What you need to remember before watching Thor: Love and Thunder

Thor’s next adventure is almost here, but before you head to the theater it’s worth remembering what came before for the mighty Asgardian.

Thor: Love and Thunder isn’t the most lore-heavy movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there’s a good chance you forgot a few things since the last time Thor got a solo project. Fortunately, the filmmakers realized that too and, given the high peaks and very low valleys of Thor’s previous films, have opted to open the movie with a brief recap of the god’s previous adventures — in case you don’t want to rewatch Thor: The Dark World.

Because they already take care of the recap, we’re going to skip over some of the more basic points in favor of the finer details you should brush up on before seeing Love and Thunder. But don’t worry, there aren’t any spoilers here, and we don’t get specific enough to give anything away.

Watch Thor: Ragnarok

We could tell you all the specific references in Ragnarok that get brought back up in Love and Thunder, but it’s probably easier just to watch the whole movie. The one hint we’ll drop is that you should keep a special eye out for little bits of backstory from the characters; between all the battle-planet tournaments, there’s also some important history for Thor and Valkyrie in Ragnarok.

Heimdall and his powers

Heimdall controls the Bifrost, a powerful force that manifests as a rainbow bridge and connects anywhere within the nine realms. With its power, Heimdall can teleport anyone he wants anywhere within these realms and even to a few hidden worlds beyond them. Heimdall also has the power to use his spooky orange eyes to project himself as a vision anywhere he wishes, letting him speak to people and see the area around them.

Sadly, Heimdall dies in Avengers: Infinity War at the hands of Thanos himself well before the snap, so he doesn’t get wished back to life.

Loki’s dead — at least the one from this universe

This universe’s version of Loki gets his neck snapped by Thanos at the very beginning of Avengers: Infinity War. It’s pretty sad, but he got his own TV show out of the deal, so things turned out fine for him in the end.

Stormbreaker is extremely powerful

Stormbreaker is Thor’s ax that he forged after his sister, Hela, broke his hammer, Mjolnir. The ax was forged in Nidavellir, a dying star, by Eitri, the space dwarf who crafted Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet. Aside from being the weapon that beheaded Thanos and an outrageously powerful tool, Stormbreaker could theoretically also tap into the Bifrost, according to Eitri.

Thor is hanging out with the Guardians of the Galaxy now

After the Avengers defeated Thanos, Thor handed the Kingdom of Asgard over to Valkyrie, naming her the next Asgardian king — and the first king of Earth Asgard, since the previous version of the kingdom was destroyed by Hela. With no ruling responsibilities left, Thor trekked off into the stars with the least responsible crew in the universe: the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The members of the band Guns N’ Roses (around 1987)

• Axl Rose — lead vocals, keyboard
• Slash — lead guitar
• Izzy Stradlin — rhythm guitar
• Duff McKagan — bass
• Steven Adler — drums

I will not explain further.