Thor: Love and Thunder took us to a lot of weird and wonderful new corners of the MCU, but it was the mid-credits scene that looks set to have the biggest impact on this shared world moving forward.
Played by Ted Lasso star Brett Goldstein, the son of Zeus has been sent to Earth by his father to remind humanity why they once worshipped the Gods of Olympus...after he's dealt with the God of Thunder, of course. This is a storyline we expect to see play out in an eventual Thor 5, but where did the inspiration for Hercules' costume come from?
Earlier this week, we spoke to Marvel Studios Director of Visual Development Andy Park to discuss his phenomenal work on Thor: Love and Thunder and asked him the very question you just read above.
"I got to design that one which was really fun because before I designed it, I had just finished watching [Brett] in Ted Lasso [Laughs]. I love that show and the first time I saw he was this character I said, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s going to play Hercules?’ I went to designing that and, again, growing up in the 80s and 90s with Marvel Comics, he was part of The Avengers."
"Anytime we get to introduce a new character in the MCU, every single time we’ve done that, while I’m painting and designing, I’m just like a kid again and I need to stop myself after a while because it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be the one to design it and there are a lot of artists here who do amazing work," he says in the video above. "Just the fact that you’re contributing and doing designs for that character is really fun."
"It becomes a question every time we do a design, ‘How comic accurate can you be?’ I did a lot of different versions and one got picked. We got to see it in the end credits and that was such a treat to be able to see that and also fun to be in the audience whether it was in the premiere or when I watched it after with a regular audience to see the reaction."
"That’s always the final cherry on top," Park concludes, understandably overjoyed to his awesome interpretation of Hercules brought to the big screen.
Fans have unanimously agreed that the MCU's Hercules looks great, and a big part of that is the fact the live-action costume does borrow so heavily from the source material. While we've only seen it for a few seconds on screen, it will clearly looks just as good in action, so fingers crossed Marvel Studios doesn't keep us waiting too long for Hercules' return!
Thor: Love and Thunder is now available on Digital and will be available on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD September 27.