The Thor Love and Thunder Trailer ends with an electrifying shot of Jane Foster wielding Mjolnir. Looks like she’s come a long way since we last saw her and she’s now bringing that Hammer Time that makes you feel like you can’t touch this.
Natalie Portman coming on stage at Comic-Con to lift Mljonir was a big talking point when the movie was first announced and if you’re scratching your head over how this could happen then this is for you.
Throughout this, we’re gonna be breaking down the story of Mighty Thor from the comics and also discussing how Mjolnir could be fixed.
I’m giving you a spoiler so if you don’t want anything ruined then bye by frost and get the hell out of here.
Who is Jane Foster?
Little is known about the MCU’s version of the character in terms of where she comes from.
However, if we look to the comics we can start to piece together her backstory and how she potentially got to this point.
In the source material, Jane’s mother died of cancer when she was very young and though he was there for the majority of her childhood he sadly passed away from a heart attack. After this Jane put her full focus on science and this led her on a fateful journey.
First appearing in Thor she quickly became a love interest for the character and by The Dark World, she fused with the aether, a powerful infinity stone with the capabilities of bending reality. Up until that point she’d been a bit of a plain Jane and after the Marvel movies became a pain it didn’t seem like we’d see her again.
Natalie Portman had been burned in the past with big franchises and when she didn’t appear in Ragnarok everyone just assumed she’d been burned out like Anakin. However, Marvel brought her back into Avengers Endgame using deleted scenes and when she appeared at the premiere it seemed like something was afoot.
Now in the comics, we saw a similar arc to what we’ve had in the MCU so far. Thor left earth much as he did in Ragnarok but whereas there he was fighting Surtur, in the comics, he was fighting Gorr. In the film, he’ll be played by Christian Bale whose design is causing a bit of controversy because of how much it strays from the comics. This is all-important to bear in mind as Thor has to be off-world to tie in with what happens in the comics.
Jane’s Illness
Much like her mother, Jane was diagnosed with breast cancer and this could have potentially happened during the events of Ragnarok. During the five years between the snap and blip, this may have developed further and according to pub med, untreated breast cancer can take about 2 to 3 years to kill someone so if she was receiving treatment during this time it may have given her a couple of extra years in between to bring us up to current day.
I know breast cancer is a very serious thing and I’ve had relatives die of it so I don’t wanna be making light of the disease just to talk about comic stuff but with there being a five-year time gap, I thought I’d touch upon how they may handle it in the story and I don’t mean to offend anyone.
Now it has to be said that Jane was pretty much at death’s door in the comics and though she was offered magical treatment on Asgard, she declined it. However, she did take chemotherapy but issues rose from this when she gained Thor’s powers which we’ll talk about in just a bit.
Mjolnir
When fighting against Nick Fury, Thor ended up losing his ability to wield Mjolnir and he became known as The Unworthy Thor.
Because no one else could lift it, Mjolnir remained in place on the moon and due to its sentience, it started to think for itself about who could be next. Now, this could somewhat tie in with where we last left the hammer in the MCU. In the trailer, we can see that it’s clearly been pieced back together as there are cracks all over it and therefore it seems like it’s the one Hela smashed and not the one from Endgame, which Cap of course returned.
Due to Mjolnir being something that you have to be worthy to lift I think that the pieces of it might have remained outside of Tonsberg at the site where Odin died and Hela emerged.
The Hammer might have called out to Jane and then using science, she could have pieced it back together.
However, she might have had help from Eitri, the dwarf who forged Stormbreaker in Avengers Infinity War. It’s gonna be interesting to see how they explain it.
Now as we saw with Cap in Endgame, if you’re wielding it then you have the power of Thor. When Jane picked it up she gained all of his abilities including super strength, the power to summon lightning and Natalie Portman you’ve got some big arms now.
I can pretty much see this being what happens in the movie and much as she arrives on the scene during a battle in the trailer, something similar happened in the comics.
She got caught up in a big battle with Malekeith who wanted to resurrect Laufy but here it seems like they’re just jumping in with Gorr. In the background of the scene you can see what appears to be the black berserkers of Gorr but ey, fan theories below.
How Power Affected Jane’s Treatment
Now in becoming Thor, Jane ran into a lot of issues with her chemotherapy. Upon gaining the power of the God Of Thunder, everything from her body was purified and put into a state of flux. Because the hammer removed everything toxic from her it also removed the chemotherapy drugs as well. However, as the cancer was part of her before she lifted Mjolnir it was seen as being something within her that had to be protected and thus, it developed further and got worse and worse.
Still, she powered on and took part in arcs such as Secret Wars, Secret Empire, All New All Different Avengers and a lot more. There are some great titles in there and she became a fan favourite because of them.
However, as cancer progressed she got weaker and weaker and eventually, her mates convinced her to put the hammer down.
Final Battle
However, when Asgardia started flying towards the sun in a genocidal attack by Mangog, she picked up the hammer one last time to put a stop to him.
The beast put up one hell of a fight and it was only when she tied it to Mjolnir and threw it into the sun that she was able to finally vanquish the beast. However, this destroyed the hammer too and along with it came Thor’s abilities. She ended up transforming back into her normal body and this is when cancer took its toll and finally killed her.
But it wasn’t over yet.
Now after meeting her and seeing that she was worthy, Thor decided to allow her to take up the mantle and he became known as Odinson. Just putting that in as a disclaimer so it doesn’t get confusing when I keep saying Thor all the time.
He was crushed by her death but he refused to accept it and after channelling the God Tempest he called Jane’s soul back to the land of the living. In the afterlife, she’d stood at the gates of Vahalla however she refused to go in and instead returned to Earth. She told Odinson to try all that he could to become Worthy once more and then decided to once more focus on her cancer treatment having been given this second chance at life.
Jane would beat cancer and she would once more end up taking up arms with the Asgardians which led her to end up becoming a Valkyrie.
With this comes the power of flight, enhanced sight and also the ability to sense when death is close by. I think that the movie might end with her doing this whilst Mjolnir is given back to Thor and it means that we kinda get the best of both worlds where Chris Hemsworth remains in the role but we also get Jane Foster’s Thor in the film.
Lots of things to look forward to in the movie and though we’re getting the usual get woke go broke commentary around the character, in the comics she’s goes on such a great arc that I think it’ll be brilliant if they manage to adapt it properly for the MCU.
We’re kinda living in a time as well where Marvel is making different versions of characters and we’ve of course had all the Loki’s, three different Spider-men and Multiverse of Madness is gonna have several versions of Doctor Strange.
Feels like the next step for Marvel is to bring in alternate versions of established names and you don’t get much better than Jane Foster. Natalie Portman has also been there since Phase 1 so I think it’s a great arc to take her on that builds on a character that got brushed to the side after Thor The Dark World.
I can’t wait to see what Taika does with her and in the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you wanna see from Jane in the film.
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