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  • Thor Love and Thunder: Marvel Studios New Trailer Breakdown

    May 24, 2022 4 min read

    The first Thor: Love and Thunder teaser was all about feeling good. Taika Waititi’s trademark sense of humour, in bright colours, The promise of the God of Thunder’s ongoing redemption arc. An incredible instrumental rendition of Guns n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” as well as a workout montage that was truly “Godly.”

    What about the most recent Thor: Love and Thunder trailer? It keeps the same bright colours, the director’s sense of humour (and voice), the aforementioned redemption arc, and that sweet GnR tune. Then, exactly one minute in, we get the long-awaited introduction (and official first look at), Christian Bale, as the film’s main villain, Gorr the God-Butcher. I guess Joker was right when he said “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.

    Before we go any further into what that means, you should have a look for yourself:

    Gorr the God-Butcher

    In the comics, Gorr is every bit as intense as his impossibly hardcore name suggests. Gorr goes on to discuss the gods’ selfishness. Why? Because Gorr is a being whose prayers were never answered, who lived a miserable and difficult life, and whose family died of starvation and disease while he prayed for salvation. When his “prayers” were answered by a powerful alien sword, he decided to take a more proactive approach to getting the gods’ attention.

    And what about that sword? It goes by the even more metal name All-Black the Necrosword. I’m not going to go into its history because it might spoil your movie experience, but in comics, it has ties to both Venom and the Celestials (of Eternals fame).

    It consumes the blood of the gods he slays and aids him in the creation of shadow-berserkers to do his bidding. That’s probably what those tendrils above are. AND we’re fairly certain that’s what everyone is up against when Jane Thor first appears.

    Let’s go over our villain Gorr’s backstory. He was created in 2013 by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic as part of the same Thor series that introduced the Jane Foster Mighty Thor to the official Marvel Comics continuity. We wrote more about Jane Foster’s history here. Also Keep in mind that the main Gorr story in the comics was almost unfathomably dark and gruesome, a horror-tinged sword-and-sorcery epic that spanned the cosmos and saw entire pantheons of gods butchered at Gorr’s angry hands.

    In fact, they almost exactly recreated one page from the comics in both of these trailers, with a shot of the very dead Falligar the Behemoth from Aaron and Ribic’s Thor: God of Thunder #3.

    The vibe of the trailer tells me that we won’t be seeing quite that many bodies in this film. On the other hand, you don’t bring Thor to Olympus and introduce Zeus unless you want to butcher a recognisable god and establish Gorr as a credible threat. That brings us to…

    Russell Crowe as Zeus 

    Russell Crowe is clearly having the time of his life in this film, isn’t he? We’re still hoping that this film will feature the Marvel version of Hercules in some way. But there’s one minor issue…

    King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) battles Gorr…with what appears to be Zeus’ thunderbolt. That should warn us not to get too attached to Russell Crowe’s Zeus, especially after what Marvel did with John Krasinski’s Mr Fantastic and Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier in the Doctor Strange sequel.

    Anyway, let's get over it!

    Jane Foster as Thor

    Interestingly, this trailer disproves the theory that Jane is a variant from another timeline. Jane’s discussion of her history with Thor indicates that this is our “sacred timeline.”

    There are two ways we can interpret their conversation about how long they haven’t seen each other: one is that Jane is simply over Thor. But, given the five-year gap in their assumptions, the other possibility is that Jane was indeed a victim of “the snap.”

    Also, this isn’t an Easter egg or anything, but apparently, Mjolnir can break apart into individual pieces to ruin bad guys’ days.

    Thor’s Helmet

    Marvel movies have always been hesitant to let Thor wear a helmet, probably because how attractive Hemsworth is. Despite the fact that these scenes are adjacent in the trailer, it is clear that Thor first seeing the other Thor wielding Mjolnir and then discovering it is Jane do not occur in the same battle. Thor was depressed in the comics because he was unworthy to wield Mjolnir, and he pined for it like a lost lover (or an addict) who desperately wanted to be worthy again. When he first sees her, he’s even dressed in his The Unworthy Thor costume (and his King Thor suit when he exclaims “Jane?” in the trailer’s next shot).

    What relevance does this have to the helmet? We believe he sees Jane Thor and is subconsciously attempting to emulate whatever she is doing in the hopes that it will make him, if not more worthy (as established in Endgame), at least more like “himself.”

    Was that a glimpse of Thanos’ Girlfriend?

    This shot of Jane is interesting enough on its own, but take a look at the statues behind her. On the right, there’s The Living Tribunal (whose statue also appeared in Loki and was briefly seen in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) and What If…? as Uatu, the Watcher.

    Things get a little more complicated on the left. That appears to be Death at first glance. As in the cosmic manifestation of Death. Thanos’s love interest in the Infinity Gauntlet comic series.

    What lies behind death? It’s a little more difficult to tell. That next bust resembles Jack Kirby’s Zeus from his Thor comics, but it’s difficult to tell. I’m not sure who the third figure in the background is. But this may be a hall full of cosmic deities slain by Gorr.

    We’ll find out when Thor: Love and Thunder hit theatres on July 8 in India and worldwide.

    Checkout all incredible Thor and Marvel Studios collectibles here.

    Spot anything cool that we missed? Got an answer to one of our questions? Let us know via our Instagram!