Marvel dropped a bunch of news about Thor: Ragnarok today. Not only do we know who Cate Blanchett and Tessa Thompson are playing, we have new cast members. And one of them is a major hint about where the Avengers will be heading, and how they get there.
First off, as suspected, Cate Blanchett will be playing Hela, while Tessa Thompson will be playing Valkyrie. But just as interesting is who Karl Urban and Jeff Goldblum, newly announced as part of the cast, will be playing. Urban will be playing the axe-wielding Thor villain Skurge, while Jeff Goldblum will be playing the Grandmaster.
Both are interesting for different reasons. Skurge isn’t usually seen without another Thor villain, the Enchantress, although DC’s character of the same name appearing in Suicide Squad complicates things. The Grandmaster, though, is even more interesting.
The Grandmaster is essentially an immortal gambling addict, a colleague of sorts with the Collector, who we last saw in Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s most notable in the comics for two things. One, he likes to pit teams of heroes and villains against each other in a game, usually with some plot McGuffin as the prize. Two, he once had control of an Infinity Gem, which you might remember the Collector is also obsessed with, and lost it to Thanos. So, it seems likely his very presence reveals that Thor and Hulk’s buddy cop shenanigans will either end in a brawl between the two, or they’ll have to beat the crap out of a bunch of Asgardians to save the day, with an Infinity Gem as the prize. We’ll find out November 2017.
(via Marvel)
