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Endgame Posters Leave Us With One Staggering Question

Korg in Thor: Ragnarok
By Mike Floorwalker

All the heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are gearing up for Avengers: Endgame — but one seems to be MIA.

After a massive blast of 32 character posters for the upcoming crossover event hit the web yesterday, fans immediately took to social media with one question: where the heck is Korg? One of the funniest, most endearing characters from 2017's Thor: Ragnarok was conspicuously missing, and his many boosters were quick to let Marvel know that they had made a most grievous oversight.

In case you missed it, a bit of background: when the God of Thunder was tossed into the Grandmaster's dungeon on the planet Sakaar early on in Ragnarok, Korg was the first to make his acquaintance. He's huge, blue, and made of rocks (but he doesn't want that to intimidate you), and although he has a most genial manner, he's something of a budding revolutionary. In fact, he tells Thor that he once attempted to start an insurrection on Sakaar, but he didn't print nearly enough pamphlets; as a result, the only ones to show up to the revolution were Korg's Mom and her boyfriend (whom he hates). 

Later in the film, he and his companion Miek join Thor and his team of "Revengers" in their bid to prevent the destruction of Asgard, which doesn't go super-well. When Thor's insanely formidable sister Hela, the goddess of Death, appears ready to wipe out all of Asgard's citizens in pursuit of Heimdall's sword, the makeshift team is forced to unleash the demon Surtur, who lays waste to the realm (and kills Hela in the process). As the malevolent beast embarks on its rampage, Korg helpfully provides commentary: "The damage is not too bad. As long as the foundations are still strong, we can rebuild this place. It will become a haven for all peoples and aliens of the universe. Oof! Now those foundations are gone. Sorry."

The Endgame posters trickled out over the course of the day, and as one-sheets for the Asgardian warrior Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and the fallen trickster god Loki (Tom Hiddleston) dropped, true believers waited anxiously for Korg to get his due. But it never happened, prompting at least one fan to take matters into his own hands.

It should probably be mentioned that Korg was voiced by Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, and he has been just a little bit busy. He shepherded to the small screen an adaptation of his 2014 comedy feature What We Do in the Shadows (which, incidentally, debuts tonight on FX); he also helmed and appeared in the forthcoming dramedy Jojo Rabbit, not to mention several episodes of the currently-in-production Disney+ series The Mandalorian, for which he also did a bit of voice work as the bounty hunter IG-88. On top of all this, he's serving as a producer on the feature We're Wolves (which will do for werewolves what Shadows did for vampires) and Time Bandits, a TV adaptation of Terry Gilliam's classic 1981 film which recently received a pilot order from Apple's soon-to-debut streaming service.

With all of this on his plate, Waititi can perhaps be forgiven for not lobbying too hard to return as the big blue revolutionary in Endgame — but that didn't keep fans far and wide from expressing their disappointment. Compounding the omission is the fact that the character's fate was left unclear; while he was present for the flight of the Asgardians aboard the Grandmaster's spaceship at Ragnarok's conclusion, he was nowhere to be seen during Avengers: Infinity War's brutal opening sequence aboard that very ship, in which Thanos (spoilers, we suppose) murders Heimdall, snaps Loki's neck, and slaps a fully enraged Hulk around like a rag doll. This oversight didn't sit well with fans, many of whom politely suggested that a little clarification was in order.

Well, that's a little extreme. Hey, @BuhCheery, look on the bright side: at least he didn't get one of those black-and-white "dusted" posters, which is more than we can say for Loki (not to mention T'Challa's little sister Shuri, another fan favorite whose fate was similarly left ambiguous until yesterday). We'd also like to note that one observer has a theory as to why Korg was excluded, suggesting that Marvel is saving him for what would surely be the biggest, weirdest twist in the history of the MCU:

We can almost get on board with this, although we're not quite sure that trying to kill the Mad Titan with kindness is really the way to go. At any rate, hopefully Marvel will remember Korg as it brings closure to the arcs of a ridiculous number of heroes in Avengers: Endgame, which hits the big screen on April 26.

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