Journey into Mystery - A THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER breakdown

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Journey into Mystery - A THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER breakdown

Sat, 04/23/2022 - 03:36
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It’s MCU time again! With Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness around the corner and Moon Knight currently airing on Disney+, Marvel has dropped a teaser trailer for the fourth entry in the Thor series.

Without wasting any time, let’s dive into some of the things this trailer revealed, and speculate on what might occur.

Thor: Love and Thunder sees Thor where we last left him at the end of Avengers: Endgame, traveling around with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Thor has gotten back into shape and seems to be doing some soul-searching following the congaline of trauma he went through in the last few movies.

It seems identity or the question of “who is Thor?” will be a big part of this movie, a rather appropriate theme since we have another Thor making their debut in this movie.

Now the identity of this new Thor is well known due to the existing comics and the casting announcements, but in case you are not privy to that and want to go into this movie entirely blind, I would suggest skipping the following.

So the whole identity of Thor is weird in comics. Often it is just as the MCU has portrayed it thus far, as the guy’s name. It has also just as often been interpreted as a mantle that someone takes on. Many have taken on this mantle over the years, most famous perhaps was probably Erik Masterson who served as Thor while the real Thor was dead (he got better).

This leads us to the new Thor in the movie…Jane Foster.

Jane Foster as Thor was an idea that first appeared in What If? #10 back in 1978. In that story, Jane Foster finds Mjolnir instead of Donald Blake and is then empowered with all of Thor’s godly might.

This idea of Jane as Thor would be revisited in 2014 in a storyline that saw Thor become unworthy to wield Mjolnir and Jane lifting the hammer. During this time, Thor was called Odinson and wielded the battle axe Jarnbjorn, while Jane used the name Thor in her new superhero identity.

During her time as Thor, Jane Foster was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer and when using the hammer, she would be given the godly physique of an Asgardian. This did have the drawback of the transformation purging her body of all toxins, including the chemotherapy.

Eventually Odinson would regain his name as Thor and Jane would become the new Valkyrie.

Beside Thor, the film also features what appears to be Olympus, home of the Greek gods.

This is one of those things in comic books where just about every myth has some degree of truth to it, and just as the Norse gods are powerful, extra-dimensional beings that were worshipped by early humans, so too were the Greek gods.

The biggest indicator that this new place is Olympus is the presence of Zeus within the trailer. While we don’t see his face, Zeus’ iconic thunderbolt is seen and casting shows that Russel Crowe will be playing the king of the gods.

This leads us to the identity of the film’s primary antagonist, someone absent from the trailer, and that is Gorr the God Butcher (who easily wins the award for most metal bad guy name of all time).

Gorr was introduced in Thor: God of Thunder #1 in 2013, an alien that lived on a barren world. No gods helped his people and yet they believed in their gods nonetheless. When Gorr’s family died, he expressed how he didn’t believe in the gods, which made him a social outcast. Shortly after this, Gorr does learn that his gods exist, and he is none too pleased since the gods wouldn’t help those in need. This makes Gorr vow to kill all gods. To do this, Gorr acquires a god-slaying blade called All-Black the Necrosword (also a really metal name!).

It should be noted the All-Black the Necrosword is tied heavily into the cosmic setting of Marvel. It was forged by a character named Knull, who used it to behead a Celestial (this decapitated head becoming Knowhere as seen in Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Infinity War).

Knull’s other claim to fame was the creation of a race of aliens called the Klyntar, aka the symbiotes, and of course the symbiotes are known for their most famous member: Venom.

Now that isn’t to say that I think the movie is going to delve that deep into the lore on All-Black, but I’m certain the Celestial connection could still be a possibility.

While not featured in the trailer, promotional material has shown that Thor will acquire some new armor that is blue and gold in color. A similar outfit appeared in Thor #378.

In that issue, Thor acquired a new set of armor after a curse rendered his bones as brittle as glass. This armor allowed him to fight despite this weakness.

How much of these easter eggs will be featured in the movie itself? I’m uncertain. The MCU typically takes the approach of borrowing elements from the comics while also doing their own thing. Regardless, I am excited to see what the future holds for one of the few founding Avengers that are still active in the MCU.