Permit us just one more superhero, and we'll start getting to the really juicy stuff. We can't just overlook Thor, however especially when his wanton killing ends up being an important piece of character development. The Asgardian god we meet in the first film is the closest Marvel's version of the Norse myth has gotten to the source material, as Thor acts less like a superhero and more like a feral animal that's fully committed to his ID: drinking, screwing, and killing for sport. Just look at the sheer joy on his face as he's tearing apart ice giants with his magical hammer (not a euphemism). Granted, he does learn from the humans during his exile on Earth and returns a much nicer chap (who nonetheless never paid for all the broken crockery in that diner, which is a little douchey). He realises that it's probably not okay to go around murdering intelligent life for his own entertainment, pleading with his crazy brother Loki not to unleash his own genocidal plan they're just monsters, after all. Obviously Thor manages to save the day and everything's fine, but did he really learn his lesson? Probably not, since in The Dark World there's as small a body count on the side of good as the first film - in fact, the only death we remember is Thor's mum; which is one more death of a hero we saw in the previous movie - and the "hero" proceeds to mow down swathes of those dark elves in pursuit of...whatever they were pursuing. That gaseous stuff in the tube? What was it called? The all-spark? The MacGuffin? Whatever. Thor killed loads of people, that's the important thing.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
