Gorr the God Butcher

Submission 6,888

Part of a series on Thor: Love and Thunder. [View Related Entries]

About

Gorr the God Butcher is a supervillain appearing in Marvel Comics, primarily in the Thor: God of Thunder comic book series. A deicidal alien bound on slaying every god he meets for never answering his prayers and letting his family die, Gorr wields "All-Black" the Necrosword with which he kills gods. In May 2022, after actor Christian Bale was revealed as Gorr in the trailer for Marvel's 2022 film Thor: Love and Thunder, the character became a subject of American Psycho and Sigma Male memes due to their association with the actor.

Origin

Comics

On November 28th, 2012, issue two of the Thor: God of Thunder comic book series was published.^[1] In the issue, Gorr the God Butcher, an alien supervillain on a quest to kill every god in the universe, is revealed (panels shown below, left and right).

Movies

On March 23rd, 2022, the first trailer for the Marvel superhero film Thor: Love and Thunder premiered.^[2] In the trailer, actor Christian Bale appears as Gorr the God Butcher. The trailer garnered over 23 million views in one day (shown below).

Spread

Following the premiere of the trailer, images of Bale as Gorr were posted by multiple social media accounts. For example, on March 23rd, 2022, Culture Crave tweeted^[3] two images of Bale's Gorr, with the tweet gaining over 9,100 retweets and 94,200 likes in two months (shown below, left). On the same day, Facebook^[4] page The Marvel Hub posted a collage of six shots with Gorr from the trailer, with the post gaining over 47,000 reactions and 10,000 shares in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

Starting on the same day, images of Bale's Gorr were used as source material for various memes. For example, Twitter^[5] user @WilliamsTroop posted a No Bitches? meme on March 23rd that gained over 10 retweets and 980 likes in one day (shown below, left). On the same day, Twitter^[6] account @geekcultureexp posted an edit of Trying to Hold a Fart photograph that gained over 2,400 retweetrs and 24,800 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Due to major rise in popularity of American Psycho memes in 2021 and 2022, and Christian Bale portraying main protagonist Patrick Bateman in the film, multiple memes based on American Psycho meme formats or referencing the film were posted. For example, on May 21st, 2022, Twitter^[7] user @Stephnxtreme posted a drawing based on the Patrick Bateman With an Axe scene that gained over 50 retweets and 560 likes and was widely reposted in the following days (shown below, left). On May 23rd, 2022, Facebook^[8] user Darul Tousik posted a meme referencing American Psycho that gained over 4,800 reactions and 1,000 shares in Marvel: Multiverse of Shitposting in one day (shown below, right).