Here's your first proper look at Christopher Eccleston's Malekith, plus more in these 16 new images for THOR: THE DARK WORLD

As I worship at the blue police box altar of Doctor Who, I promptly ruined my trousers at the news that Christopher Eccleston had been cast as the Dark Elf Malekith in Thor: The Dark World. If you were just as excited to see ol’ Number Nine as one of Thor’s most memorable enemies as I was, then you’re were probably also a little disappointed that up until now we’ve barely seen hide nor snowy hair of him in the promos. Sure we’ve had a few shots, but they were all with his character donning a mask that makes him look just like any of the other rent-a-dark-elf foot soldiers.

Thanks to the folks at Empire though, we finally get a clear shot of him, and he looks pretty badass. But he’s not alone though, as we also get some new glimpses of our Asgardian heroes, as well as finding out just what they’ve been up to since we last saw them (and no, it wasn’t playing Animal Crossing).

Kudos to whomever did Eccleston’s makeup, because that is a seriously good translation of Malekith from page to screen. The costume design work I’ve seen thus far from the film, looks nothing short of superb, and this is definitely one of the best.

Speaking of best, it turns out that the Agardian gang haven’t been at theirs, as producer Craig Kyle explains just what’s been happening over in shiny godland since we last saw them.

“Asgard at the beginning of the first film was at a time of peace. Now our guys have been fighting for over a year, constantly. It’s a time of war.

“When the Bifrost [aka the Rainbow Bridge] was broken at the end of the first film, Odin had to conjure a lot of dark energy and go through a lot of personal sacrifice to try and get his son back to Earth. And it was a one-shot deal. If Thor didn’t succeed, without the Tesseract he couldn’t have got back again. And in our film, finally the Bifrost has been rebuilt, but during that time, when the cops were largely cut off from the rest of the universe, you had miscreants that came in from outside the Nine Realms, pillaging and destroying and causing havoc. So that’s what our guys have been doing now – trying to put all these fires out across the Nine Realms.”

Sounds like they’ve been busy. No wonder my prayers to Odin to turn Darryn into a garden slug have gone unanswered (You’ve lucked out this time, Bonthuys). Here are the rest of those pics, including a further look at blingy Asgard, Loki looking naughty, some elven spaceships and Thor rocking a new sleeveless body armour look that is bound to just be the talk of this Summer’s fashion season.

Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World continues the big-screen adventures of Thor, the Mighty Avenger, as he battles to save Earth and all the Nine Realms from a shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. In the aftermath of Marvel’s Thor and Marvel’s The Avengers, Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos…but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.

Thor: The Dark World will be thundering into cinemas on November 8, 2013.

Last Updated: August 26, 2013