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Verily! Thor: Love And Thunder has hit theaters and once again it chronicles the adventures of everyone’s favorite space Viking. Last we saw of him at the end of Avengers: Endgame he was leaving Earth behind and going out into the universe to find himself. What we get is a fun adventure with Thor and . . . Thor? Jane Foster makes her return to the MCU and this time she is carrying the once thought destroyed Mjolnir. What ensues is a fun trip into space to fight the evil Gorr The God Butcher. Along for the ride are Valkyrie and the ever-trustful Korg. Let’s run down all the fun Thor: Love And Thunder easter eggs and references you may have missed.
Warning: There Will Be Spoilers For Thor: Love And Thunder Below! You’ve been Warned!!!
The Necrosword
The movie opens with Gorr and his daughter trying to survive in a desert landscape only for the young child to pass away. Gorr stumbles upon an oasis and finds the god he prays to there. He asks for his help but the god laughs at him. A dark black sword whispers to Gorr to kill all the gods. He uses the sword to kill his god and decides afterward to take out his vengeance on all the gods.
Where does the Necrosword come from? In the comics, it comes from Knull who is the creator of the symbiotes. This is where Venom and Carnage come from. It’s powered by the All Black which is the first symbiote Knull created. In the movie, they gloss over all that and just say it’s very dangerous. But we do see the relationship between the user and the sword throughout the run time. The sword gives the user power but over time zaps them of their vitality.
Thunderstrike
The outfit Thor wears in the opening of this film resembles the costume Eric Masterson wore in the comics under the name Thunderstrike. Masterson merged with Thor for a short time and became his alter ego. He would walk with a cane and when he stamped the cane on the ground he would change into Thor. When the characters finally split, Masterson would get his own enchanted weapon, a mace, and continue on as the character Thunderstrike. The character is usually dressed in a red vest with Asgardian attire underneath.
Thor’s Goats
After saving a civilization from invasion, Thor is gifted two very loud screeching goats for his trouble. They later become part of his team and even pull his ship into the world-hopping Bifrost. They aren’t named in the film but in the comics, they are called Toothgrinder and Toothgnasher. Turns out the old Norse stories about Thor also said he had two goats that pulled his chariot into battle. We hear their cries A LOT during the film.
Asgardian Players
In Thor: Ragnarok, when Thor returned to Asgard, he found that Loki had been pretending to be Odin. One of the things he liked doing was watching some of his people reenact the stories of Thor and Loki in a stage play setting. Of course, the stories have been changed to make Loki more of a hero than he really was. Those stage actors were fun cameos of Matt Damon as Loki, Sam Neill as Odin, and Luke Hemsworth (yes there’s a third one) as Thor.
These stage actors return in Thor: Love And Thunder when we arrive in New Asgard. They are telling the events of Thor: Ragnarok. This time around they are joined by Melissa McCarthy playing Hela. They seem to be drawing great crowds in the now tourist-friendly New Asgard. When the children of Asgard are kidnapped they even ask Valkyrie if they should begin preparing a new stage play surrounding the events.
Sif Returns
One of Thor’s greatest allies in battle, Sif, finally returns in this new film. Jamie Alexander was unable to take part in Thor: Ragnarok due to her commitments on her television series Blind Spot. It’s probably for the better as she avoided getting killed by Hela like The Warriors Three. She made a quick stop over on Loki for an appearance and now we see her back in New Asgard after Thor comes to her aid after falling to Gorr.
Darryl Returns
Another quick cameo that you’ll miss if you blink is that of Thor’s old roommate Darryl. Back before Thor: Ragnarok hit theaters, Taika Waititi and Chris Hemsworth filmed some fun short films showing what Thor had been up to. He was living with a roommate and trying to live the Earth lifestyle. Of course, things didn’t go well for Darryl who was just trying to live his life. They seemed like fun short films but didn’t really fit into the MCU as a whole so could easily be discounted as non-canon. Waititi decided to prove that they were in fact canon and showed that Darryl now works in New Asgard as a tour guide. Taika seemed intent on stuffing Thor: Love And Thunder easter eggs in everywhere.
Cocktail Sign
Thor and crew decide to take one of the tour boats as their new vessel to travel to the shadow realm. They throw out the old amusement park seats of the boat to restore it back to being an Asgardian-looking ship. One thing they don’t throw out is the neon sign above the cabin door that reads ‘Cocktails & Dreams’. This is a replica of the sign hanging in the cocktail bar Tom Cruise works at in Cocktail.
Hall Of Statues
When the heroes go to have their final battle with Gorr, they end up in a hallway leading to the gates to Eternity. Gorr wants to enter, so he can get a wish granted by the entity known as Eternity. He will use this wish to kill all gods at once fulfilling his mission. When they show up to stop him, the hallway leading to the gates has giant statues depicting important beings in the cosmic MCU. Some we have met already and a few we have yet to. A statue for Uatu The Watcher can be seen. He was the entity that oversaw different realities in the animated Disney+ series What If ... ?
Next up is a statue wearing a hood and has a skull face. This would be the representation of Death. In the comics Thanos was infatuated with Death and to impress her he gathered the Infinity Gauntlet. Basically, he was just showing off by killing fifty percent of the universe. We also see a statue of the multifaced The Living Tribunal. We’ve seen statues of them before in Loki and even got a quick glance of them as Doctor Strange and America Chavez flew past them as they were dropping through realities in Multiverse Of Madness.
Of the last two statues, one of them is Infinity. She is Eternity’s sister. She represents the opposite of Death. Her power is immense and is the source of the power behind the Quasars bands which is theorized to be where the bracelet in Ms. Marvel came from. The other is Ego. He is one of the earliest sentient beings to awaken in the universe and is the keeper of Cosmic Awareness. Anything that is happening anywhere in the universe, he knows about it. This one hallway makes up a lot of the Thor: Love And Thunder easter eggs in the film.
Thor Is A Family Affair
As already stated Luke Hemsworth played the stage actor playing Thor, but he wasn’t the only other Hemsworth not named Chris on screen. Three of Chris Hemsworth’s kids make an appearance in the film. There is a montage of Thor running through the wilderness growing up. The kid Thor was played by his son Tristan. His other son Sasha plays one of the Asgardian children who are kidnapped. Then at the end of the film, Thor agrees to look after Gorr’s daughter when she is resurrected. Her name is Love, and she is played by his daughter India.
Hercules Arrives
When the group is going to Omnipotent City to try to get help from Zeus to raise an army of gods, Thor rattles off who he would like to get in his group. One of the names he drops is Hercules. He actually predates Marvel Comics altogether as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Charles Nicholas created the character way back in 1945. Hercules is based on the hero of Greek myth much as Thor is based on Norse mythology. He has been a part of many teams in the Marvel comics and had a lot of adventures with Thor over the years.
In the post-credits scene, we see that Zeus is sending his son Hercules down to get revenge on Thor for all the mayhem he caused. Fans have been wondering if and when Hercules might finally show up in a live-action movie. Looks like they finally got their wish. Eternity be praised! Looks like he’ll be clashing with Thor on his next adventure.
What other Thor: Love And Thunder easter eggs and references did you find? Let us know in the comments.
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