If your main knowledge of Thor came from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then the tonal shift between Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespearean opening installment and Alan Taylor’s stoic The Dark World, to Taika Waititi’s candy-colored duo of Ragnarok and Love and Thunder, may have been jarring to say the least.
First introduced as the king-in-waiting who was desperate to prove his worth to his father long before he ascended to the throne, Chris Hemsworth’s Odinson was often petulant and short-tempered, but he did carry himself with some degree of regal dignity. The sequel doubled down on that notion, with Thor continuing to struggle with the balance between destiny and desire.
Fast forward to Ragnarok, though, and he was now the quip-happy star of a zany cosmic buddy comedy that threw caution to the wind to embrace irreverence. The rapid-fire gag style of the last two Thor films haven’t been to everyone’s taste, but Waititi has at least pointed out that he was far from the first person to make the God of Thunder a figure of mirth.
Thor having a dance-off with Luke Cage while Deadpool watches on as an interested spectator is exactly the sort of thing we’d love to see in the MCU, if only for how utterly insane it would be. Having made his comic book debut way back in August 1962, the Asgardian deity has been through countless iterations and reinventions, so it seems bizarre to single out Waititi’s deviations from the initial template, especially when Hemsworth has admitted it gave him a brand new lease of life as the character.