Thor: Love and Thunder is about to hit theaters, showing us what Thor and his new friends,
the Guardians of the Galaxy, have gotten up to after Avengers Endgame. So if you need a quick
refresher on everything Thor and the Guardians have done in the MCU so far, don’t worry, this
video has you covered. This is everything you need to know before watching Thor: Love and Thunder.
We are first introduced to Thor in his titular 2011 film. Known as the “god of thunder”,
Thor is the brash and arrogant son of Odin, king of Asgard. As Odin is about to crown Thor the new
king, Frost Giants, rivals of Asgard, arrive to steal back the Casket of Ancient Winters,
a relic that Odin had taken from them centuries prior. Against Odin’s wishes, Thor uses the
Bifrost to travel to the Frost Giant’s home realm of Jotunheim, alongside his mischievous
step-brother, Loki, his childhood friend, Sif, and the Warriors Three. There, they confront the
Frost Giant ruler, Laufey. A massive fight ensues, and Odin is forced to rescue his sons and their
friends, breaking the truce between Asgard and Jotunheim. For his arrogance and recklessness,
Odin strips Thor of his godlike powers and exiles him to Earth as a mortal, alongside his trusty
hammer, Mjolnir, which was now enchanted to only be used by a person who was worthy.
On Earth, Thor meets astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster, her assistant Darcy, and her mentor,
Dr. Erik Selvig. The trio investigate Thor and Mjolnir’s arrival on Earth, and the scientific
implications they bring. When Thor attempts to wield Mjolnir, he finds that he is no longer
worthy. Resigned to his fate as a mortal on Earth, Thor enters into a romance with Jane.
Back in Asgard, Loki discovers that he was actually Laufey’s son,
and after confronting Odin with this news, a weakened Odin falls into a deep sleep. Loki
seizes the throne of Asgard and offers Laufey a chance to kill Odin and take back the casket. Sif
and the Warriors Three use the Bifrost to travel to Earth and warn Thor. Loki sends a powerful
machine known as the Destroyer to stop them. Thor ends up sacrificing himself to save his friends,
an act that proves him worthy to wield Mjolnir. With his powers back, Thor defeats the Destroyer
and kisses Jane goodbye, then departs with his friends to save Asgard from the villainous Loki.
When Laufey arrives to kill Odin and steal the Casket, Loki betrays him and kills him. It turns
out, Loki’s true plan was to lure Laufey into an attack on Asgard as an excuse to destroy Jotunheim
and win the ultimate favor of Odin. Thor arrives to fight Loki, ultimately destroying the Bifrost
to prevent Loki’s villainous plan. As Odin finally awakens, he races to save his sons from falling
into the abyss left in the Bifrost’s wake. When he still refuses to accept Loki’s villainous ways,
the adopted son allows himself to fall into the unknown. Thor makes amends with his father and
admits he wasn’t quite ready to be king. With the Bifrost destroyed, Thor has no way to return
to Earth and reunite with Jane, so he remains in Asgard and continues to serve his father.
The story continues in The Avengers. Loki meets the Other, leader of an alien species known as
the Chitauri. If Loki brought the Other a powerful object known as the Tesseract,
he would be given a Chitauri army to help him take over the Earth.
And so, Loki travels to Earth to retrieve the Tesseract,
using its powers to enslave many humans, including Dr. Selvig and the heroic Hawkeye.
To defeat Loki and the Chitauri army, a team of superheroes, known as the Avengers,
are assembled. The team includes Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, and the Hulk.
Upon hearing of his brother’s evil plans, Thor returns to Earth to join the Avengers.
The Avengers battle the Chitauri army in New York City, eventually defeating them
and apprehending Loki. The Avengers seize control of the Tesseract, freeing all of
the enslaved minds from Loki’s control. Thor takes Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard,
where they are both locked away to prevent any further danger.
It’s then revealed that the Other served a master of his own: the mad titan Thanos,
the most dangerous villain the universe had ever seen. But we’ll get back to him later.
In Thor: The Dark World, the Bifrost has been reconstructed, once again bridging together
the Nine Realms. The Asgardians learn that a rare event known as the Convergence would occur
imminently, aligning the realms and creating portals that linked the worlds at random.
Back on Earth, Jane investigates one of the newly opened portals and is pulled through into another
world where she absorbs the power of a fluid-like weapon known as the Aether. The Bifrost’s
protector, Heimdall, warns Thor, who races to Jane and brings her back to Asgard. Odin recognizes the
Aether and warns that it will not only kill Jane, but also bring forth a catastrophic prophecy.
A race of Dark Elves, previously thought to have been defeated, are awakened by the return
of the Aether. Led by the evil Malekith, the Dark Elves attack Asgard, wanting to
take the Aether from Jane and use it for their own nefarious purposes. Thor’s mother, Frigga,
sacrifices herself to protect Jane from Malekith and his army. In need of help to save Jane,
Thor releases Loki from his prison to lead them to a secret portal to Svartalfheim, the home of the
Dark Elves. In Svartalfheim, Malekith confronts the group and removes the Aether from Jane.
Thor’s attempt to destroy it fails, and Malekith absorbs the power into himself. Malekith escapes
and departs for Earth, while Loki is fatally wounded while fighting Malekith’s lieutenant,
Algrim. As Loki dies in Thor’s arms, Thor promises to tell their father about his heroic sacrifice.
Thor then chases after Malekith, who planned to release the Aether at the
center of the Convergence in order for the Dark Elves to rule the Nine Realms.
Thor manages to defeat Malekith, and the Aether is successfully contained.
Back in Asgard, Thor once again turns down the throne, but does tell Odin about Loki’s heroic
sacrifice. After Thor leaves his father, it’s revealed that Odin was actually a
disguised Loki, alive and well, and impersonating Odin to lead Asgard.
The story continues in Thor: Ragnarok. Several years have passed, and things haven’t gone so
well for the god of thunder. Thor and Jane have broken up, and our hero is currently imprisoned
by the fire demon Surtur. Surtur informs Thor that Asgard would soon be destroyed
during the apocalyptic prophesied event known as Ragnarok. Thor defeats Surtur and returns home.
In Asgard, Thor exposes that Loki has been posing as Odin. The two brothers then pay
a visit to the real Odin, now on Earth, who explains that he was dying. His death
would release his secret firstborn child Hela, whom Odin imprisoned and kept secret
after her ambition and power was feared to lead to Ragnarok. Upon Odin’s death,
Hela arrives and proves her power by destroying Mjolnir. Thor and Loki flee as Hela heads to
Asgard. She slaughters the Warriors Three and resurrects an ancient dead army.
Her plan was to use the Bifrost to expand Asgard’s control throughout the other Realms,
so Heimdall takes the sword that controls the Bifrost and goes into hiding.
Meanwhile, the fleeing Thor crash lands on the garbage planet Sakaar,
where he is quickly captured by a slave trader. Thor recognizes his captor as a Valkyrie,
one of Asgard’s legendary female warriors who had died fighting Hela eons ago. Valkyrie sells
Thor as a gladiator to Sakaar’s ruler, the Grandmaster, whom Loki has already befriended.
While enslaved by the Grandmaster, Thor befriends two other gladiators, the aliens Korg and Miek.
During Thor’s first fight as a gladiator, he is shocked to discover that his opponent
is his old Avengers pal, the Hulk. Thor teams up with Hulk, Valkyrie,
and Loki to liberate the gladiators and overthrow the Grandmaster.
Thor, Hulk, and Valkyrie steal the Grandmaster’s ship to travel back to Asgard to fight Hela and
her army, while Loki, Korg, Miek, and the gladiators rescue the Asgardian citizens.
While Thor fights Hela, the sister quickly gains the upper hand, resulting in Thor losing his right
eye. Thor then has a vision of Odin, who tells him that the only thing that could defeat Hela was
Ragnarok. And so, Thor tells Loki to pull off his most mischievous act yet: bringing forth Ragnarok.
Loki summons a reborn Surtur, who destroys Asgard and kills Hela. Thor and his rescued Asgardian
people were all aboard the Grandmaster’s ship, alive and well, and in search of a new home.
The story continues in Avengers: Infinity War, where the villainous mad titan Thanos and his
army intercept the Asgardians’ ship. Thanos was looking to collect the six infinity stones,
which would give him the power to destroy half of the entire universe’s population. One
of those stones was the Space Stone inside the Tesseract, which had been rescued from
Asgard before its destruction. Thanos and his men quickly overpower Thor and his friends,
stealing the stone, then killing Heimdall and Loki before destroying the Asgardian ship.
A heartbroken and defeated Thor floating aimlessly through space is the perfect time to pause his
story and tell you more about Thanos and his connection to the Guardians of the Galaxy.
We are first introduced to the Guardians in the titular Guardians of the Galaxy film.
Thanos hires the villainous Ronan to acquire the
Power Stone. Working alongside Ronan is Thanos’ adopted daughter, Gamora.
While attempting to steal the stone, Gamora is arrested and placed in prison. There,
she meets a ragtag team of fellow prisoners. There was Starlord, aka Peter Quill,
a human who, following his mother’s death, was abducted from Earth as a child by the alien Yondu
and his team of thieves and smugglers known as the Ravagers. Rocket is a bounty hunting raccoon,
illegally experimented on with genetic and cybernetic modifications. Rocket’s mercenary
partner is Groot, a giant, tree-like being whose entire language consists solely of the phrase
“I am Groot.” And then there’s Drax the Destroyer, a warrior whose family was killed after their
homeworld was invaded by Thanos’ forces, led by Ronan. When Gamora reveals to the others that she
was secretly working against Ronan and Thanos to keep the stone’s dangerous power away from them,
the group team up to escape prison and save the stone.
Ronan manages to secure the stone, but instead of turning it over to Thanos as
promised, he decides to keep the stone’s power for himself.
Thanos’ other adopted daughter, Nebula, resents her father and joins Ronan.
Gamora’s group, now calling themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy, bond as they attempt to
defeat Ronan. They were all outcasts and orphans, and in each other they found an actual family.
During their battle against Ronan and his army, Groot sacrifices himself to save the others.
The remaining Guardians then band together to harness the power of the stone and kill Ronan.
The Guardians turn the stone over to the benevolent Nova Corps, then depart on
their ship for more adventures together. Along for the ride is a new baby version of Groot,
who grows from a sapling taken from his original version.
In Guardians of the Galaxy 2, a few months have passed and the Guardians have grown into a closer,
albeit highly dysfunctional, family. Quill and Gamora even begin to develop a romance.
The Guardians are hired by the Sovereign to protect some valuable batteries in exchange for
Nebula, who was captured after trying to steal the batteries for herself. While Nebula failed, Rocket
succeeds in going rogue to steal the batteries, angering the Sovereign. They attack the Guardians,
causing them to crash on an unknown planet, and send Yondu and his Ravagers to capture the
Guardians. Yondu manages to capture Rocket, Groot, and Nebula, but refuses to turn over Peter Quill.
This causes the Ravagers to mutiny and execute those loyal to Yondu. Yondu’s right hand man,
Kraglin, survives, freeing Yondu and Rocket, who kill the disloyal mutineers.
While crashed on the mysterious planet, the other Guardians meet Ego,
who reveals himself to be a god-like Celestial, so powerful that he created the very planet
they were currently stranded on. Oh, and he also happened to be Peter Quill’s father.
Ego reveals to Quill that he had traveled to thousands of planets leaving seedlings of himself
which could only be activated by the power of two Celestials. And so, Ego impregnated countless
women, hiring Yondu to bring them to him when they came of age. So far, none of those children
proved powerful enough, so Ego killed them all. When Quill appeared to possess Celestial power,
Ego gave his mother a tumor that killed her, hoping to remove any distractions from Quill’s
life. Yondu, not wanting the young Quill to die, betrayed Ego and raised Quill as a Ravager.
As an angry Quill fights Ego using his newly discovered Celestial powers,
Ego’s empath servant Mantis warns the other Guardians of Ego’s villainous nature.
They travel to the planet’s brain to plant a bomb. As the bomb explodes,
Ego dies and Quill loses his Celestial powers. Yondu sacrifices himself to save Quill,
who realizes just how much love this makeshift father truly had for him.
As the film comes to a close, Mantis joins the Guardians, Kraglin takes
Yondu’s signature arrow and headgear, Quill and Gamora profess their love for each other,
and Nebula, now reconciled with Gamora, goes off to find and kill Thanos.
And that brings us back to Avengers: Infinity War. It’s been four years since the Guardians
defeated Ego, and they’ve continued to live as a dysfunctional family of misfits. Eventually,
they pick up a distress signal from the destroyed Asgardian ship and rescue Thor. The group devise
a plan to stop Thanos from acquiring all of the infinity stones. Thor, Rocket, and a now teenaged
Groot travel to a dwarf king named Eitri, who forges Thor a new weapon to replace Mjolnir,
a mighty battle-axe known as Stormbreaker, using Groot’s arm as the handle. Meanwhile,
the Guardians travel to a planet called Knowhere, to prevent Thanos from stealing the Reality Stone.
While there, Thanos defeats them, stealing the stone and capturing Gamora.
Thanos takes Gamora to Vormir, homeworld of the Soul Stone. In order to obtain the stone,
Thanos had to sacrifice someone he loved, so he kills his daughter Gamora and acquires the stone.
Nebula and the other Guardians team up with Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man to
fight Thanos, but upon learning of Gamora’s death, a vengeful Quill accidentally ruins their plans,
allowing Thanos to overpower the group and escape to Earth to collect the final stone.
Thor, Rocket, and Groot arrive on Earth to join the other Avengers in their final fight against
Thanos. Despite their best efforts, Thanos defeats them all to acquire the final
infinity stone. With the snap of his finger, half of the entire universe’s population,
including every Guardian but Rocket and Nebula, are killed.
In Avengers: Endgame, Thanos destroys the stones and goes to live in peace now that his mission was
completed. An enraged Thor, who blames himself for the Avengers’ loss, decapitates Thanos.
Five years later, a despondent Thor has let himself go,
developing a serious dad bod. The surviving Asgardians have built New Asgard in Norway,
but Thor has given up his responsibilities to lead and instead spends his days drinking and playing
video games with Korg and Miek. Rocket pays a visit to Thor and informs him that the Avengers
were assembling once again with a new plan to save everyone that was lost in Thanos’ snap.
The plan was for the Avengers to travel back to various points in time to steal the infinity
stones before Thanos could get his hands on them. Thor and Rocket travel back to Asgard in 2013,
where Jane had absorbed the Aether, aka the Reality Stone. While Rocket obtains the stone,
Thor gets a chance to see his mother Frigga again, who gives him encouragement. Before
returning to the present, Thor also steals the past version of Mjolnir.
Meanwhile, Nebula travels back to 2014 to steal the Power Stone before the Guardians
and Ronan could obtain it. Unfortunately, before Nebula can return to the present she is captured
by the 2014 version of Thanos who learns of his future success and the Avengers current
attempt to reverse it. He sends 2014-Nebula to the future to pose as the present day Nebula.
The other Avengers travel back to 2012 to steal the Space Stone from the Tesseract during
their original battle against Loki and his Chitauri army. Unfortunately for them,
during the heist, the 2012 version of Loki manages to escape through time
and avoid his eventual redemption arc and death.
In the present, the Avengers reconvene, having successfully acquired all of the infinity stones.
While the Avengers are distracted, 2014-Nebula uses the time machine
to bring 2014-Thanos and his massive army, including the still villainous 2014-Gamora,
to the present. Hulk uses the infinity stones to reverse Thanos’ snap,
bringing back all of their fallen friends, including the Guardians.
Thor, the Guardians, and all of their resurrected allies join together to
battle Thanos’ army. During the battle, Nebula kills her villainous past self,
but manages to convince the 2014-Gamora to betray Thanos. Eventually, Iron Man
sacrifices himself to defeat Thanos, saving the world once and for all.
Following Thanos’ defeat, the 2014-Gamora decides to leave to make her own path.
Thor appoints Valkyrie the new king of Asgard,
then decides to join the Guardians of the Galaxy as they head off on their next adventure.