{"id":409804,"date":"2026-05-03T12:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/409804\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T12:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:55:10","slug":"kenneth-branaghs-thor-5-mcu-pitch-sounds-a-lot-like-this-marvel-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/409804\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenneth Branagh’s Thor 5 MCU pitch sounds a lot like this Marvel masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marvel Cinematic Universe<\/a> is almost 20 years old, and Thor has been around since nearly the beginning<\/a>. Chris Hemsworth debuted as the God of Thunder in 2011\u2019s Thor, which turns 15 on May 6. And it turns out, all these years later, director Kenneth Branagh (yep, Hercule Poirot<\/a> directed an MCU film) is still thinking about what he would have liked to do with the character had he stuck around in the MCU.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of me would love to finish my relationship with that character. I’d always wanted to do more and indeed had a couple of ideas, more in the territory of James Mangold’s brilliant Logan,\u201d Branagh told Business Insider<\/a> in a recent Q&A. \u201cI would love to see Chris Hemsworth and the others have their own individual final story that takes Thor into a glorious twilight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thor is nowhere near his twilight in the MCU. This is a god who can and will, in theory, live for eons. Though 1,500 years old in the MCU<\/a>, he\u2019s still a young pup. The comics his films are based on, however, much more freely jump through time and continuity. Because of that, it turns out that Thor has already been given a Logan<\/a>-style, \u201cglorious twilight\u201d story.<\/p>\n

\"Thor
\n Image: Marvel Studios<\/p>\n

Jason Aaron is a prolific comics writer<\/a>, and one of his seminal works is his Thor run from 2012 to 2019. Even if you don\u2019t read comics, you\u2019re likely familiar with his creations as the MCU borrowed heavily from his work in 2022\u2019s Thor: Love and Thunder<\/a>. With artist Esad Ribic, he created Gorr the God Butcher<\/a> and, with artist Russell Dauterman, turned Jane Foster into The Mighty Thor<\/a> \u2014 both of whom appeared in the fourth Thor film.<\/p>\n

Aaron\u2019s work on Thor culminated in the Ribic-illustrated 2019 miniseries King Thor, which is something of Thor\u2019s own Old Man Logan<\/a> story. A future version of Thor plays a heavy part in the comics\u2019 Gorr storyline (because of time travel shenanigans), and he stars in the miniseries set eons in the future. Like so many Thor stories, King Thor features a climactic clash between brothers Thor and Loki. No matter how much time has passed, Loki still wants to kill his brother. Some things never change! The action in King Thor\u2019s pages is wonderful, including Thor exploding a planet full of napalm and using his own intestines entwined with Mjolnir to send Loki flying into a star.<\/p>\n

Loki wields All-Black the Necrosword, the same weapon Gorr used to butcher countless gods in Aaron and Ribic\u2019s first Thor stories. And where the All-Black goes, so does Gorr. All things end where they begin, and Aaron and Ribic end this seven-year saga with a battle amid the cosmos against Gorr.<\/p>\n

\"All-Father
\n Esad Ribi\u0107\/Marvel Comics<\/p>\n

Between the hammer smashes and planet-bursting blows are ruminations on godhood and reconciliation between Thor and Loki. Because, again like so many Thor stories, the brothers come together to face a greater threat. No matter how many falling outs the brothers have had or how many times Loki has tried to kill him, Thor still won\u2019t give up on his mischief-loving brother.<\/p>\n

Thor\u2019s three granddaughters, who also played key roles in the original Gorr-starring \u201cGodbomb\u201d storyline, return as well, riding in on Thor\u2019s goats and a flying shark. They bring long-dormant gods back into the fold to confront Gorr, gods who were once forgotten and whom Thor helped be remembered after he escaped the clutches of Gorr the first time around.<\/p>\n

Like Mark Millar and Steve McNiven\u2019s Old Man Logan, King Thor gives Thor one last chance to confront one of his greatest foes. But instead of how Logan decapitated the Red Skull, Thor allows Gorr a much more merciful end. His decision fits the character well as Aaron has always been one to spotlight Thor\u2019s mercy and his love, particularly for mortals; King Thor has the elder Thor protecting a newly reforged Midgard and its peoples.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cThis...
\n Image: Jason Aaron, Esad Ribi\u0107\/Marvel Comics<\/p>\n

The Marvel Cinematic Universe would do well to give Branagh the reins once again and let him deliver Thor into his \u201cglorious twilight.\u201d (Especially after Taika Waititi turned the character into a caricature<\/a>.) Though the MCU already killed off Gorr \u2014 and gave him some redemption in his final moments \u2014 these are superhero stories, after all. Only Uncle Ben ever remains dead. In fact, King Thor itself mostly hand waves away the return of the God Butcher; just go with it.<\/p>\n

An ending for Thor in the MCU wouldn\u2019t even have to be a one-to-one adaptation of the book, but instead it could adapt the spirit of King Thor. Mangold\u2019s Logan mostly just borrowed general concepts from the Old Man Logan comics; there\u2019s no reason the MCU couldn\u2019t do the same in bringing the elder King Thor to the big screen.<\/p>\n

So to the idea of Branagh returning to Thor and giving him a final MCU story, I say: \u201cAnother!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n


\n \"Avengers:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\tNew Avengers: Doomsday trailer focuses on sad-dad Thor
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

In case you wiped Thor: Love and Thunder from your memory, the Asgardian’s got a kid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marvel Cinematic Universe is almost 20 years old, and Thor has been around since nearly the beginning.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-409804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}