WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Thor #3 by Donny Cates, Nic Klein, Matt Wilson and VC's Joe Sabino, on sale now.
As a cosmic incarnation of the Norse pantheon, Asgardians are no strangers to bestowing prestigious titles to themselves along with their enemies and allies. Thor alone is known as the Odinson, the God of Thunder, the Prince of Asgard, the defender of Midgard and the wielder of Mjolnir among his various titles. And, with the newly crowned All-Father having made a desperate alliance with Galactus to become his new Herald, an old friend resurfaces to confront Thor with a new title of his own: Beta Ray Bill.
Bill had been deemed worthy enough to wield Mjolnir, making him roughly as powerful as Thor, and received his own mythical Asgardian war hammer in Stormbreaker. A member of an alien race resembling space horses, Bill is a Korbinite rather than a citizen of Asgard. As he faces off against Thor to stop Galactus' renewed rampage across the cosmos, Bill is referred to as "the God of the Faithless." The title is a new one for the Korbinite champion and potentially carries a dual meaning, both related to recent stories prominently featuring the character, and both penned by current Thor series writer, Donny Cates.
In the miniseries Death of the Inhumans, Bill was revealed to have endured hard times as the last defender of the Korbinite race. Visibly out of shape and isolated at the start of the story, Bill would wield Stormbreaker to help Black Bolt and the surviving Inhumans make their valiant last stand against their attackers before setting out to rebuild their once-mighty kingdom from the brink of extinction. Though successful, Bill's appearance signaled a darker turn for the character that has persisted with him as he resurfaced in a subsequent cosmic tale by Cates.
The final arc of Cates' run on Guardians of the Galaxy featured the spacefaring team taking on the Church of Truth with Bill among the team's roster. The religious cult indoctrinated anyone who crossed its path, using their life source to fuel its powerful spacecraft and array of weapons as it bore down on Earth as its next target. The Guardians stood as the last line of defense against the Church of Truth's unholy crusade, and emerged triumphant. Bill's new nickname is perhaps a reference to his opposition to the fervent zealots that sought to subjugate the universe's so-called "faithless."
While Bill is less than victorious in his battle against the newly upgraded Thor, it does mark the continuing importance of the character both in the God of Thunder's mythos and as a figure on the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe. With Beta Ray Bill's introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe hinted for years, his new moniker and down-on-his-luck status may be the perfect way to bring the character to the big screen, especially as Thor struggles to regain his former glory in next year's Thor: Love and Thunder.
Beta Ray Bill is a fan-favorite character in the Thor mythos, and his opposition to the God of Thunder's new alliance with Galactus is an understandably heartbreaking one. Just as the Asgardian Avenger has ascended to the throne and received the Power Cosmic, Bill's own position has fallen at a commiserate rate with the Korbinite under hard times. Now, without Stormbreaker or a people to defend, Bill's new moniker reflects his desolate status quo, but as a God of the Faithless, the superhero's greatest asset may be that he has nothing to lose.