Yellow Lightning Hints Thor Could Become Rune King Thor in Avengers: Doomsday

Thor's lightning appears to be changing color for Avengers: Doomsday, and I think it points toward one of the most powerful versions of the character, Rune King Thor. Merchandise, toys and promos have shown his lightning glowing yellow instead of the usual blue. To me, that marks a change to his power set going into Doomsday and beyond.

Marvel heroes always change from film to film, even if it's only an alteration to their costume. We've also seen specific heroes level up their power set, where we think we've seen the most powerful thing they're capable of, until the next Avengers movie. Thor has a rich history of leveling up in the comics in the most morbid of ways, so it's fair to think we may see something new from him.

The Hasbro Doomsday Thor figure comes with yellow lightning

First came the action figure: the Hasbro five inch line for Doomsday Thor. It includes his new costume, dual wielding Stormbreaker and Mjolnir, plus accessories for his lightning. It looks like his mask, akin to what we saw in Thor: Love and Thunder, will be the same shape but made out of lightning. What people noticed about this accessory is that it isn't the normal blue. It's yellow.

Toys don't always get everything 100% right, but they are based on the movie. Marvel Studios shares final concept art, final images and official art a year in advance so Hasbro can start making the molds and get the toys onto the production line in time to hit stores when the movie arrives in theaters. That's why I've said for the last 10 years that "it's always the toys," because they're the source of the real leaks.

Hence the Stark Tech Infinity Gauntlet, full of the stones, sitting on Walmart shelves in early April, a month before Endgame hit theaters. Avengers: Endgame didn't experience anywhere near the leaks that Doomsday has incurred, so it seems crazy that this is how it got leaked, and maybe it was the biggest spoiler of all.

The blue lightning Sentinel figure may be a prototype hiding the leak

In the past, licensed Thor figures and statues have shown his lightning as blue. There is a separate figure of Thor on top of a Sentinel's head, branded as an official Doomsday sixth scale figure, and his lightning is blue in that one. However, the fine print says this is a prototype version pending licensing reviews. It could be that they painted the prototype blue to hide the leak that the lightning is yellow.

I don't think Hasbro would print a ton of figures with the wrong color lightning in the mold. You've got to imagine the mass market figure is going to sell far more, and bring in far more in dollar terms, than these high end sixth scale premium figures. That means you'd want the one on the shelves at Walmart to be right, and it's hard to imagine Hasbro, the company that they are, filling the injection molds with the wrong color for Thor's lightning.

Marvel Korea's official Doomsday poster shows Stormbreaker glowing yellow

Then came an official poster for Avengers: Doomsday shared by Marvel Korea's Instagram account. It's a composite of a ton of characters, with the heroes under the logo written in Korean, plus Dr. Doom. Thor seems to be front and center, and it's impossible to miss that while wielding Stormbreaker, he is glowing yellow with yellow lightning.

A Hasbro toy getting the color wrong on an accessory, or a Lego set including a character who wasn't in the movie, is not the same as an official licensed image that Marvel has okayed for Marvel Korea to post. International accounts have sometimes mistakenly shared concept art that isn't official to the movie as if it were, but that's not what this image is. It may be composited from many different images, but it's coming from Marvel Korea as an official Doomsday poster.

As a side note, look past Stormbreaker and you can see a main tower with what look like turrets on top in the background. That is Castle Doom, and this is one of the first official reveals of it outside a couple of merchandise pieces.

I don't buy the theory that Odin grants Thor the Odin Force

The logical assumption, and it's not much of a reach, is that Thor is going to change somehow. His powers are going to level up, signified by his lightning now being yellow.

The first and prevailing theory for how this happens is Thor's prayer from the preview trailer last December. Talking to Odin, it's clear from his words that he knows exactly what the stakes are and that he may not be coming home, and he hopes to continue to raise Love, not as a warrior or for victory or glory. It's delivered with the same sincerity as the speech he gives the Avengers in a later trailer, explaining that he has fought beside much stronger heroes than them, and they fell and died to a villain who scares him less than Dr. Doom does. The theory goes that when Thor prays to Odin to prevail against Doom, Odin grants him the Odin Force.

I don't like this theory, for a couple of reasons. First, we have already seen Thor embrace the Odin Force to a degree when he makes a bunch of other Thors at the end of Thor: Love and Thunder. Second, a hallmark of Thor in the MCU, as in the comics, is that his power comes through sacrifice. He has to lose something in order to gain more. We saw hints of this in Thor: Ragnarok, where he lost an eye and came back more powerful than ever, embracing the true source of his power in lightning and thunder, not Mjolnir.

In the comics, Rune King Thor is born from the ultimate sacrifice

In the comics, it's far more morbid. On his way to becoming Rune King Thor, he doesn't lose one eye; he loses both, and he rips them out himself. He then makes the ultimate sacrifice by taking his own life, hanging himself from a tree, and in his death he levels up to become Rune King Thor.

In my opinion, that is the most impossibly powerful version of Thor we've ever seen, with omnipotence, reality warping and all sorts. Flip over the Marvel card for Rune King Thor and all the bars are maxed out.

Early Cosmic Circus leaks point to a sacrifice for Thor

This lines up much better with some of the earliest leaks about Thor from industry insiders Alex Perez and Lizzie Hill over at The Cosmic Circus. They indicated that Marvel had a plan to give Thor a glorious sendoff, something akin to New Avengers 32. In that book, Thor alongside Hyperion, who is obviously not part of the cast, sacrificed themselves so the other Avengers could escape and survive.

It could be the exact same case here, with Thor sacrificing his own life. Not the way it happened in the comics, since that may be a tad too far for Disney in any circumstance and definitely for a PG-13 movie. But giving his life to save the other Avengers might lead to that ultimate leveling up, where he comes back and this time his power is yellow, not blue. If you're thinking Gandalf the Grey into Gandalf the White, that is exactly what I'm talking about.

Loss has always built Thor in the MCU

For me, this is one of the things Marvel Studios has maintained best for Thor. Look at what he has lost over the course of the MCU: his father, his mother, his brother multiple times, and Jane Foster in the last movie. Outside of Love, his adopted daughter through Gorr and Eternity, he has lost his entire family.

Sacrifice, or rather losing what's closest to him, has marked his character and built him into what he is. So maybe it's a natural progression that, in the moment he wants to save his friends, that ultimate sacrifice of losing everything is what takes him to the next level: Rune King Thor.

Rune King Thor may be what it takes to face God Emperor Doom

We can get into the nuanced arguments about which character is stronger than which, but there are times when Marvel throws down the gauntlet, and Rune King Thor is one of them, right up there with Worldbreaker Hulk. That's why he has such a place in Marvel's mythic lore, and why people get excited when you say the name. They're probably going to need a couple of Rune King Thors if they're going to beat God Emperor Doom by the time we get to Avengers: Secret Wars.

So I wouldn't be surprised if the film opens with Thor in action with the blue lightning we're used to, and then something happens late in the movie where he returns, powered up, with yellow lightning.