With electricity, it’s not the volts that kill you, really, it’s the amperes. You can take thousands of volts and survive, but seven mili-amps across the heart and it’s so long.
Normally this is a fairly comforting thing to realize. On the other hand, when you’re holding a prop Mjolnir with a Tesla coil in it, that difference is probably academic.
Sadly, you will not be throwing lightning bolts with this particular version of Thor’s hammer, but you will be able to perform magic tricks and risk injury!
Joking about his inevitable and painful death at the hands of this thing aside, this is actually a fairly impressive hack. The custom-built Tesla coil is a tiny one hidden in the head of the hammer, which is built out of foam. The handle is PVC and there’s a rechargeable battery in the bottom. If you need more details, Hack-A-Day has its usual detailed look behind the scenes, including a tale of woe where footage was lost and the prop itself was nearly destroyed:
Still, we have to admit as cool as this is, we’re kind of glad the lightning effect is limited to just a few small sparks. Otherwise, millions of these things would be at Iron Man 3 screenings around the country, and, well, things would probably get ugly.