Pictures from Kenneth Branagh‘s upcoming Marvel Studios production, Thor, have been making their way online fairly often as of late. One of the first official images (seen to the right) shows stars Chris Hemsworth as the hammer-wielding hero, Tom Hiddleston as his brother Loki, and Sir Anthony Hopkins front and center as their father, Odin.

Since that image was released a few more have showed up, and you can check them out here. One shows Odin and Thor again, another shows the great halls of Asgard along with the Warriors Three, and the latest shows Thor attempting to retrieve his mighty hammer.

Thor is expected to be a part of Marvel’s big weekend at the looming San Diego Comic Con, so hopefully these images are just a tease set up to precede some exciting footage.

Click on over to the other side to check out more images now!

For me, Thor was always the most exciting of the Marvel projects. Not being familiar with any of the comics for which these films are based, I was going on sheer entertainment value. And considering I’m a sucker for anything that relates to Greek, Norse, or any other kind of mythology, my hopes were strong.

Unfortunately, when we saw these brief costume teases and the image above that confirmed said costume teases were accurate, hopes diminished a bit. When this movie was casting, one of the rumored candidates for the lead role was True Blood star Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd (whose father, Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd, was eventually cast, ironically) and I’m sure I’m not alone in saying he seemed pretty perfect for the job. Hemsworth was hard to gauge as it was, but seeing that kind of cartoony, cheesy, Prince Valiant look that Thor has in the shots with Odin definitely added a lot of unsureness and maybe even doubt.

Though a couple of these images still have me a little uneasy about the final product, one of them in particular does restore my hopes. That picture is the least pretty of them all; the image of Thor attempting to retrieve his hammer. This could just as easily be an image of some massive dude working on an oil rig, but it’s also more along the lines of what I hoped for in a Thor — more along THESE lines. And looking at his character in Star Trek, it’s pretty incredible how scary big Hemsworth looks here.

Thor is set to hit theaters on May 6, 2011, and also stars Natalie Portman, Rene Russo, Jaimie Alexander, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Josh Dallas, Tadanobu Asano, Idris Elba, Clark Gregg, and Colm Feore.

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[Sources: USA Today, /Film]