Acclaimed author Neil Gaiman recently revealed that he once worked on an animated Thor series for Marvel that would have been a prequel to the 2011 live-action movie starring Chris Hemsworth.
Responding to a fan on Tumblr, who asked if Gaiman would be open to writing Thor if Marvel approached him, the author disclosed that he had already taken a crack at the God of Thunder in the early 2000s.
“Long ago — around 2006 — I was asked to create a Thor animated cartoon, and I got all excited, and the brief was it had to be set before the Thor movie,” he stated. “I did a deep Thor dive, reread everything Jack Kirby drew, came up with a whole story shape that ran a few seasons showing young Loki going from hero-worshipping his big brother to Going to the Bad, and then they told me I wasn’t actually allowed to have any of the characters at any point be different in any way from how they were in the Thor movie, so I said no thank you and stopped.”
Thor is one of Marvel’s biggest franchises
While the Thor animated prequel series never made it off the ground, the God of Thunder did end up appearing in the animated series The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which debuted on Disney XD in 2010. He has also guest-starred in the Disney+ animated series, What If…?, with Hemsworth voicing variants of the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero.
With four installments released, and a fifth rumored to be on the way, the Thor franchise remains a cornerstone of the MCU. As Marvel Studios dives deeper into the Multiverse, it remains to be seen how Thor will factor into the company’s long-term plans; although his brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), is now an integral part of the Multiverse following the events of his Disney+ series, which saw him become the protector of the sacred timelines.
All four Thor movies, and both seasons of Loki, are available to stream on Disney+.
