Thor: Ragnarok Concept Artist Details the Unlikely Origins of Miek
While last year’s Thor: Ragnarok was generally visually faithful to its comic book source material, one of the bigger departures was the film’s final design for Miek.
Although he remained an alien insectoid gladiator, the Marvel Cinematic Universe interpretation of the character was more larval instead of the winged, exoskeletal version first seen in the comics. Ragnarok concept artist Tully Summers how the film’s version came about.
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“I originally designed this character as a background gladiator. I was exploring how someone not really suited for combat could hold their own in the arena, and came up with a bladed mech suit for a caterpillar,” Summers explained on ArtStation. “They liked the concept enough to pick him as Miek, Korg’s buddy.”
Miek was first created by writer Greg Pak and artist Carlo Pagulayan in pages of 2006’s The Incredible Hulk #92 (vol. 2), the gladiator allied with Bruce Banner during his uprising against the Red King in the classic storyline Planet Hulk. Miek would later betray Banner to reignite his rage rather than let him become a complacent ruler.
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Like many of the characters introduced in Ragnarok, Miek is a much lighter character than his comic book counterpart though his final fate after the cataclysmic events of Avengers: Infinity War has yet to be seen.
