Thor: The Dark World releases a pair of new images

The first poster for Thor: The Dark World pictured Chris Hemsworth’s titular lightning-summoner at his most intense and tough, so it’s down to a new promo image to reveal his softer side.

Premiering with USA Today , one still shows a lushly-robed Thor giving his beloved Jane Foster (a returning Natalie Portman) a tour of the stately halls of his home planet.

Admittedly, the next image features the Norse god back in action-man mode, brandishing his mighty weapon Mjolnir, and awaiting any number of ‘Hammer Time’ puns. Standing in a woodland area, presumably in the midst of an epic dust-up, another armoured Asgardian can be glimpsed in the background of the shot.

It’s this image that seems to promise that Thor 2 will have an earthier tone than its predecessor, which was predominantly set in the gleaming realm of Asgard and the parched New Mexico desert. That shift'll likely be down to incoming director (and Game Of Thrones ) veteran Alan Taylor.

Check out the images in full below:

With Iron Man 3 set to blast into cinemas, Marvel are ramping up promo duties on the next Phase 2 movie out of the gate: the Thor 2 trailer is set to arrive imminently.

Thor: The Dark World
opens in the UK on 30 October 2013.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.