The teaser trailer for Thor: Love And Thunder shows a suspiciously large empty space next to Thor, leading to speculation that a character has been purposely edited out. Taika Waititi is returning to direct the movie, having made the immensely popular Thor: Ragnorok. Love And Thunder is set to take place after the events of Avengers: Endgame, with the Asgardian ready to retire from being a superhero. The MCU movie will focus on Thor's spiritual journey to find himself before he inevitably returns to his superhero duties to fight Christian Bale's debuting Gorr the God Butcher.
37 seconds into the Love And Thunder teaser trailer, there is a brief clip where Thor looks up to the sky to watch his friends, the Guardians of the Galaxy, fly off, presumably leaving him to start his new life. Thor isn't alone though. On his left is Korg and on his right is a curiously empty space. This has led to the theory that someone has been cut from the teaser to save their reveal for the movie's cinematic release. Marvel Studios played this trick in the lead-up to Spider-Man: No Way Home's release when the returning Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield had their Spider-Men cut from the trailer in scenes that they did appear in during the movie.
Jane Foster is the leading contender to be Thor and Korg's mystery companion. Natalie Portman's character has already been confirmed to appear in Love And Thunder and she features at the end of the teaser trailer as the Mighty Thor, a female incarnation of the God of Thunder. Given Jane has not been seen properly since 2013's Thor: The Dark World, it would be jarring for her to arrive as the Mighty Thor right away. It would make more sense to have Thor and Jane try to rekindle their relationship following Thor's decision to step down as a hero. That can then lead to an origin story that explains how Jane wields Mjolnir.
Despite not being seen since the ending of Loki, Thor's brother has a reasonable chance of being the edited-out individual, given how connected the trickster is to Thor. A more exciting possibility though is Dave Bautista's Drax the Destroyer. It's feasible that Drax, like Thor, would want to take a break from saving the universe now that his main enemies, Ronan and Thanos, have been defeated. If Drax is revealed to be the mystery character then it would also be a great way to pay off the MCU's running gag that he has the ability to turn invisible.
It could be a debuting character, like Beta Ray Bill, that Waititi edited out of the Love And Thunder teaser. Bill almost appeared in Thor: Ragnorok but was cut because his small role didn't do him justice, but now could be the right time to introduce him. The recent trailer shows the reintroduction of Mjolnir, which could leave Stormbreaker, the weapon that Beta Ray Bill possesses in the comics, open for Bill to claim. The prospect of Bill squaring off with Gorr the God Butcher makes Love And Thunder a perfect opportunity for the warrior to finally enter the MCU.
Marvel Studios has an almost endless list of characters who could be Thor's hidden friend. Given they have gone to the effort of editing them out of the teaser trailer, expect the surprise to be one of the movie's biggest moments. Based on the studio's past trailer edits, it is more likely that the character is someone who is already established in the MCU but hasn't been seen in a while, but Taika Waititi also has the opportunity to introduce a new ally for Thor in Thor: Love And Thunder.
