Thor: Love & Thunder will bring back the God of Thunder and other well-established characters, who will come face to face with Gorr the God Butcher, and through him, Thor 4 can directly impact Eternals 2 by breaking its villain trend. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is now in its Phase 4, which unlike the previous phases, is covering both TV shows and movies, and it’s also continuing the stories of already established heroes while also introducing many new ones. Among the heroes that are getting a new solo movie in Phase 4 is Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who is coming back for a fourth “solo” adventure in Thor: Love & Thunder.

Thor went through some much-needed changes in Thor: Ragnarok, directed by Taika Waititi, in which the God of Thunder’s personality finally shone through and Hemsworth’s comedic skills were seized, allowing the character to return for one more solo movie. Thor: Love & Thunder will not only bring Thor back but also the Guardians of the Galaxy, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Waititi), Lady Sif (Jamie Alexander), and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), the latter set to become the Mighty Thor. Thor 4 will also introduce a new villain: Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), whose presence in the MCU can go beyond Thor’s fourth movie.

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Plot details about Thor: Love & Thunder are still kept under wraps, so it’s unknown what dangers Thor will encounter this time and how Gorr comes into mix, but he won’t be an easy villain to defeat. Gorr comes from a planet where his people did everything they could to survive harsh conditions, so he prayed to the gods for help, but when his family died, he lost his faith and took it out on the gods. Gorr became an outcast and later learned that gods do exist when he saw two fighting, and the sword of one of them, which turned out to be the All-Black Necrosword, bonded with him, helping him kill one of the gods. Gorr’s quest to kill every god out there began, hence the name “The God Butcher”, but this backstory might change now that Eternals has been released, and if he breaks a Thor villain trend, he could be the antagonist in the Eternals’ next adventure.

Eternals and Gorr the God Butcher in Thor Love and Thunder

The MCU is known for having a villain problem, and few of them have gone past their debut movies, as has happened with most Thor villains: Thor: The Dark World had Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), who was crushed by his own ship, and in Thor: Ragnarok, Hela (Cate Blanchet) was impaled by Surtur. Thor: Love & Thunder can break this tradition by having Gorr survive, and thanks to his backstory as a killer of Gods, he can become the villain in Eternals 2 by targeting this new team.

The Eternals were created by the Celestial Arishem and sent to Earth to protect it from the Deviants, their evil counterparts. The Eternals stayed on Earth for centuries awaiting a sign to return to their home, Olympia, but in the meantime, they helped humanity evolve. It was later revealed that Olympia doesn’t exist and the Eternals were part of a bigger plan, as the Celestials plant seeds on different planets to create more Celestials, and the birth of these destroy entire planets – and the Eternals helping humanity evolve was needed for the emergence of the Celestial Tiamut. With Olympia not existing in the MCU, the Greek gods Gorr is seeking revenge against don’t exist either, and so the Eternals are taking their place. The Celestials and Eternals are playing the role of gods by creating more Celestials, and an Emergence might have ended Gorr’s planet in the first place.

Gorr, then, has the potential to become the villain in Eternals 2 as a continuation of the revenge mission he will start in Thor: Love & Thunder. Now, Thor is not the only god Gorr will come across in Thor 4, as there’s also Russell Crowe’s Zeus, so these encounters could put him on the path to battle the Eternals, a different kind of “gods” in the MCU. Gorr the God Butcher is such a menacing and intriguing character that it would be a waste to only have him for one movie, and it would benefit future MCU movies to have him survive the events of Thor: Love & Thunder.

Next: Thor 4: How Christian Bale Can Make Gorr One Of The MCU's Best Villains

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