I’d been trying to think of what to
cover after Far From Home, but then Comicon happens and pretty much gift
wraps an idea for me. For those uninterested in that particular convention, it
was announced that Thor 4, entitled Thor: Love and Thunder would feature
the return of Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, and see her take up the mantle of
Mighty Thor. Be bigger than the news outlets that are still calling her Lady
Thor or Female Thor, she’s Mighty Thor. Or maybe Jane Fos-Thor, if you like
combining words. Yes, it might be slightly confusing, but if DC
can have four Flashes, and literally hundreds of Green Lanterns, there can be
two characters named Thor. Are you curious how Thor’s ex ended up taking his
hammer, mantle, and name, all with his blessing? Well, then you’ve come to the
right place. Let’s get to it.
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| Whosoever holds this hammer, if they be worthy, shall wield the power of Thor! |
I’ll only cover Jane’s past in brief.
She was introduced as a nurse hired to assist Doctor Donald Blake, the human
alter ego of Thor, God of Thunder. She was a standard Stan Lee love interest.
Stan, where ever you are, I love ya but you kind of sucked at writing women. I hope
that was more an issue of the time you lived in then anything else. Jane, like
Betty Brand, Karen Page, and many other love interests at the time, was mostly
there to moon over mild mannered Donald Blake and still be attracted to the
dashing God of Norse myth. She would eventually learn they were one in the same
person, which is super convenient for her. There were issues, obviously, being
in love with a god has never been easy regardless of mythology, but none that I
feel I need to draw special attention to. Just know that she tried to be with Thor
for years but it repeatedly didn’t work out. She eventually married another
doctor named Keith Kincaid and had a son named Jimmy. She also gets a medical
degree, making her Dr. Jane Kincaid. But she later divorces Keith, losing
custody of her son in the process, and ends up running a medical practice with
Thor’s civilian identity of Donald Blake in Broxton, Oklahoma. It’s where Thor
built a New Asgard after the last one kind of was destroyed in Ragnarok. Now we
get to the interesting bit.
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| She goes from Nurse to theoretical physicist. Talk about a career shift. |
Jane’s life takes a very sudden and
painful dive as in short order, her ex-husband and son are killed in a car
accident and she’s diagnosed with breast cancer. To help her get away from her personal
problems, Thor invited her to represent Midgard (Earth) as part of the Congress
of Worlds. It was a sort of UN for the Nine interconnected planets of Norse
Myth. Wait, sorry, Ten Realms… I forgot that they introduced Heven at one point
as world Ten that Odin locked off for centuries. Jane agreed to that, but
refused any offer of magical aid for her cancer treatment. I guess as a doctor,
she felt that you have to follow the rules of medical science or something. Around
that time, Director Fury whispered a secret into Thor’s ear. He was so devastated
by whatever was revealed, that he lost the ability to lift Mjolnir. The hammer was
left on the moon, anchored to the ground. Needing a new wielder, Mjolnir called
out to someone to lift it. At the time the civilian identity of Mighty Thor was
a secret, but now we know that person was Jane Foster. She called in a solid
from Heimdall, who dropped her off in the moon’s Blue Zone, a patch of breathable
atmosphere on Marvel’s moon. She took up the hammer and was transformed. Her
weakened, withered body grew stronger, she grew taller, and her hair became a
vibrant gold. Using the power of Thor, she helped turn back an assault by Malekith
the Accursed and his allies. Thor, upon seeing someone else with his hammer, initially
demanded it’s return, but quickly accepted that he was no longer it’s wielder.
With a heavy heart, Thor turned over his weapon, his power, and even his name
to this new Thor. He went by Odinson exclusively after that point, believing
that to be the only name he was still worthy of.
One of her first missions was to
stop Malekith’s attempt at reviving Laufey, the Frost Giant’s king and Loki’s father
(gender swapped from the Norse Myth, fyi). A mission complicated by Cul Borson,
Thor’s Uncle. Cul was under orders by his little brother and king of Asgard,
Odin, to reclaim Mjolnir from the unworthy human whom held it. To do so, he was
given the invincible Destroyer armor and sent on his way. They had a pitched
battle where Cul almost took the hammer, but Thor reclaimed it. She then got
back up from Odinson, his mother Freyja, and a small army of heroines. They’d
all been women that Odinson had suspected might be the new Thor. In case you
were wondering, he struck Jane from the list early on due to her condition. They
were able to beat back Cul. Odinson left still not knowing whom now wielded his
hammer.
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| So her Ex is a Thunder God. Talk about high Standards. |
Once reality is restored, things return
to normal. Well, normal for Marvel. Jane is still working as a representative in
the Congress of Worlds, while as Thor she’s a fugitive being hunted by Cul. Odd
how much like The Hulk Jane’s Thor has become, isn’t it? The one thing somewhat
out of whack is that Odinson has vanished. Her next big mission was a war
between two of the other realms of the Congress of Worlds, Svartalfheim and
Alfheim, the homes of the Dark and Light elves. She had to deal with that plus
the involvement of Loki. You know that lord of Chaos, always sticking his nose
in places. After that matter was settled with a good ol’ fashion political
wedding, yah, she returned to Asgard to deal with Odin. He’d become a little
drunk on power over the last few years, possibly with some help from his crazed
brother Cul, and had put his wife Freyja on trial. She and Loki arrive in time the nick of time,
just as Odin was about to announce a verdict. Thor and Odin battled across Asgard
and space, eventually flying and smashing their way across the moons of Saturn.
Their battle is only ended when Loki stabs Freyja. Thor flies off.
 |
| The price of power is rarely cheap. |
She has several other adventures,
battling the Roxxon oil company’s evil shapeshifting CEO Dario Agger aka
Minotaur, a new Silver Samurai, and some monsters from old Norse tales. She
even worked as an Avenger, helping the group take on guys like Kang the Conqueror.
And all the while keeping her identity secret from most of the word. Some
exceptions being Captain America aka Sam Wilson, who saw be forcibly turned
back during a battle with Kang, Doctor Strange, who could see through the magic
concealing her identity, and Gwenpool, a new Deadpool style character with
fourth wall sensing powers. And while all that was exciting, it was also a
major problem for Jane.
Why? See, when Jane called upon the
magic of Mjolnir to transform her into Thor, it’s a total transformation. The
energies of it surge through her body, purifying and strengthening it into an Asgardian
form. Do you see what I’m getting at? It removes all Toxins and impurities from
the body. … Like chemotherapy drugs. Yeah. Each time she transformed, she
basically reset her cancer treatment to day 0. And as she had to change more
and more often to battle mighty foes, she was getting sicker and sicker. It got
to the point where she had to reveal her identity to the returned Odinson and
her teammates, whom force her to remain under Stephen Strange’s watchful eye.
Even when an extremely powerful foe of both Thor’s, Mangog, starts attacking
Asgard they tried to keep her in a sick bed. Odinson rallies the might of
Asgard to drive the creature back, but a monster that has the might of “a
billion billion beings” proves to be a little too much for them. Despite Stephen’s
warning that transforming even one more time will cause her cancer to spread
too much to stop, Jane does what any great hero does. She transforms and
confronts Mangog. The two battle across Asgard until Thor pulls a fast one. She
wraps Mangog and Mjolnir with the Gleipnir, a long ribbon made by dwarves that
once bound the demigod wolf Fenrir to the Earth. It’s made from six impossible
things, the sound of a cat’s footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a
mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish and the spittle of a bird
to make it unbreakable. Once both were securely tied, Thor hurled Mjolnir into
the Sun. Just before the hammer hits the star and the enchantment turning her
into Thor breaks, she grabs Odinson and gives him a kiss goodbye. She dies in
his arms. Given that she’d proven herself in the defense of Asgard multiple
times, had fought and survived bloody battles, and ultimately died in combat,
she was given the great gift to enter Valhalla. Odinson, grief stricken and probably
a little crazy, tries to use his power to revive her. Having seen all of Jane’s
valiant acts, and seeing his son’s grief, Odin aids him. They channel the power
of the God Tempest, the massive supernatural storm that was consumed to make
Mjolnir to resurrect her. She’d been hesitant to cross the threshold into Valhalla,
so she got her body back. In the aftermath of the battle, Jane hands Odinson a
chunk of the uru metal that made up Mjolnir. Quite a bit had ‘flaked off’ while
fighting Mangog. To his shock, Thor could lift it again. She encouraged her former
lover to reclaim his name and be Thor once more. And she decided it was time to
focus of her chemotherapy for a while.
A short time later the Dark Elf Malekith
the Accursed and his allies, a group called the Dark Council, launched a global
assault on Earth. Jane helped with the fighting as best she could, but a
collection of foes from across the Nine… er Ten Realms now, proved too much. Earth’s
defenders were forced back to Avengers Mountain, an Avenger base in the Arctic.
Jane was promoted to All-Mother, de-facto queen of Asgard, when Freyja joined a
group of heroes to destroy the Dark Council’s means of transport, the Black
Bifrost. The defenders take a pretty serious blow when Valkyrie (Brunnhilde)
and the Valkyries are killed in a battle with Malekith. While the defender’s
forces rally, Heimdall reveals to Jane that Thor is being overwhelmed by
Malekith’s forces. Believing that this was a crisis big enough for a few Thor’s,
Jane grabbed the damaged but still empowered Mjolnir from Earth 1610. The
hammer forged in the heart of a star is powerful enough to survive a universe
ending event, who knew? So… Thor Odinson, time hopping versions of himself as a
young and old man, and Jane Fos-Thor team up and fight back Malekith’s forces.
Jane has a particularly bad ass moment where she hurls the crumbling 1610-Mjolnir
to kill Laufey again. While the hammer crumbles, it’s individual pieces merge
into a vambrace (it’s that bit of armor that covers your forearm) on Jane’s arm.
This change is explained by the spirit of Brunnhilde. See, Valkyries are needed
to shepherd the souls of the worthy dead to Valhalla. And with the other
Valkyries dead, they need to start recruiting. And who better to be the first
new Valkyrie then she who’d just been Thor? Mjolnir had been reforged into a
shapeshifting weapon called Undrajarn the All-Weapon for this new job of hers. One
journey end, and a new begins. Got to love comics.
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| Some heroes never die, they just take up new mantles. |
While holding Mjolnir, Jane Foster
can transform into Thor. This magical transformation gives her the full
Asgardian package. Enhances her strength, speed, stamina, durability and
endurance to beyond human levels. It also makes it so she can take Hulk punches
without batting an eye. With the hammer she can fly by spinning the hammer and
hurling it in the direction she wants to go. And she can summon lightning and channel
it through the hammer. The transformation also purges her body of toxins and
the like, something that I imagine would be a lot more useful if she was dying
of anything besides cancer. Just saying.
Jane is a character that has been
used very sparingly outside of the comics. Probably because she’s a support
character of Thor’s that isn’t in mythology and he hasn’t had a standalone TV
show. Interestingly, I don’t think a single one of her appearances have her be
a nurse. No, oddly, most of her appearances have her be an astrophysicist. Not
necessarily complaining, just pointing it out. Unfortunately to date she’s only
had one appearance in her Asgardian form. That’s mostly due to her debut as Thor
only having occurred back in 2014. As I believe I’ve stated before, anything
that occurs in comics rarely makes an appearance outside them within a decade of it first
happening.
She was introduced as a Paramedic
in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, whom had befriended Thor
before the series began and had a none too subtle crush on him. Dude’s a
literal God, I’m shocked he doesn’t have women literally throwing themselves at
him. She only makes a few appearances, and seems to have been written out by
season 2, after Wasp basically tells her that being with a superhero is…
difficult to say the least. But, given that the show had set up the beginnings
of the Ragnarok storyline, and was cancelled before it could be completed, I can
believe that the plan for anything Thor related after that story would have had
Jane taking up the Hammer. You can’t convince me otherwise.
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| To paraphrase a Prince most Fresh, "She makes this look good." |
Jane is introduced in the fourth
season of Avengers Assemble as a cross-dimensional researcher helping
the Avengers find Iron Man, whom had been stuck in interdimensional space at
the end of the previous season. Their efforts are interrupted by a new Cabal of
evil that use her tech to scatter most of the Avengers across time and space.
She helps Black Panther and his team of New Avengers track and free the
scattered team with her tech. It’s eventually revealed that the new Cabal is
being backed by the Beyonder, a god-like being whom had come to Earth to snap
up the best bits of it for his Battleworld. Over the course of the battle with
the Beyonder, Thor hands off his hammer to Jane to save her from a quicksand
trap. This transforms her into Thor and she helps finish off the Beyonder and
later Loki, whom had been working with him. After the fighting died down, Jane
returned Mjolnir to Thor and was given her own magic uru mace with similar
powers and took up the codename Thunderstrike. That’s a nice nod to another…
Thorite? I guess. Eric and later his son Kevin were two men that were given a
magic mace that gave them Thor’s powers and their codename was Thunderstrike.
Neat.
It was revealed at 2019’s Comicon
that the fourth Thor standalone movie would be dubbed Thor: Love and Thunder.
It will feature Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, and the return
of Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. She hadn’t been present in the MCU since
2013’s okay Thor: Dark World. It was also revealed with her return that
she will be lifting Mjolnir as Thor for this one as well. The movie was just
announced, so details are few and far between, but given what Taika Waititi did
with Thor: Ragnarok, I’m excited for it.
Mighty Thor is a character that I’m
not super familiar with, but whom seems to have had an overall positive
influence during her brief stint in the Marvel Universe. I’ve seen a few panels,
possibly out of context, that were seemed about as cringy as the “X-Women” stab
Mystique gave Xavier in Dark Phoenix. But, Jane has proven to be a powerful
character that did her damnedest to live up to the legacy that she was handed,
fought when she new each battle was costing her days if not weeks of her life
as her health deteriorated, and when things were at their bleakest, she pulled
a hail Mary play that helped save the
universe. I think that’s all one really needs to be considered a hero in a sane
person’s book. And heck, they did something right, I saw a statistic that said
that during her stint as Thor that the books had a quarter increase in sales.
Financial gains of any percentage are nothing to sneeze at. I hope that we’ll
get to see more of Jane Fos-Thor in the future, and that Natalie Portman’s portrayal
of the Goddess of Thunder does her justice. But I guess we’ll have to wait and
see. Next time… let’s look at a top contender for Love and Thunders big
bad, Amora the Enchantress.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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