Thor: Ragnarok, the best film in the MCU and I will fight you in a dark alley if you disagree, is getting a follow-up soon. Taika Waititi’s is back in the director’s chair for Thor: Love and Thunder, a film that found the perfect actor for its next villain. Former Batman Christian Bale was revealed to be in the film which brings back Natalie Portman’s character of Jane Foster, who is expected to be deemed worthy enough to lift and wield Mjolnir.
While Bale was confirmed for Thor: Love and Thunder, no one knew exactly who he’d be playing. The general consensus was that Bale would menace the cast as Dario Agger, a ruthless businessman in charge of the Roxxon Corporation who wielded the power of late-stage capitalism to make as much money as possible. And occasionally also transformed into a bloodthirsty minotaur.
But as we learned at this morning’s Disney Investors Day presentation, Bale’s not playing Agger. Instead, he’ll be a much greater and deadlier threat when he starts slaying deities as Gorr the Butcher. Introduced by writer Jason Aaron and artist Esad Ribic around seven years ago in a fantastic run of Thor comics, Gorr is an alien whose personal tragedy transformed him into a god-killer. Roaming the cosmic highways and convinced that all gods had to die, Gorr’s quest eventually brought him into conflict with the God of Thunder.
Combined with Aaron’s later arc that saw Jane Foster become Thor, it looks like Waititi is picking the best from an excellent run on Thor comics to create another unique film in the MCU, just like he did with Ragnarok. No complaints here. There’s an even bigger ramification possibly in the works here (Knull!), but I’ll get to that in another post.
Marvel hasn’t revealed too many details on Thor: Love and Thunder, but we do know that Tessa Thompson will be back as Valkyrie. Asgard’s queen is in search of a king, now that Thor has buggered off to become an Asgardian of the Galaxy.
Last Updated: December 12, 2020
