(SPOT.ph) Another Marvel movie has come and gone, yet again leaving us with the question, “Who was that in the post-credits scene?” While Thor: Love and Thunder may not have had a Harry Styles or Charlize Theron reveal, it did give us a familiar character that most audiences will surely recognize.
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Here’s what the Thor Love and Thunder post-credit scene means for the future of the MCU:
Brett Goldstein is Hercules in the MCU
The mid-credits scene reveals that Zeus (Russell Crowe) had survived being struck with his own lightning bolt by Thor (Chris Hemsworth) earlier in the film. Weakened, Zeus seemingly rants to his entourage about how disrespected he feels and also about how “superheroes” have stolen people’s love and admiration for gods such as himself. Perhaps this is like a Coco or Percy Jackson sitch, where their strength comes from how much people remember or worship them.
Zeus then names the person he’s actually addressing, and it’s none other than his demi-god son Hercules, played by Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein! Zeus orders Hercules to put the gods back in their rightful place by heading to Earth and facing off against the superheroes over there. Could we see a Thor versus Hercules match-up? We’d say it’s 100% likely, should Hemsworth ever return for another feature.
Who is Hercules in Thor: Love and Thunder?
Marvel’s version of Hercules isn’t all that different from the hero from Greek mythology, so there’s no need for a deep dive into Hercules lore to see how he may affect the status quo of the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward. Also, before you ask: no, he was not trained by a satyr voiced by Danny DeVito.
Hercules first appeared in Marvel Comics as a special rival and physical foe for Thor to face off against, as both were considered the mighty champions of their respective pantheon of gods; Thor from the Asgardians of Norse mythology and Hercules from the Olympians of Greek mythology. In the comics, Hercules’ strength rivals that of Thor and the Hulk at his strongest. He is even considered to be the most powerful of all the Olympians.
This Hercules, as you can likely tell by Goldstein’s brief performance in the post-credits scene, is more of the dead-serious warrior type than Hemsworth’s Thor is. In the comics, Hercules does display shades of being a light and comedic character, but only because he enters most fights knowing he’ll be the victor.
What does this mean for Hercules in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Well, they’re undoubtedly building him up to be the “darker version” of Thor, just as how the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) has Abomination (Tim Roth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) has Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), and so on.
In the comics, Hercules has been a member of the Avengers since the team’s early years in the 1960’s and has remained one of its more powerful members. However, we don’t think the movies will follow the comics—at least not yet. We think Goldstein’s Hercules will deliver on Zeus’ request, go the distance and come to Earth, then face off against Thor, maybe even the Hulk or She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany), or whichever superhero, but he’ll ultimately join the supergroup of anti-heroes known as the Thunderbolts instead.
Okay, so for the past few years, Marvel Studios has been introducing and notably not killing off some high-profile villains/anti-heroes in their movies and Disney+ series. These would be characters like Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl) from Captain America: Civil War, U.S Agent (Wyatt Russell) from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) from Ant-Man and the Wasp, and the aforementioned Taskmaster from Black Widow and Abomination, who first appeared in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and will finally return to the MCU in next month’s She-Hulk Disney+ series.
Last month, Deadline reported that Marvel Studios was developing a Thunderbolts movie with Jake Schreier and Black Widow writer Eric Pearson to direct and to pen the screenplay, respectively. The report also mentioned that Marvel was looking to fill the team’s line-up with—you guessed it—Baron Zemo, Ghost, Taskmaster, Abomination, U.S. Agent, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), and the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).
Undoubtedly, what’s clear with that line-up is that Marvel is looking to form what is essentially an anti-hero counterpart to the Avengers. Baron Zemo is the genius, billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) type, Taskmaster and Yelena Belova are quite literally Black Widows, U.S. Agent was already once Captain America, Ghost being an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. assassin fits her into the Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) role, and Abomination obviously fills out the Hulk role. However, the question then becomes: who do you get to fill in the position of a god?
From zero to… anti-hero? Goldstein’s Hercules will make a great fit for this rumored Thunderbolts line-up and just makes the most sense out of all the many, many characters on the board. If we’re to find out anything soon, we’re willing to place our bets that we’ll hear more about the Thunderbolts at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, where Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has confirmed they will be having a panel to talk about all their upcoming projects.
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As for when we’ll next see Goldstein as Hercules, we’re less clear on. He could show up to squash Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or try to take on arguably Earth’s mightiest hero, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), in her sequel film The Marvels. A multiverse variant could even appear in the second season of Loki. Kind of ominous when you threaten to take down the superheroes of Earth. There’s quite a number of them now.
Thor: Love and Thunder is now playing in cinemas.
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