After his time as the bad guy on Jason Aaron's successful Thor: God of Thunder, Gorr the God Butcher is regaining fame thanks to Thor: Love and Thunder. The MCU film, directed by Taika Waititi, will feature Gorr as the main villain, played by Christian Bale. Now that Thor: Love and Thunder is on its way, it's a great moment for fans to get to know this villain.
From his tragic backstory to his return in King Thor, Gorr has had quite a run in the Marvel Universe. His obsession with killing all gods, which is barely justified by the tragic loss of his family, makes him a very complex villain. This complexity, combined with his powerful weapons, offers Marvel fans a great story they should all learn about.
10 His Life Is Marked By Loss
According to Thor: God of Thunder #6, before becoming the God Butcher, Gorr was a mild-mannered man living on a primitive planet. After losing his mother to a pack of wild animals, Gorr started a family himself, but his wife and kids died after being stricken by hunger and disease, despite their constant prayers.
Due to his tragic life, Gorr grew up thinking gods weren't real. After discovering they existed, the villain realized these deities chose to ignore his tribe's suffering, which enraged him deeply and made him into the deicidal character he became. Gorr's backstory makes him one of Thor's most compelling and dangerous villains.
9 His Origin As A Villain Is Tied To The Father Of Symbiotes
After losing his family and tribe, Gorr stumbled upon two mystical creatures fighting: a god of light and a god of darkness. Realizing they were deities, the man attacked them using one of their weapons: All-Black the Necrosword, which bonded with Gorr immediately.
One of the gods who Gorr attacked that day was Knull, the eldritch god of darkness and creator of all symbiotes. Knull created All-Black, the first symbiote, and used it against the gods of light. After Gorr stole the sword, Knull went on to experiment and create many other powerful symbiotes, which now roam the Marvel Universe.
8 He Killed And Enslaved Lots Of Gods During His Time
Convinced that gods were good for nothing, Gorr spent thousands of years murdering deities across the universe until Thor discovered him and put a stop to his killing spree. The whole God Butcher arc in Thor: God of Thunder includes 18 different victims of Gorr. However, it's implied there are many more.
As well as slaughtering gods, Gorr captured them and forced them to work as slaves on his Godbomb project. This included Viking Thor, who was tasked with hammering the last nail of this device, and Thor's granddaughters, the Goddesses of Thunder.
7 His Fight With Thor Lasted Eons
Thor: God of Thunder tells the whole story of Thor and Gorr's rivalry from three different points of view. The comic depicts three different timelines that follow three different Thor versions until the timelines collapse into an epic final battle that reunites the three of them.
First, there's Viking Thor: a younger, more arrogant version of the God of Thunder who thought he'd murdered him on their first encounter. Then, Avenger Thor, one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, who's completely committed to protecting Midgard. Finally, King Thor, an old and lonely version of this hero who's seen everyone he loves die.
6 His Sword Is Too Powerful For Its Own Good
After attacking Knull and the God of Light with their own weapons, Gorr bonded with Knull's sword and therefore obtained one of the strongest weapons in the Marvel universe: All-Black the Necrosword. This weapon gave Gorr superhuman abilities as well as the ability to manipulate matter into semi-living beings, like his Black Berserkers.
Once Gorr was defeated, King Thor threw All-Black into a black hole, where it remained for centuries until he had to retrieve it to battle Galactus. After this, the sword bonded with dangerous Marvel villains such as Galactus himself, Ego, and King Loki. Thor ultimately destroyed it using the full power of the God Tempest from within Mjolnir.
5 He Isn't The First God Killer
Given that gods are very common in the Marvel multiverse, Gorr isn't the first villain obsessed with killing them. Before him, many other characters have received the title of god-killers, such as Mangog, Gorgon, and Desak. In fact, the latter shares many similarities with Gorr.
Also known as the Destroyer of Gods, Desak Sterixian was a pious man in Kronnitt, the god of his planet. After his daughter, Loatia, was sacrificed to this deity and Kronnitt attacked his world, Desak was given a jewel that gave him powers and helped him defeat Kronnit. Like Gorr, Desak went from believer to supervillain due to his disappointment with the gods.
4 He Created A Bomb To Eradicate Gods Throughout The Multiverse
After spending thousands of years killing any god who got in his way, Gorr realized he needed to speed up his work. This is when he met Shadrak, the god of Bombs. In exchange for his life, this deity told Gorr how to design a device that would kill any god across time and space.
During the final battle, Gorr activated his newly-created Godbomb in order to commit the ultimate deicide. However, Thor absorbed the power of the blast, saving all gods across the multiverse. Shadrak, who deeply regretted his actions, is now a recurrent character in Jason Aaron's Thor runs who fans want to see in Thor: Love and Thunder.
3 He Betrayed Himself In The Final Battle
After thousands of years in the making, Gorr finally activated the Godbomb. However, since he murdered his own wife for calling him a god, his son Agar allied with the Thors to defeat him. Surprisingly, once Gorr's bond with the Necrosword ended, Agar disappeared too.
This revealed how the child and his mother were only a construct of Gorr's powers, which means Gorr himself stopped his own plans. In the end, his human side was stronger than the butcher. Given how he was bonded to a very powerful and dark entity, the question remains as to whether Gorr knew what he was doing or whether he was being corrupted by All-Black.
2 He Was Resurrected By King Loki
After his defeat, Gorr was placed in an empty void inside All-Black. However, he was resurrected by a new Loki variant: King Loki in King Thor. The villain reclaimed the Necrosword and killed Loki, its former host, and then tried to murder Thor and Loki.
To keep him at bay once again, Thor unleashed the full force of the God Tempest while Loki distracted him. This power finally destroyed the All-Black symbiote. And now amnesiac, Gorr was taken to Indigarr to live a peaceful life, far from the chaos.
1 His Philosophy Is Central To Unworthy Thor's Arc
While the God Butcher arc only lasts 11 issues, Gorr's true legacy in Marvel doesn't depend on his physical existence. His anti-god ideology made Thor doubt his role as God in the universe. After Nick Fury became omniscient in Original Sin, the man told Thor that "Gorr was right" about gods not being worthy of human admiration.
This was the last nail in the coffin. After this, Thor became aware of his own unworthiness and lost Mjolnir. This moment set the ground for future Thor arcs in the comics, such as The Mighty Thor, Unworthy Thor, and War of the Realms.