Thor Has a Huge Loki Tattoo in New ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Trailer

Eagle-eyed fans spotted a neat Easter egg in the new full-length trailer for Taika Waititi’s upcoming Marvel movie Thor: Love and Thunder. During a comedic scene where Thor is stripped of his clothing (with a blur politely censoring part of the view), we briefly see Thor’s back. Amidst a smattering of tattoos, the God of Thunder appears to have inked a large memorial to his dead brother, Loki.

Thor not only has a massive tattoo of Loki’s trademark horned helmet taking up the majority of his back, but fans also noticed that it looks as if it says “RIP LOKI” tattooed above the horns, to really drive the point home. Thor sporting a Loki tattoo is a poignant symbol of how much Loki meant to him and harkens back to Thor’s pain over the loss of his brother that we saw in Infinity War and Endgame.

This is also a bit of an inside joke. Back in the Thor: Ragnarok era, Thor was initially seen sporting a “RIP LOKI” tattoo on his arm, but that never made it into the movie (it could only be seen in set pictures). That memorial to Loki was tattooed when Thor erroneously believed Loki was dead after Thor: The Dark World. So we don’t actually know if this current Loki tattoo dates from the Endgame era or from Ragnarok. Either way, poor Thor has lost his brother too many times.

Of course, the first time Thor thought Loki was dead, Loki was actually alive and pretending to be their father Odin in Asgard. And now, though Thor thinks Loki is dead at Thanos’s hand, technically, a version of Loki is still very much alive. The Loki of the Disney+ Loki series is a variant of Loki who escaped with the Tesseract after the Avengers went back in time in Endgame. However, everything points to Thor not knowing about the Loki variant’s escape or that this variant of his brother is alive somewhere and caught up in TVA/Kang problems.

From all the reports we’ve seen, Loki will not be appearing in Love and Thunder, though of course we’d still appreciate any kind of surprise cameo. Still, Loki is hardly forgotten by Thor—he’s inked there forever on his brother’s back—and the tattoo ensures that Loki has some presence in Thor 4, even if it’s drawn in.

(images: Marvel Studios)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

 —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com

Author

Close

Kaila Hale-Stern

Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.

twitter