5 Thor Characters Ruined by the Marvel Movies

The story of Thor is one of the most interesting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Chris Hemworth’s version of the hero is definitely a beloved character, but he’s not on the level of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man or Chris Evans’s Captain America, despite being presented on the same level in the superhero community. A big reason for this is because of the quality of the Thor films – there are few individual franchises in the MCU whose reception is more negative among the fandom than the four movies starring Thor, his Asgardian allies, and their powerful foes.

There are multiple reasons why the Thor movies don’t have the same love as the Captain America series or Guardians of the Galaxy. However, a big one is that many feel like these movies didn’t do justice to Thor’s pantheon of characters. These five Thor characters got ruined by the Marvel movies, leading to checkered reputation of the God of Thunder.

Thor

The perfect place to start is with Thor himself. To begin with, Marvel Studios doesn’t really know what to do with powerful beings, especially heroes, so Thor’s powers and fighting skills wax and wane over the Thor and Avengers films. Sometimes, he’s a superlatively powerful god and other times he’s on the same level as Iron Man. This sort of inconsistency is the biggest problem with Thor in the MCU.

Related: The MCU Needs To Stay Away From This Wolverine Story

Thor is sometimes a wacky frat boy and other times he’s a Viking warrior with millennia of fighting experience. The hero is basically whatever the writers need him to be at any given time. So, in his first two movies, he’s a powerful god dealing with the problems in Asgard, and in his last two, he’s silly. Each Avengers movie has a totally different Thor in them, despite all being played by the same actor. His character arc in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame gets a pass, but other than that, the inconsistency of Thor throughout the MCU has made sure he’ll never reach the same level as the comic version of the character.

Jane Foster/Mighty Thor

Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster was never really a character in the MCU; she was a romantic foil for Thor, which honestly wasn’t very different from the Jane in the source material. However, something happened to Jane in the comics that changed the character forever – she became The Mighty Thor after Thor Odinson lost his worthiness of Mjolnir, and starred in the bestselling Thor comics in decades.

Fans loved Jane Foster as Thor and many of them were excited that there was a chance to see her in the MCU Movies. Of course, the problem was she was a part of Thor: Love and Thunder, a movie that many fans and critics feel may be as bad as Thor: The Dark World, which up until Love and Thunder was considered the worst Thor movie. Foster’s Thor was never going to get the kind of development that she got in the comics, but Love and Thunder barely tried to develop her role. Porter did her best with Jane in the movie, but she could only work with what she was given. Jane Foster in the comics has become a three dimensional character, fighting against the greatest threats in the Marvel Universe. Movie Jane rarely even reached two dimensions, at best.

Odin

Casting Anthony Hopkins as Odin made a lot of Thor fans happy. Hopkins did a great job with the character – he’s Anthony Hopkins – but he could only do so much with the material he had. Odin in the MCU was the gruff king, and then he died.

This is a vast oversimplification of Odin in the comics who

is a warrior king, feared by enemies and allies alike. He’s an intelligent monarch, one who has spent millennia dealing with threats of all kinds. Odin is crafty, always one step ahead of everyone. In the MCU, Odin is a cliche who never really seems dangerous. He never feels like a mastermind, instead he was a put upon king who everyone can take advantage of. Anthony Hopkins’ skill was completely wasted as Odin.

Miek

Miek was introduced to MCU fans in Thor: Ragnarok, but in the comics Miek never met Thor. Miek came from the blockbuster story Planet Hulk, which introduced Sakaar, the setting for Ragnarok. A gladiator in both stories, Miek played a huge role in the Planet Hulk and World War Hulk storylines in the comics. He became one of Hulk’s first allies on Sakaar, helping him escape the gladiatorial games, and then helped lead the army that freed planet from the clutches of the Red King. In the end, Miek mated with a Brood alien, and was secretly responsible for the destruction of Sakaar, all because he wanted to keep fighting while Hulk wanted to settle down.

Miek was a master manipulator in the comics, and in the movies he was… there. That’s pretty much all you can say about Miek in the MCU. The alien doesn’t really do anything in the movies except hang around with Korg and Thor. Miek in the comics was a pivotal character in two of Marvel’s best stories of the 2000s; but in the MCU, Miek wasn’t even an actual character.

Volstagg

This could be any of the Warriors Three, but Volstagg has always been the best of the trio, so he was the one ruined the most. Played by the late great Ray Stevenson in the MCU, but right away longtime Thor fans realized that something was missing. In the comics, Volstagg is known as Volstagg the Voluminous and is a rotund warrior known for his love of food, drink, and fighting. He’s a fun character, always ready with a jest, and the MCU never really captures that part of the character. Stevenson never managed to showcase the size – both in body and personality – of Volstagg.

The Warriors Three were never going to be as cool in the MCU as they were in the comics, which meant that MCU fans were never going to understand why comic fans loved them so much. Volstagg and his compatriots were never more than background characters, and that’s a tragedy.