Director Taika Waititi is credited with giving the Thor movies a shot in the arm with his breezy Thor: Ragnarok in 2017. The formula for that movie included a dash of hard rock music, specifically Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," which played over both the opening and closing fight scenes in the film. It evoked not only the aesthetic of 1970s hard rock, but the same era in the Thor comics, when the likes of Walt Simonson took the Thunder God in some decidedly different directions.
Waititi repeated the feat for Thor: Love and Thunder, which largely retains the spirit of Ragnarok and has further fun exploring the stranger adventures of "Thor the Space Viking." With it came another thick slice of heavy metal: this time Guns n' Roses, who boast four songs used prominently in the film. At least one of them, however, belongs to an earlier superhero film. When it comes to who owns it better, not even Thor can top it.
The song is "Welcome to the Jungle," the band's breakout hit from their 1988 album, Appetite for Destruction, that helped embody the big-hair heavy metal era of the 1980s. Love and Thunder makes adroit use of it early on, as The Guardians of the Galaxy finally convince Thor to participate in the desperate battle they're fighting. It sets the right tone: powerful, over the top and faintly ridiculous as Thor effortlessly dispatches an army of marauding birdmen with help from his axe. The punchline comes when he inadvertently destroys the holy structure his colleagues were valiantly attempting to preserve. The Guardians part ways with the Thunder God soon thereafter.
It's an agreeable scene, but it's largely an appetizer: light swashbuckling to demonstrate both the way Thor has changed since his last appearance and how he's still the same well-meaning goofball underneath. That's not the case with Megamind, Todd McGrath's cult classic superhero satire that received renewed attention of late thanks to a memorable joke about the late Queen of England. It makes far more adroit use of the song, and indeed ties it very firmly to its misunderstood protagonist.
Megamind is a loose satire on the Superman story, with the heroic and nearly omnipotent Metro Man locked in eternal battle with his enthusiastic yet invariably hapless arch-nemesis Megamind. Rock music plays a deliberate part in the two characters' identities. Metro Man dresses in an Elvis-style white jumpsuit and arrives to the sounds of "A Little Less Conversation," while Megamind's outfits are all spikes and black leather, and his various crimes take place to the likes of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" and AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."
Change comes when Metro Man grows tired of their constant battle and fakes his own death. Lost without his old sparring partner, Megamind responds with an inept attempt to build his own hero, resulting in the sociopathic Titan who threatens the entire city. Realizing that he needs to change sides and play the hero, Megamind confronts his wayward creation in the movie's climax to the sounds of "Welcome to the Jungle."
Timing is everything, and in this case, it demonstrates how much more Megamind invests in the song. Love and Thunder starts the movie with it, but the earlier film saves if for its unlikely hero's shining moment (which, as he sheepishly admits "mostly involves not dying.") The character defines himself through the lens of the song (and others of its headbanging ilk) making it far more a statement of self-worth than just something to get the blood pumping. As much fun as Love and Thunder has with it, the song still feels borrowed. But it belongs to Megamind as much as its protagonist's Black Mambas.