A fresh trailer for Thor: Ragnarok looks to make sure we know that Hela is the kind of villain that will actually give our hero a challenge.
Thanks to CBR, we now have a distinctly Hela-oriented international preview for Thor: Ragnarok, which is now approaching the one-month-away mark both here and in China, according to the below trailer. Granted, since the beginning, we here at Culturess have been excited for Cate Blanchett to arrive in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a bang. But the new Chinese trailer makes her seem like she’s an even bigger badass than we thought.
Loosely translated, the first string of Chinese text actually calls her the “most powerful female villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.” Granted, there haven’t been that many female villains to start with, but as Hela herself reminds us towards the middle of the trailer, she’s the actual goddess of death. Not even The Defenders‘ Alexandra could make that kind of claim and get away with it (and, spoilers, we don’t think Elektra could off Hela, either). She’s probably not more powerful than Thanos, because, well, the Infinity Stones are a thing, but she’s also not here to play around.
Besides all that, though, Hela’s shadow looms large, figuratively and literally in one shot, over this entire trailer.
Much of the dialogue we hear from Thor is talking about her. She gets to claim that she’s going to rebuild Asgard to suit her, which would probably make it “Helgard,” which still doesn’t roll quite off the tongue. Maybe it’s just safer to think of her plans as an extension of Hel? As Christina Roberts noted in the above-linked look at the first Thor: Ragnarok trailer, that’s actually Hela’s domain. It would certainly explain all the fire and gloom she brings with her.
However, all these different Hela scenes also concern us on another level. It’s clear that her presence is a big marketing tool internationally.
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The problem is … is what we see here all that we’re going to get? Presumably the answer is no, but it’d be a shame if Marvel underuses Blanchett, awesome as she already seems in trailers like this one.