‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Changes Hela’s Comic Book Backstory

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is making Hela a little more fearsome. Cate Blanchett dropped a few spoilers about her character in “Thor: Ragnarok,” and it seems Hela will have a different backstory than her comic book counterpart.

“[Hela has] been locked away for millennia getting more and more cross, and then, with a mistake, she gets unleashed and she ain’t getting back in that box,” Blanchett told Entertainment Weekly. That doesn’t sound like any of Hela’s major comic book arcs.

In the Marvel source material, Hela isn’t taken prisoner. The goddess of death is the daughter of Loki, and she has always taken souls of the dead. She particularly wants the souls of warriors who died in battle, but Odin has forbidden her from doing so. Those souls are his and have a place in Valhalla.

It seems like Hela might be sticking to those rules in the third “Thor” film. After all, the villain apparently doesn’t try to kill Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in the action movie. She just tortures him by sending him to Sakaar (also known as Planet Hulk). That’s where he’ll become a gladiator (and likely fight the Hulk himself).

That’s quite a departure from the comics. In Thor’s biggest comic book confrontation with Hela, she help him and Lady Sif survive. Sif was dying and Thor offered up his soul instead. Hela was so impressed with his nobility that she let them both live.

It doesn’t sound like he’ll get off that easily in “Thor: Ragnarok.” Tom Hiddleston, who plays Loki, noted that Hela would be a formidable villain. “There are also some very high stakes,” he teased during a Sirius XM interview. “Cate Blanchett plays Hela, the goddess of death, and the clue is kind of in title. She brings destruction in her wake, and it really kind of — there’s no other actress in the world who could do that as brilliantly as she can.”

“Thor: Ragnarok” hits theaters Nov. 3.