Gorr The Godbutcher: Deadliest Marvel villain?

As we have already said, Gorr first appears in Thor: God of Thunder 2, during Jason Aarons’s run of Thor which many think of as one of the best. He was introduced to us as just another member of a superstitious tribe in an unnamed world. That world was incredibly harsh and brutal to live on. So, the tribe would pray to the gods to grant them needed resources.

Why was Gorr different from other tribe members?

Well, unfortunately, we don’t have much information regarding his tribe. If there ever existed a doubt about the existence of gods, they never disclaimed it. However, with Gorr, it was a different story.

Since their planet was quite brutal, losing your loved ones was almost an everyday thing. Gorr lost his wife to an earthquake and his kids to starvation/thirst. Those situations led to him being quite fed up. Who can blame him though? Because of all this, Gorr cursed the gods and developed a sort of atheistic philosophy regarding them.

Gorr meeting the gods

After his ‘’clash’’ with his tribe, Gorr ended up in exile. Ironically, during his exile, he met two gods that he was so sure didn’t exist. He witnessed a god called Knull and the golden gods fight. Finally realizing that yes gods were real, he vowed to basically kill them all. After acquiring the All-Black Necrosword from Knull, that task was sure made a lot easier. However, we didn’t get a definite time frame for all of this happening. It is estimated to have begun 1000 years before the actual task on Earth.

But, where’s Thor?

During the 9th century, on his journey to find and kill gods, Gorr the Godbutcher came to Earth, specifically North America. Then, he got busy with some god butchering. Much to his surprise, all of the bodies of the butchered gods washed ashore in Iceland where coincidentally Thor noticed them. Now, this is where things get quite interesting. For the first time ever in Marvel Comics, we are heavily introduced to whole pantheons of gods that come from different worlds which was never really the case before. Jason Aaron really brought this incredibly complex mythos into the entire comic series.

However, Thor was still the main focus of the story. We see him fight Gorr and lose miserably since Thor didn’t yet have the ability to wield his hammer. After yet another thousand years, Gorr returned again, having done some more god butchering and acquiring power. Much like Knull, he used the Abyss in order to create a sort of army for himself and fought Thor yet again. To the reader’s surprise, even with his hammer, Thor lost. Badly.

What Gorr’s win led to

Thor’s confrontation with Gorr led to Jason Aaron introducing All-Father Thor. If you don’t know what that is, Thor’s father, Odin, granted him that power upon his return to Asgard. During this part of the story, we also see Loki. This is where the storyline gets a bit complicated… We see a foreshadowing of Loki killing everyone on Earth in the future. Coincidentally, even though the Asgardians weren’t affected, this foreshadowing coincided with Gorr and his plan to take over the world with his Abyss minions and descend onto Asgard. Those that weren’t killed were put into service of Gorr and only All-Father Thor was left.

What was his intention all along?

His intention seems pretty simple at first, killing all of the gods. However, things don’t play out exactly how you want them to most of the time. Because the story about Gorr butchering gods has spread across the universe, god refugees became a thing. This meant that he couldn’t satisfy his intention.

His way around it was to build the so-called God Bomb. The plan behind it was when you detonate it, all gods would simply die, no matter where they were hiding. This all led to three generations of Thor teaming up in a fight versus Gorr. However, even now, they weren’t really successful in their goal.

Jason Aaron and his genius

Jason Aaron really outdid himself during the Thor run by introducing a lot of unexplored material into Marvel. After the fight with Gorr, the idea of prayers being powerful finally saw light. The comic talked about Odin’s and Thor’s power and how they stem from people believing/praying to them. That’s one of the things Jason Aaron took his time on which other Marvel comics just left unexplored.

Regarding Gorr, even though the believers gave the gods their power, he never went out of his way to kill them. Of course, he believed that collateral damage is sometimes necessary, but his vengeance was directed toward the gods themselves.

Gorr’s defeat

Further down in the story, a manifestation of Gorr’s son showed up to him and basically scolded Gorr, telling him he has become what he wanted to destroy. Because of that, Gorr’s son and other gods started praying to Thor which boosted his power immensely. All of this resulted in Thor finally killing Gorr. However, this wasn’t the end.

A lot of people loved Gorr the Godbutcher. He was definitely one of the most fan-favorite comic villains of all time. People loved how he was written, his backstory, and his intentions. So, it was natural that they wanted him back which did end up happening.

Loki and Gorr

As we previously mentioned, Loki eradicated all life on Earth at some point after Gorr’s ”death”. However, that life started returning to Earth thanks to All-father Thor. In order to defeat Thor, Loki acquired the well-known Necrosword. However, that sword was still possessed by Gorr’s consciousness. When he seized it, he also resurrected Gorr within himself. With this event happening in the future, both Thor and Gorr had massive amounts of power, and their conflict basically destroyed entire star systems.

Was the Godbutcher right all along?

Another thing Jason Aaron expanded on was the God tempest. Regarding Thor’s hammer and gods being worthy, it wasn’t actually Odin who put the enchantment, but rather the tempest. During another story arc, Nick Fury whispered something to Thor, but it wasn’t shown to the reader. After years of being left without an answer, Jason finally revealed that Nick told Thor that Gorr was right and that gods are truly unworthy.

Closing thoughts

Even though Gorr seems totally dead, we still don’t know if he ever will come back. The force of the God tempest that All-father Thor unleashed seems a bit too drastic if they ever planned to bring Gorr back. However, there is no doubt that the Godbutcher was an amazing character and he will forever stay in the heart of many Marvel fans.