Thor: Love and Thunder's Creator of Gorr the God Butcher Breaks Silence on Christian Bale Backlash

The first trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder finally made its debut on Monday, and anticipation surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster is only continuing to grow. The trailer and marketing materials have showcased that the film is clearly inspired by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic's Thor run from the comics, with a lot of visual and narrative elements being outlined. Among them is the introduction of Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who will serve as the main villain of the film. While Gorr didn't make an appearance in the trailer for Love and Thunder, recently toy reveals and other pieces of merchandise have provided a bit of an inkling as to what he could look like — and fans have been divided by what they've seen thus far. In a recent post to his Substack newsletter, Aaron addressed the reaction to Gorr's design thus far, and teased that the physical appearance of the character might not matter at the end of the day.

"We haven't even gotten the first official look at the movie version of Gorr the God Butcher yet," Aaron writes. "I've seen some concerns online about Gorr's design, based off glimpses of the character's action figure. As the guy who co-created him, along with Esad, I'll just say that it wasn't Gorr's nose (or lack thereof) that made him the tragic and deeply disturbed God Butcher that he was. Trust in the face of Christian Bale. Need I remind you, it's a pretty goddamn talented face."

Thor: Love and Thunder finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey unlike anything he's ever faced – a quest for inner peace. But his retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who – to Thor's surprise – inexplicably wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as the Mighty Thor. Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher's vengeance and stop him before it's too late.

"[Taika] would flip through and read that run while he was doing Ragnarok." Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige previously revealed in an interview. "And I think when he agreed to come back and do another Thor, he was like, 'How do we–?' This is a very big movie that'll be folding in a lot of elements. That is a hugely important part of it. He pitched it to us, and we were totally in. We loved it. We'd been in touch with Natalie. She's part of the MCU family and we put she and Taika together. It took one meeting and she agreed to do it."

What do you think of Jason Aaron's reaction to Gorr the God Butcher's MCU design? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Thor: Love and Thunder will be released exclusively in theaters on July 8th.