Thor: Love and Thunder is coming! With a release date of July 8, 2022 and new merch dropping left and right, it’s only a matter of time before we’re reunited with our beloved God of Thunder. Although there have been rumors of a teaser trailer coming soon, there’s no official news yet, so fans are left mulling over a million questions. Here’s one that’s on our minds: with Heimdall and the Bifrost gone, how are Thor and the other Asgardians going to get off of Earth so that they can have some wild space adventures?
When we last left Thor, he and the rest of Asgard were licking their wounds after the upheavals of Ragnarok, Infinity War, and Endgame. Asgard was destroyed by Hela and Surtr, leaving much of the population dead and the remaining Asgardians without a home. The Bifrost—the magic rainbow bridge that allowed them to travel great distances—was destroyed for good along with the rest of Asgard. Heimdall (Idris Elba), one of Thor’s best friends and allies and keeper of the Bifrost, was killed when Thanos invaded Asgard’s refugee ship. The remaining Asgardians established a colony in Norway, calling it New Asgard, and Thor eventually abdicated the throne, naming Valkyrie king.
We don’t know much about the storyline in Love and Thunder yet. We do know that Gorr the Godbutcher (Christian Bale) will be coming for Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and that Zeus (Russell Crowe) may attack New Asgard. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) will also be returning to the MCU, somehow obtaining Mjolnir and gaining Thor’s powers. Finally, the Guardians of the Galaxy will be making an appearance, although we don’t know what part they’ll play exactly.
One of the most striking things about New Asgard is how un-science fictiony it is. The Asgardians have gone from god-beings living in a citadel in space to average-looking Norwegian fisherfolk, trading in their silks and armor for sturdy boots and woolen sweaters. In order for Love and Thunder to be a proper Thor movie, the main characters have got to get back out to space somehow, so let’s take a look at how they might do it without Heimdall’s help.
What Did Heimdall Do, Exactly?
In Thor and Thor: The Dark World, Heimdall serves as the guardian of the Bifrost Bridge, opening the Bifrost whenever an Asgardian needs to travel throughout the universe. Heimdall is the perfect guy for the job, because he’s all-seeing: he can detect and observe anything happening anywhere.
After Heimdall is charged with treason in The Dark World, though, he disappears and leaves the Bifrost unattended. This means that someone else has to step into his role, and that’s why, when Thor returns to Asgard in Ragnarok, he sees that the self-absorbed warrior Skurge (Karl Urban) has taken over Bifrost duties (and helped himself to some sweet loot from throughout the cosmos while he was at it). This means that Asgard doesn’t technically need Heimdall to work the Bifrost. It’s just that Heimdall is way better at it.
But it gets even more complicated! After Heimdall is stabbed in Infinity War, he uses the last of his strength to summon the Bifrost without the sword or observatory in order to send the Hulk to Earth. This shows that the Bifrost can be used without the sword.
The main takeaway here is that the Bifrost exists outside of Heimdall, but he has a special affinity for it that other Asgardians don’t, making space travel tricky without him or the sword.
Enter Stormbreaker
After Mjolnir is destroyed and Thanos begins to hunt for the Infinity Stones, Thor goes to Eitri the dwarf (Peter Dinklage) to have a new weapon forged. Eitri agrees to make an axe called Stormbreaker, explaining that it may have the ability to summon the Bifrost. Sure enough, once Stormbreaker is finished, the Bifrost appears on the battlefield in Wakanda where the Avengers are fighting Thanos’s army.
What this means is that Thor now has the power to summon the Bifrost through Stormbreaker. How often he’ll use it, and how skillfully he’ll wield it, remains to be seen.
Dark Magic
The Asgardians also have the option of using dark magic in order to travel to space. If their sorcery skills are up to snuff, that is.
At the end of Thor, the observatory holding the Bifrost is destroyed, and Thor mourns the fact that he can no longer visit Jane on Earth. But then, in The Avengers, he shows up to capture Loki. The movie hangs a lampshade on it when Loki asks Thor how much dark magic Odin had to use to get him there. That makes the use of dark magic for space travel canon, though, and if there are any Asgardians left with enough talent for sorcery, they could conceivably use it to travel through space.
(Also, while we’ve been told Loki won’t show up in Love and Thunder, that remains to be seen, and Loki’s own experience reminds us that variants and the multiverse are very much happening! So is it possible that we could see another Heimdall reuniting with Thor at some juncture? More Idris Elba, please.)
Also, Spaceships are Still a Thing
Wait, why are we speculating about magic at all when the Asgardians can just use a spaceship? I mean, the Marvel cosmos is crawling with spaceships and jump points. You can’t throw a rock out there without hitting one craft or another.
The one problem, though, is that Earth, despite its apparent position as the focal point of the entire universe in the MCU, is still a backwater planet in terms of space travel. As far as we know, Earth has no space fleet to speak of, and it’s not like we saw a bunch of spaceships parked outside of New Asgard in Endgame.
But Thor, Valkyrie, and the others may have a couple of ships as their disposal. Remember that at the end of Endgame, Thor took off with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Love and Thunder will presumably see him return to New Asgard in the Guardians’ ship. Plus, the new LEGO set that was just released puts a suspicious amount of emphasis on a boat with “Asgard Tours” written on it. Will that boat stick to the waters around New Asgard, or will it gain new capabilities?
Don’t Forget Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder!
Love and Thunder will also introduce us to Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder, the goats who pull Thor’s chariot in Norse mythology and Marvel comics. In the comics, Thor’s chariot can take him anywhere in the cosmos, making it basically a spaceship, so it’s possible Thor will use it to fly through space in Love and Thunder. I’d pay the price of a movie ticket just to see that.
Speculation aside, we should get some solid details about Love and Thunder soon, when the first trailer is released. From there, it’s only a few short months until the movie comes out!
(image: Marvel)
