Thor: Love and Thunder is currently screening in cinemas.

This is the fourth Thor movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Taika Waititi – who also directed Thor: Ragnarok – is back in charge.

As well as featuring Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, this film also sees Chris Hemsworth return as Thor and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. Christian Bale joins the cast as the villain of the story.

Is Valkyrie queer?

Valkyrie first appeared in the Marvel comics in 1970. Based on the Norse mythological figure Brynhildr, Valkyrie became a mainstay of Marvel’s super-hero comic-book universe.

In terms of Marvel’s cinematic universe, we first met Valkyrie in the 2017 film, Thor: Ragnarok. Tessa Thompson was the actor who brought Valkyrie to our screens, and her strength, courage, and zero-fucks-given attitude gained her a lot of fans.

Valkyrie’s queerness has been signalled from the beginning. Thompson revealed that scenes were filmed for Thor: Ragnarok that would have confirmed Valkyrie’s love for women, but that these were cut from the final release. This effectively erased Valkyrie’s backstory, but it was a lesbian backstory that Thompson built into the way that she portrayed the character.

Thompson reprised the role of Valkyrie in the 2019 film, Avengers: Endgame. In that film we saw Valkyrie taking on responsibilities as ruler of the people of Asgard.

LGBTQ representation in Marvel’s cinematic universe has been pretty thin on the ground. It’s exciting to see Tessa Thompson and Valkyrie starting to make up for that.