Although it doesn’t look like it, the world of Thor is pretty damned important to The Avengers universe. Thor is a god, his father is a god and his brother Loki is a god. So, of course, whatever they do is vitally important to Earth (or Midgard). And hey, some of their technology actually impacts other parts of The Avengers and Marvel’s universe.

When Thor opens, we learn a little about the backstory of the longstanding rivalry of the Frost Giants and the people of Asgard. They don’t like each other, but Odin has defeated the Frost Giants and they’ve agreed to peace for a while.

When we start, we see Frost Giants breaking into Thor’s awesome treasure room to steal their source of power back (Odin locked it away). This is during some kind of coronation for Thor. He’s next in line to be king and he’s pretty damned awesome. Odin feels the presence of the Frost Giants and unleashes the best home security device ever – a giant robot that breathes fire lasers. So the robot destroys the Frost Giant and Thor, Loki and Odin enter the room.

Thor wants revenge, Odin is like “you’re an idiot” while Loki sits there observing. So Thor and Loki to retreat to Thor’s room where Loki gets all sniveling and finally speaks up. “Oh Thor, you were sooo right. Father is wrong!” Thor’s friends come in and they decide to take it to the Frost Giants.

Thor takes his friends to the Rainbow Bridge, which thankfully doesn’t look like a rainbow. He convinces Heimdall, the gatekeeper, to let them through. So they go to the world of the Frost Giants and kick some ass, until the entire population of Frost Giants comes at them. Then Odin arrives to save their ass and let’s them know that they’ve just jeopardized Asgard and broken a peace treaty.

Thor calls his father a stupid old fool and Odin is like “GO TO YOUR ROOM!” except that his room is Earth and he’s stripped of his power and his awesome hammer.

While driving around the desert Jane Foster, a scientist looking for other worlds or something, hits Thor with her giant RV. Foster thinks he’s some drunkard because he’s yelling to the sky “hammer!” so they take him to a hospital.

They go back to their garage-looking scientist base and look at some pictures they took that night. They find out that Thor was falling through a beam of light and that it wasn’t some sort of satellite. So, figuring out that he’s the key to all this they trek back to the hospital and hit him with the car. Again. Yes, she’s the worst driver ever.

Agent Coulson, who was keeping an eye on Tony Stark five hours ago, ventures to New Mexico to secure Thor’s hammer, which crashed into Earth from Asgard. Odin sent it there and locked it, saying that only a person who’s worthy can pick up Thor’s hammer. If you’re not worthy, trying to pick it up feels like trying to lift an elephant.

So SHIELD decides to build a city around the hammer to investigate it and blow off all the crazy people that are treating it like a sword in the stone, who were also having BBQs and little parties around the hammer.

While Jane Foster and her crew are talking to Thor, and feeding him and his large appetite, Thor overhears someone talking of his darling hammer. So he sets off to go get it. Jane Foster wants to give him a ride, because he’s totally hot, but her assistant tells her this dude is crazy because he grew up with stories of Thor and Odin as a child. So she lets him go. Thor then walks around the middle of the street like an idiot.

Agent Coulson and SHIELD waltz into Foster’s garage-lab and take all her stuff. Seriously, there lab has a giant opening in the front. You don’t think someone would break in some day? SHIELD takes all the stuff because it’s related to Thor’s hammer, or they’re just bored, and Foster and her crew sulk on the roof.

All their hard work is now gone. So Foster thinks and thinks and thinks. And she goes, you know what? Eff it. I’m gonna help that hunky guy.

While Thor is exiled on Earth, Loki begins to get curious about himself. See, when Thor and his friends were taking on Frost Giants one of them touches Loki and he turns blue, the color of the Giants. Normally, the people of Asgard freeze when they’re touched.

Loki goes to Odin’s treasure room, which houses the Cosmic Cube in Captain America and The Avengers by the by, and touches the Frost Giants power thing – it turns him completely blue!

Odin comes in and is like Loki, it’s not what you think. Loki gets all angry and screams “TELL ME WHO I AM!” and Odin is like: “Loki, I stole you from the King of the Frost Giants to broker peace. But you’re still my son!”

Loki gets all pissed and yells at his father because he feels that Thor is getting the throne because Loki is a Frost Giant and Odin collapses because he’s weak and needs to go into Odin Sleep. Odin Sleep is where he has to go to sleep to rejuvenate power. It’s like an ultra nap.

Jane finds Thor, she doesn’t hit him with the RV this time, and takes him to the site of the hammer. On the way they bond and begin to like each other. Foster is so distracted by Thor’s handsomeness that she almost takes the car off the road. Terrible driver.

They get to SHIELD’s mini city and Thor sneaks in and starts beating fools in the ass. Hawkeye makes an appearance and targets Thor but ultimately doesn’t do anything as Coulson wants to see Thor lift the hammer. He can’t though! He’s not worthy! He’s not worthy!

Depressed, Thor let’s himself get arrested and is being interrogated by Coulson in the softest interrogation ever. Coulson leaves for a second (I think he had to pee) and Loki appears to tell his brother that Odin has died and that he has to stay on Earth forever. Thor cries because it’s all his fault.

Thor is picked up by Foster’s assistant.  He makes up an excuse that Thor is really a doctor that takes steroids and was drunk and mad because they took his equipment. SHIELD buys it and let’s Thor go. On the way out he steals back some of Foster’s stuff. Thor and the assistant go to get a drink together and they talk about Jane and how Thor shouldn’t hurt her. He says OK.

Then Thor returns the assistant to Jane’s home because the assistant is drunk. So Thor and Foster go outside and look at the stars and fall in love. Especially after Thor gives Foster back some of her stuff.

The next morning Thor makes breakfast for everyone and gets a surprise. His friends arrive! Including that annoying one that looks like the main guy from The Princess Bride. God, he sucked.

Anyway, Thor’s friends arrive and tell him that Loki is an asshole and that Odin isn’t dead and that he should totally come back because shit is going cray up there. Loki then sends that big laser-breathing robot to attack Earth.

The thing destroys this cute little town and Thor saves the people and sacrifices himself to save the town. Literally, he walks up to it and lets it kill him.

This unlocks the hammer. The hammer zips to Thor’s hand and he gets back his awesome armor and easily destroys the giant robot. Then SHIELD shows up and Thor pledges his support to them and zooms off to Asgard to deal with his idiot brother.

When he gets to Asgard he finds out that Loki told the Frost Giants to come try to kill his father only so Loki could kill the Frost Giants to make himself look better. Thor is smart now though, so he challenges his brother. They duel for a while and then Thor finds out that Loki is using the Frost Giant power on the Rainbow Bridge to destroy the world of the Frost Giants.

Thor is like “no that’s wrong dude!” and fights with Loki. Then he places the hammer on Loki so he can’t get up. Tries to stop the super death machine but can’t. So he uses his hammer to destroy the Rainbow Bridge completely, knowing that he’ll never see Jane Foster again.

Thor destroys the Bridge and it sends Thor and Loki to their near deaths. Odin, fully rested, appears and saves them. But Loki tells his father that he could have done it and destroyed the Frost Giants. Odin says no and Loki lets go and let’s himself fall into the galaxies beyond.

Thor is locked away from his love now, having sacrificed himself for others twice now. He is the true heir to throne of Asgard and the god of thunder.

After the credits, Foster’s assistant is meeting with SHIELD director Nick Fury about the cosmic cube. It was one of the items in Odin’s treasure room that was recovered in Captain America, but now SHIELD has it. Fury tells the assistant that it holds unlimited power.

Loki appears and takes control of the assistant and makes him say “that’ll do” and has a sinister ass smile on his face. Oh shit indeed.

Want more retrospective? You can check out our features on Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America.  

avengers retrospective, thor