Thor: Love and Thunder trailer featuring footage of Thanos & Loki

Thor, apt­ly titled, returns to the big screen Thor: Love and Thun­der, has long been an impor­tant part of the MCU. As such, the char­ac­ter has a long and com­plete sto­ry pep­pered with tragedy, humor, and pret­ty much every­thing in between. While Thor may face his tough­est oppo­nent yet in the upcom­ing sequel, his trou­bled past, includ­ing his expe­ri­ence with char­ac­ters like Loki and Thanos, will like­ly play a key role in the film.

Although Loki was­n’t announced as appear­ing in Thor 4, the char­ac­ter could very well influ­ence the film. Lok­i’s death at the hands of the Mad Titan Thanos left a sig­nif­i­cant impact on Thor and moti­vat­ed his desire for revenge Infi­nite War. How­ev­er, Loki has been odd­ly ignored in recent mus­ings on Thor’s past, mak­ing any sort of pres­ence in the upcom­ing film less certain.

Thanos can also make an impres­sion love and thun­der. Thor’s fail­ure to kill Thanos at the end Avengers: Infin­i­ty War was a sig­nif­i­cant moment for the char­ac­ter, leav­ing him bro­ken, griev­ed and, lest fans for­get, with a big ole beer bel­ly. Even though Thor los­es that phys­i­cal weight in this movie, he’ll prob­a­bly have a hard­er time shak­ing up the emo­tion­al kind. A blurb on a bit love and thun­der Ware even seems to indi­cate that Thor’s expe­ri­ence with Thanos led direct­ly to his deci­sion to embrace a peace­ful existence.

As the fans look to the future Thor Fran­chise that can even go beyond that love and thun­derit seems the movie itself isn’t done with Thor’s past yet…

New ‘Love and Thunder’ trailer reflects on Thor’s past

A new­ly released trail­er for Thor: Love and Thun­der looked back at Thor’s ten-year arc in the MCU, fit­ting old footage along­side new looks at the upcom­ing film. Among these clips from old­er MCU projects are key bat­tles in the God of Thun­der’s life, includ­ing moments of death and failure.

The trail­er begins with Thor clos­ing his eyes and reflect­ing on the tragedies we’ve wit­nessed dur­ing his time in the MCU.

The first of these shows Thor’s failed attempt to kill Thanos in 2018 Avengers: Infin­i­ty Wara cost­ly mis­take that led to the epic events of endgame.

On a set of cliffs in Nor­way, Thor and Loki watch their father Odin fade away after a deeply emo­tion­al moment Thor: Rag­narok which trig­gers the reap­pear­ance of Hela.

After being defeat­ed at the hands of Thanos, Thor mourns the death of his broth­er Loki before being blown into space with the pow­er of the Pow­er Stone, a scene from which he was pulled Avengers: Infin­i­ty War.

In a clip from 2013 Thor: The Dark Worldthe god of thun­der thinks about the death of his moth­er Frigga.

Frig­ga’s funer­al is also shown as she sails away in Asgard’s waters in the distance.

After Thor opens his eyes, the trail­er moves back to the present and offers a glimpse of new scenes Thor: Love and Thun­derinclud­ing footage fea­tur­ing Valkyrie and Jane Fos­ter’s Mighty Thor.

Fight­ing what appears to be an army of the Greek gods, Valkyrie, sword in hand, spreads her arms amid the gold­en ener­gy ema­nat­ing from her combatants.

Thor and Thor stand togeth­er in the Shad­owrealm, like­ly fac­ing the loom­ing threat of Gorr the God­slay­er. Although their hands are not in the pic­ture, both are believed to be reach­ing for their flash-pow­ered devices.

You can see the full one-minute trail­er below.

Thanos and Loki’s role in Thor’s journey

Although some like these char­ac­ter appear­ances Thor: Love and Thun­der’s mar­ket­ing cam­paign as hint­ing at her inclu­sion in the final film, this is like­ly not the case. Oth­er recent films have used footage from oth­er MCU projects in their pro­mo­tion­al mate­r­i­al, includ­ing eter­nal, Shang Chiand Doc­tor Strange 2, although the named char­ac­ters play no role in the actu­al films. Most like­ly, these moments were includ­ed to tie the upcom­ing film to the broad­er MCU and quick­ly recap some key moments for the character.

How­ev­er, that does­n’t mean that Thanos and Lok­i’s impact on Thor’s life will go unex­plored love and thun­der. The afore­men­tioned Doc­tor Strange trail­er is par­tic­u­lar­ly reveal­ing here, with this bit of mar­ket­ing fore­shad­ow­ing the good doc­tor’s reck­on­ing with the deci­sions made over the course of the game Avengers: Infin­i­ty War. It is quite pos­si­ble that the moments in this last glimpse Thor Trail­er will play a role in the film, guid­ing Thor down the path of peace and even­tu­al­ly forc­ing him to return to battle.

Gor­r’s nar­ra­tive of the ear­ly part of this trail­er sup­ports this, with the god butch­er Thor omi­nous­ly voic­ing it “I know your pain, your suf­fer­ing.” The com­ic book incar­na­tion of Gorr was put on his reign of ter­ror by the loss of his fam­i­ly, some­thing hint­ed at by the cast love and thun­derso this shared loss could poten­tial­ly serve as a point of con­trast between the two, each deal­ing with their pain in dif­fer­ent ways.

no mat­ter how much Thor: Love and Thun­der ulti­mate­ly deal­ing with the impact of Thanos on Thor’s life, it seems clear that the events of Infi­nite War and endgame have cer­tain­ly left their mark on the fig­ure. At the very least, the film will address the place where those films left the char­ac­ter, with Thor leav­ing New Asgard behind and join­ing the Guardians of the Galaxy. To see where the movie goes from there, fans just have to wait and see.