he’s a frog. Mjolnir doesn’t discriminate against species and believe it or not, there have been not one but two amphibians worthy enough to be the god-er-frog of thunder. Of course, a ridiculous concept like a Marvel hero trapped in the body of a frog requires an equally ridiculous name, and so both of the tenacious tadpoles who took up the mantle of Thor went by a new title: Throg!
Throg The First
The first Throg—a portmanteau of “Thor” and “Frog” for anyone who didn’t immediately get it—was, in fact, the actual Thor Odinson transmogrified into a web-footed warrior with a taste for flies. Thor’s transformation into Throg was the result of a trick played by Loki. Loki’s spell landed Marvel’s Throg smack dab in the middle of a secret war being waged in New York City’s famed Central Park between frogs and rats.
Throg quickly befriended a frog named Puddlegulp and traveled into the New York City sewer system to recruit a bunch of alligators that were chilling down there. In one of Marvel’s weirder turn of events, Throg persuaded the gators to accompany him topside and stop the rat army from dumping frog poison into a reservoir—mainly by eating them all.
The newly victorious frog army tries to make Throg their new king, but he humbly declines in favor of returning to Asgard as a now 7-foot Frog in Asgardian armor—because comics—to beat the everliving Bejesus out of his prankster brother.
During his transformation from a tiny tadpole into a 7-foot behemoth bullfrog, Thor manages to chip off a tiny piece of Mjolnir. The sliver finds its way into the sticky fingers of Puddlegulp, who uses it to transform into the second Throg, complete with his own tiny magic hammer. Marvel soon revealed Throg 2 to be a human cursed to live as a frog by a witch he stiffed.
Throg Version 2.0
Simon Walterson—named after famed Thor writer Walter Simonson—was a former college football star with a young wife and a baby on the way when his wife and unborn child were tragically taken from him. Crippled with despair, Walterson sought out any mystic or fortune-teller that could contact his deceased wife and allow him to talk to her one last time. He finally found a witch who had such an ability, but after taking advantage of her services and not paying the bill, she zapped him into Puddlegulp, the frog.
It was soon after that Puddlegulp found himself in Central Park right before the big Frog VS. Rat war. Puddlegulp eventually found himself fighting alongside the Mighty Thor in frog form. Spying a group of rats tailing Thor, Puddlegulp followed them, hoping to warn Thor before they attacked. It was then that the former Simon Walterson witnessed Thor’s transformation into a giant frog and found the small piece of Mjolnir, turning him into Marvel’s second Throg.
Throg 2.0 has had many adventures over the years, including joining the Pet Avengers—a team consisting of most of the real Avengers’ animal sidekicks like The Falcon’s pet falcon Redwing—and facing off against Thanos. While neither version of Marvel Comics’ Throg ever really had the limits of their abilities tested, it’s assumed that they had Thor-like superstrength proportionate to their size, as well as Thor’s lightning powers.
Simon Walterson—named after famed Thor writer Walter Simonson—was a former college football star with a young wife and a baby on the way when his wife and unborn child were tragically taken from him.
A variation of the first Throg showed up in an episode of the Disney+ series Loki as a Thor variant that had been trapped inside a glass jar—most likely by that Thor’s Loki. Interstingly, despite only appearing onscreen for a few seconds as an easter egg, the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki still has a full entry for the MCU version of Throg.
With a second season of Loki on the way, it’s entirely possible we haven’t seen the last of live-action Throg.
