Thor Redux: The Cheer of an Aryan Nation

No fear, no Black planets either. I’ve been spending some time watching the Marvel films through quarantine goggles. Thor didn’t really hit his stride until ‘Ragnarok’, but ‘Dark World’ has been unfairly shelved.

The first Thor has probably aged the worst. Branagh was a good choice for director, he brought a very European stature to the Norse origin story, but that stature brings a rigidity that the character spends the next two films trying to shed. Plus the boy desperately needs a tan. He spends his time in the Southwest sun looking like a baking albino. Also I know there are Black people in Asgard, but by and large they’re like White people in Wakanda.

‘Dark World’ on the other hand just does its thing. Doesn’t really move the Marvel mythology along much beyond the soft introduction of the infinity stone. But the minimal nature of the story, after Avengers and before Winter Soldier, sets up the film to be minimized as well. (Stark’s solo Iron Man 3 gets a pass for having started this whole thing on his own) But Thor is Thor here, Loki has some depth, and it’s got Darcy to save the day when things get too stiff.

‘Ragnarok’ is still the best of the three so far. Some of the Marvels are breakout shows, but ‘Dark World’ is a workhorse. It’s more capable than it gets credit for, but in scope and scale it’s overshadowed still by the other properties.

‘Love and Thunder’ could actually be where things get interesting. Setting aside the collaborations, Thor’s the first Avenger to get a fourth film. Lucky for him he gets to live for a few thousand years. There’s a weird dynamic between the solo films and the team-ups, for every one of the Avengers. It’s become a rule that these characters spend their own films getting younger, but they spend their time together getting older. Somehow in five years, Iron Man became Tired Man. Steve Rogers CHOSE to get old. Thor became Al Bundy. Joss Whedon and the Russo brothers have done more damage to the Avengers than Ultron or Thanos.

But Thor gets a fourth film. His trilogy didn’t leave him a wasted shell of himself, ready to die. He’s still got his entire life ahead of him. That’s an anomaly for Marvel and I’m curious to see how they’re going to do it. They’ve been constructing endings for thirteen years now, but somehow they mixed in a beginning. Hopefully it doesn’t suck.