We know the superhero story: smart, sensitive type gets bit by a spider/attacked by a cave full of bats/exposed to gamma radiation. Then—surprise—smart, sensitive type becomes imbued with spidey senses/hires his manservant to make him gadgets/turns green and angry.

It's a tale so common that comic book naysayers dismiss superheroes as 100% wish fulfillment. Dorky guys (and gals) wish that they had superpowers, so they create dorky fictional alter-egos who gain the power to crush bad dudes the way that John Belushi crushes beer cans on his forehead.

Enter: Thor. This guy is no 98-pound weakling. He's a dang god. He's heir to the throne of Asgard. He's buff. He's arrogant. He has no problem getting chicks.

And that, as it turns out, is exactly his problem.

Thor sees Thor fall from grace…pretty much literally. He falls from the heavens and lands in BreakingBadLandia—we mean New Mexico—where he has to learn what it means to be a hero. As it turns out, it takes more than just superpowers. It takes humanity.

Thor and his twenty-four-pack abs learn what it's like to get by with nothing at all—no hammer, no super-strength, and no idea how to politely order a cup of coffee. It's only when he realizes that he's lost it all is he able to become the hero he always wanted to be.

Thor shows us that all the best superheroes need to have a balance between humility and crazy-awesome powers. Either you start off as a shlub and attain greatness…or, like Thor, you have to regress from a Norse god into a ripped-but-powerless mere mortal.

This proves that the masterminds behind comic books and comic book heroes aren't just dweebsies who wish they were caped crusaders. They're also writers that are keyed in to the stuff of great storytelling: after all, Thor's story parallels other hero-to-zero-to-hero sagas like Odysseus' in The Odyssey.

So whether you're a comic book newb or someone who's steeped in the tradition of shy secretaries who become heroic (or is that anti-heroic?) because a few cats licked them back to life…Thor has something to teach you about what it takes to become a hero.

And hey: on the off chance that any pampered Norse gods or goddesses out there are reading this—you ain't a hero until you've spent time in the Land of Enchantment, inhaled a few dust devils, dined at a few greasy spoons, and learned not to think that your armpits smell like eau de parfum.