Eternals’s Thor Easter Egg Created An Avengers Movie Plot Hole

Warning: This post contains SPOILERS for Eternals.

In Marvel’s Eternals, Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo claims to have known Thor in the past, but that creates a major plot hole in Phase 1 event movie The Avengers. As Thor is more than 1500 years old in the MCU, the pair knowing each other in the distant past could work, but the suggestion Thor was besotted with Kingo as a child misses out a key detail from the God of Thunder’s own recollection of his past.

While Eternals is very clearly a new chapter in the MCU that is more forward-looking than reflective, it is beholden to its franchise past in prominent ways. There are overt mentions for Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, Josh Brolin’s Thanos, Chris Evans’ Captain America, and Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man alongside Kingo’s mention of Chris Hemsworth’s beautifully coiffed Asgardian hero. The plot also builds off the back of Phase 3 in a way that would have been impossible without Avengers: Endgame, even if it’s not entirely necessary to have seen any MCU movies before Eternals.

But in throwing in these casual references to original (and second-generation) Avengers, Eternals committed the same foul several other Phase 4 releases have by ignoring specific parts of MCU continuity. Sure, it’s funny to suggest that Thor would follow Kingo around, and it is the kind of thing Nanjiani’s egotistic Bollywood star would claim to bolster his own mythology, but it isn’t played as an empty brag the same way Kingo’s other boasts are. And therein lies the problem, because in The Avengers, Thor specifically mentions that the first time he came to Earth was during the events of his own MCU debut, Thor.

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In The Avengers, Thor calls back to Loki sending the Destroyer to Earth in Thor, saying “When I first came to Earth, Loki’s rage followed me here and your people paid the price. And now again.” Thor has no reason to claim that the visit was his first time, given that Nordic mythology includes the Thor legend, suggesting he was known to humanity. And indeed, in Phase 1 when Thor comes to Earth, he is presented as a naive fish out of water. To suggest he was familiar enough with Midgard to have been there as a child makes no sense. There is a counter-point in Thor, when Fandral says “This isn’t like a journey to Earth, where you summon a little lightning and thunder and the mortals worship you as a god” but Fandral could easily be talking of visits to Earth generally, and Odin’s specifically. If not, The Avengers quote from Thor ruins this line set-up too. Kingo and Fandral can be right together, but Thor’s own memory should surely trump both, making Kingo’s claim a plot hole, or Thor’s Avengers line one. Either way, something is broken here.

In examining this part of Eternals, you also have to look at the veracity of Kingo’s claims, given that he is immediately presented as something of a story-teller. But Kingo isn’t a liar as much as he believes his own hype a little too much, believing that his achievements warrant accolades, rather than inflating them to appear grander. In many ways, Kingo is actually like Thor himself, prior to the God of Thunder’s Endgame breakdown. The Thor claim, then, seems to be legitimate from his point of view, even if it’s impossible in the MCU’s terms. And all for the sake of a little gag tying the movie needlessly back to the Avengers again.

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Simon Gallagher
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Simon is a veteran editor who has been writing online since 2010 – long before anyone wanted to read his work. He loves Clueless. Like, a lot.

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