The Girlfriend's Guide to Thor

Thor. The God of Thunder. The Odinson. To me, Thor has always had some of the highest capacity for potential of any Marvel character, but was perhaps the most-often mistreated by poor writing. The roots of the character reside in the mythology of the Norse pantheon of gods, where Odin could be equated to more well known Zeus from the Greek pantheon. Asgard is somewhat akin to Olympus for the Norse gods. The also have a represented underworld called Hel, counted among the nine worlds connected by the world-tree Yggdrasil. Of course there is much more to be learned about Norse mythology, but these basic ideas should give you a rough enough basis to go on, although I highly recommend reading some more on them on wikipedia or some other source. Norse mythology is not nearly as well known as Greek or Roman, but just as interesting. I even have a friend who still worships the Norse gods.

All of this was translated over to the comics in the 60s, where Thor, while spending time on Earth (Midgard) became a founding member of the Avengers along with The Hulk, Iron Man, Giant-Man (or Yellow-Jacket, or Ant-Man... that guy changes names and power sets like I change my underwear) and Wasp. With the impending Avengers movie next summer, this movie read a bit like an origin story meant to lead into Avengers more than to establish a Thor franchise to stand on its own. The characters of Thor's world are many, but here are the ones we meet in the movie:

The Players:

Odin: The King of Asgard, father to Thor and Loki. Often referred to as the All-Father, Odin is pretty much a bad ass. He has one eye, rides an eight-legged horse, carries the "Spear of Heaven", and has a pair of ravens that he uses as eyes and ears in other worlds. The ravens are missing from the movie, but everything else remains true to form.

Thor: God of Thunder and heir to the throne of Asgard. He carries a mystical hammer called Mjollner, which can only be lifted by someone deemed worthy, much like Arthur's Excalibur.

Loki: The God of Mischief, Loki is a powerful sorcerer and has been known to do a bit of shape-shifting in his day. Thor's younger brother. Loki tends to shy away from physical battler and tends to take more of a role as a master manipulator. SPOILER ALERT: Loki is not actually the offspring of Odin, but a stolen Frost Giant baby raised by Odin.

Sif: A warrior goddess of Asgard, and on again, off again love interest for Thor.

The Warriors Three: Three Asgardian warriors and close friends of Thor, excellently portrayed in the film!
Fandral the Dashing: Leader of the three.
Hogun the Grim: Not actually of the Norse Pantheon, he was taken in by the Asgardians.
Volstagg the Valiant (sometimes Volstagg the Stout): Used in the comics as comic relief by way of his ravenous appetite.

Heimdall: Sif's brother (not mentioned in the film), Heimdall is the guardian of the bridge to the other worlds (the Bifrost Bridge, sometimes called the Rainbow Bridge). He is all seeing, which makes for a damn good sentry. Ironically, he is described in Norse mythology as being "the whitest of the gods" while being played in the movie by Idris Elba, the "blackest of the actors."

Laufey: King of the Frost Giants. SPOILER ALERT: Loki's real father.

The Destroyer Armor: A living suit of armor created by Odin. It is uninhabited and extremely powerful.

Jane Foster: Portrayed as a nurse in the comics and a scientist in the movie (along with her intern Darcy and fellow scientist Eric), Jane is another love interest for Thor. Rather, for Dr. Donald Blake. In the comics, when banished from Asgard, Thor was essentially imprisoned in the body of Blake and the two of them co-existed for a number of years. Blake, who walked with a cane, would tap said cane on the ground and give control over to Thor and vice versa. This was alluded to in the movie, but altered to be Blake was just an alias used by Thor and the REAL Blake was an ex-boyfriend of Foster's.

Agent Coulson: Our intrepid SHIELD agent reprises his role from the Iron Man franchise (see the Iron Man 2 blog for more on SHIELD and Nick Fury, who also appears).

SPOILER ALERT: After the credits (you stayed, right? If you didn't, are you fucking new??!! Marvel has made quite the habit of putting post-credits scenes!!!) you see Jane's scientist friend Eric in an underground SHIELD facility, where he meets with Nick Fury. There, Nick reveals a powerful weapon to him... THE COSMIC CUBE!!! The Cosmic Cube is a mysterious and powerful device, whose mystery is only exceeded by its power, and is frequently depicted as a reality altering weapon. One Marvel villain who is often shown seeking to use the cube is the Red Skull, who we'll be seeing at the end of the summer in Captain America: The First Avenger (which is a stupid title... he didn't join the avengers until issue #4).

All in all, I thought this was a pretty good movie. Let's say for reference better than the Ed Norton Hulk movie, but not as good as Iron Man 1. The 3-D had some good moments, but as a whole wasn't really an enhancement, so if you don't feel like seeing it in 3-D, you won't be missing much. I only had three significant complaints.
1) As already mentioned, the Dr. Donald Blake cop-out and lack of love interest with Sif.
2) Balder the Brave, Thor's half-brother and one of my favorite Asgardians was missing from the film. He is rarely missing from Thor/Asgard stories, so his omission in the film just didn't make much sense to me.
3) There seemed to me to be an over-riding theme trying to disprove the Asgardians as gods, and rather explain them away as aliens. Darcy says something to the effect of "vikings would have seen them as gods." One of the great things about Thor is that he is a super-hero AND an actual, honest-to-goodness god. To take that away from him, you basically make him Storm with super-strength and a hammer.

And with that, I truly hope you enjoy the film. With so many more comic films coming this summer, I have the feeling this will be the most forgotten one of the bunch, but undeservedly so. Stay tuned for the next installment, X-Men: First Class, coming June 3rd!