TEAM
THOR.

WHERE THOR WAS WHILE THE AVENGERS FOUGHT

WHAT TEAM THOR SHOWS, AND WHO SHARES THE FLAT

Team Thor is a mockumentary about what Thor was doing while the Avengers split in Captain America: Civil War. It finds him in a small apartment in Australia, sharing with Darryl Jacobson, an office worker played by Daley Pearson. Thor has emailed both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers and neither has replied, and he feels sad that no one has called him to join the fight. Collider’s write-up compared the documentary style to The Office and to Waititi’s vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows.

Mark Ruffalo appears as Bruce Banner, the other Avenger missing from Civil War. Elsewhere, Thor visits an elementary school to quiz students about the Avengers, calling Vision a “purple weirdo,” and his bedroom holds an elaborate chart tracking Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet next to a comically tiny bed for Mjolnir.

FROM COMIC-CON TO HOME VIDEO

HOW A COMIC-CON SKETCH REACHED THE CIVIL WAR RELEASE

Team Thor first played at Marvel Studios’ Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con on 23 July 2016. Afterwards, Marvel showed concept art and previsualization footage from Thor: Ragnarok, including Thor facing the Hulk in gladiator armor, Hela in her horned headdress and Surtur. In the skit, Thor was investigating Thanos, who is “purple” and fond of sitting. Marvel then put the short online on 28 August 2016, and this site dates it from that day.

It then joined the home release of Civil War. Disney put the film on Digital HD on 2 September 2016, with Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D and DVD following on 13 September. Not every edition carried the short. It was not on the basic disc, so buyers needed the iTunes version or the combo pack.

A TONE TEST BEFORE THOR: RAGNAROK

WHY WAITITI GOT TO TRY THOR’S COMEDY OUT FIRST

Waititi was about to direct Thor: Ragnarok when he made the short. He said that he shot it about a month before principal photography on that film began, when no one knew what to expect or what they were going to do, and that it let fans see where he was taking the character after he was hired.

“just how irreverent we were gonna be, and just how different we were making Thor”

Taika Waititi, on what Team Thor showed fans before Ragnarok

Asked in 2017 whether One-Shots could become pre-release content, Kevin Feige noted the success of the Team Thor shorts and answered “Potentially, yeah.” Chris Hemsworth had already shown his comedy skills in Vacation and the 2016 Ghostbusters, and Collider thought the pairing with Waititi looked effective. Ragnarok reached cinemas on 3 November 2017.

THE REWATCH

A THREE-MINUTE SHORT THAT STARTED A SERIES

The short worked well enough that Darryl came back. A second installment, covered separately as Team Thor: Part 2, arrived with the Doctor Strange home release, and a third, Team Darryl, followed with the Thor: Ragnarok home release on 20 February. Marvel added Team Thor and its sequels to Disney+ in January 2022 alongside other One-Shots.

For viewers working through the catalogue in release order, Team Thor sits in the MCU release order guide directly after Captain America: Civil War and directly before Doctor Strange. It reads best as a footnote to Civil War, a three-minute joke about the one Avenger who was never asked to take a side.