Thor: Love and Thunder finally released it’s first teaser trailer earlier this week, and fans are already begging for more!
The fourth solo film for the God of Thunder is set to be bigger and crazier than anything we’ve ever seen before. Rather than focusing only on Thor Odinson, the movie will also introduce Jane Foster’s Mighty Thor, played by Natalie Portman, and we are on the edge of our seats to see her become a superhero in her own right! The trailer only offered us a brief glimpse of the character in her full armor, but a recent description from a replica of her helmet popped up on our radar, and it confirms that the film will be featuring a major plot point about Jane Foster from the comics!
The replica comes to us courtesy of EagleMoss.com, an officially licensed retailer of Marvel products. And not only does the helmet look badass, but the description also offers up some juicy details about the upcoming movie:
“Suffering from cancer, astrophysicist and Thor’s ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster, visited New Asgard and her life was changed forever. Mysteriously, the broken pieces of Mjolnir, the hammer of the thunder god, transformed her into the Mighty Thor and gifted her the superpowers of Thor, to battle threats internal and external. Wielding Mjolnir herself, she had become a godly protector and a new hero was born!
“With the help of Thor, Valkyrie, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Mighty Thor was faced by the powerful Gorr, the God Butcher. With divine powers himself, Gorr was driven to rid the universe of gods wherever he found them. Battling cancer in her human form and Gorr in her godly form, Jane Foster was embroiled in an epic struggle with plenty of love and thunder!”
BREAKING DOWN THE PLOT DETAILS FOR THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER’S JANE FOSTER
If the plot details in that description sound familiar to you, its because they were lifted straight out of the comics.
In Jason Aaron’s Mighty Thor run, Jane Foster was suffering from cancer at the time that she lifted Thor’s hammer. After she was granted the powers of the God of Thunder, whenever she transformed into her Thor form, she became healthy and strong, but the transformation also hastened the spread of the disease. It was quite the catch-22, and it provided a layer of depth to the newly-introduced hero.
When Director Taika Waititi announced that Natalie Portman would be returning to play the character, many fans asked him if he would be adapting this part of the story. At the time, he said that he was unsure, as they were still in the process of ironing out the script details. A lot of Marvel fans doubted whether or not Waititi would take this subject matter on, theorizing that it might not work well against the colorful, happy, bombastic tone that he is known for. (NOTE: for those who doubt Waititi’s ability to balance light humor and dark subject material with ease, look no further than the phenomenal Jojo Rabbit!)
But now it seems that the film will, indeed, go this route, and that Jane Foster will be suffering from cancer when she embodies the hero on the big screen.
When Natalie Portman first walked across that stage at Comicon in 2019, a lot of people assumed that her Mighty Thor would be a variant of Thor from the Multiverse, but now we know that this is no longer the case. This is the same Jane that we’ve known all along, who appeared in Thor, Thor: The Dark World, and very briefly in Avengers: Endgame. Moreover, the hammer that she is wielding isn’t a variant version of Mjolnir…it’s the exact same hammer that Hela shattered in the events of Thor: Ragnarok!
Scoopers have been theorizing this for some time, as previously-leaked concept art also displayed the prominent cracks that were seen on the hammer in the recent teaser trailer. Further, set photos were leaked that showed Portman on-site at New Asgard, suspended by wires and hovering over a shrine that looked to be in the exact same cliffside where the hammer was shattered in Ragnarok.
RELATED: DOCTOR STRANGE 2: AMERICA CHAVEZ’S ORIGIN CONFIRMED BY DIRECTOR SAM RAIMI
Coupled with this new description from Eagle Moss, we now have a full picture of how the character will be introduced in the film: Suffering from cancer, Jane Foster will visit New Asgard and seemingly be chosen by the magic of Mjolnir to wield the powers of Thor. The broken pieces of the hammer with then re-forge themselves for her, transforming her into the Mighty Thor just in time for Gor the God- Butcher to come knocking.
Talk about bad timing…
But why exactly does Jane chose to visit New Asgard in the movie? It’s theory time…
THEATRICAL THOR THEORIES
The fact that this film will be continuing the story of Jane Foster from the main MCU timeline allows Marvel to tap into some of the past of this character. And while many will say that the MCU hasn’t given Portman much to do as Jane in the past, there was one plot-point in particular that would explain her sudden diagnosis of cancer…The Aether.
In Thor: The Dark World, Jane Foster stumbled upon one of the Infinity Stones in its liquid form…a swirling vortex of Koolaid known as the Aether. Not only did she come in contact with the red sludge, but she actually absorbed it into her body for a good portion of the film. This detail was later revisited in the time-travel hijinks of Avengers: Endgame, where Rocket Racoon traveled back in time to the events of Thor: The Dark World and somehow extracted the Aether from her body.
RELATED: ECHO: ALAQUA COX TEASES UNEXPECTED PRODUCTION START FOR MARVEL SPIN-OFF SERIES
Brushing aside the questionable details of how that must have went down, one point remains: Jane Foster once absorbed a massive amount of cosmic energy into her body. If you ask us, the MCU would be crazy not to connect this to her current predicament. Not only could this be the cause of her cancer, but it would also explain why she’s visiting New Asgard…not to catch up with her ex-boyfriend, but to seek advanced treatment for a cancer caused by an alien artifact.
No matter how they choose to explain it, we are all incredibly excited to see Natalie Portman take on the mantle of a Marvel hero. It’s about time!
Thor: Love and Thunder releases in theaters July 8th, 2022. What are your theories about Jane Foster? Let us know over on Twitter!
KEEP READING: THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER ACTION FIGURES REVEAL PROMO ART AND NEW STORY DETAILS
Source: CBM
