Just How Powerful Is Gorr the God Butcher?
The love child of Voldemort and Danny DeVito's Penguin
Well, the new Thor: Love and Thunder trailer has revealed our first look at Christian Bale as Gorr “the God Butcher,” which prompted all of Twitter to become “Gorrny on main.” He may look like a cross between Voldemort and Danny Devito’s turn as The Penguin, but is he a foe worthy of the Mighty Thor? What do we know about his comic book origins and just how powerful is this pasty lil fella? Let’s find out!
Who is Gorr?
In the comics, Gorr is an alien from an “unnamed planet” where the terrain and conditions are so bleak that few survive. Despite this harshness, his people are deeply religious and superstitious. However, after growing up an orphan (he watched his parents die when he was a child), and then watching his wife and children die from starvation, Gorr is overcome with grief and declares that gods must not exist or they would not allow such tragedies to keep occurring.
His atheism causes him to be exiled from his community. During his exile, however, he witnesses an epic battle between Knull (an eldritch God of the Abyss) and another god, learning that gods are in fact real. This fills him with an unquenchable rage and during the aftermath of the battle, he seizes Knull’s sword (which is none other than All-Black the Necrosword)—a blade made of the first symbiote and tempered by the power of a decapitated Celestial. You know, the usual.
Bonded with All-Black, Gorr makes it his mission to kill all the gods that ever were and ever will be, which is how he comes into conflict with Thor multiple times (and on several different timelines). It will be interesting to see how much of Gorr’s story in the MCU parallels his comic origins, and what the implications his appearance might mean for the Celestials. And even Eddie Brock over in the Sony Spider-verse! Because Venom, after all, is a symbiote!
So how powerful is he?
Well, in the comics, he starts out as just your run-of-the-mill, powerless alien, but things get complicated once he bonds with All-Black the Necrosword. Because the weapon is also a symbiote and connected to both The Void dimension and the Celestial corpse, it is immeasurably powerful and at least somewhat sentient (it is able to join or abandon owners “Ring of Power style”). It allows Gorr to absorb the powers of every God he slays, making him more and more powerful as he continues.
Eventually, he also gains control of the “Pool of Forevers” which allows him to move backward and forward through time at will—and so he spends the following 900 years murdering gods and growing both immortal and unstoppable. He basically gains all the powers of a god! Irony, thy name is Gorr!
And if you can’t wait to see Thor: Love and Thunder, aka Gorr vs Thor vs Thor, then don’t forget to see it in theaters on July 8th!
(featured image: Marvel)
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