Thor: Love And Thunder Features A Sneaky Reference To An Iconic Marvel Villain

In "Thor: Love and Thunder" we're introduced to a deeply religious man who sacrifices everything for his god: comfort, family, skincare products. Everything. When he finally meets his deity face to face, he realizes that maybe the gods aren't the most trustworthy beings in the universe.

Luckily for him, the pompous god had just slain the wielder of the Necrosword, a blade that is capable of killing otherwise immortal beings. So this man, Gorr the God Butcher, picks up the sword and begins a quest to rid the galaxy of all the immortals. Gorr wielding the Necrosword is right out of the comics, but what is missing from the movie is a particularly interesting connection this sword has to another iconic Marvel villain: Venom.

As everybody well knows by now, Venom is the name of the alien symbiote that attaches to Eddie Brock (and a bunch of others, including Peter Parker and Flash Thompson, but that's a whole other rabbit hole). So how the hell does that connect to Taika Waititi's new "Thor" movie?

Well, Necroswords are actually symbiotes and the one Gorr has in the comics is the very first symbiote, created by fan-favorite character Knull: an Eldritch God, ruler of the void, and the creator of all symbiotes. The sword itself is a living creature, named "All-Black," which somewhat explains how it can tempt and influence Gorr. The parasitic nature of the symbiotes is very apparent in how this blade is slowly killing the God Butcher (which in and of itself is an interesting parallel to Jane Foster's powers as the Mighty Thor, which are also draining her life), but other than that "Thor: Love and Thunder" only hints at the comic book origins of Gorr's weapon.

In the film, the Necrosword gives Gorr power in shadow and summons tentacled, toothy creatures not unlike the Venom that we know and love/hate. Knowing the comic book origins for the weapon (and that it is in itself the first symbiote) you can definitely see the MCU crew having a little fun nodding to all that without making it explicit.

It makes sense, too. That's a whole lot of backstory that would need to happen for a character who has so far only had a short vacation in the MCU. All we need to know in "Thor: Love and Thunder" is that this sword can kill the dude who withstood the full power of a star and laughed at Thanos's punches. But for those that followed the (admittedly convoluted and twisty) comic book history of this particular Necrosword, there are a lot of nods to its origins.

There are multiple Necroblades in the comics, and everybody from Conan the Barbarian to Galactus has wielded a Necrosword. In Galactus's case, the sword was capable of cleaving whole planets in two. Eddie Brock manifested his own and ended up taking Knull's place as the God of Symbiotes. These are powerful weapons in Marvel lore.

It gets very dark fantasy very quickly in the comics, so the simpler the better. That said, we did see a little bit of Venom's symbiote stay behind in the MCU's corner of the multiverse during the post-credits scene for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" – so never say never when it comes to all-out symbiote mayhem in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.