This article deals with major spoilers regarding the Thor comic book.
Marvel’s female Thor’s secret identity has been revealed. Here’s who it is.
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
- Thor is … Jane Foster
- Thor writer Jason Aaron revealed Thor’s identity to Vulture on Tuesday.
- Foster-Thor’s identity will be revealed on Wednesday in Thor No. 8, and will continue to appear as Thor in upcoming comic books.
What’s happening in the Thor comic books
For the past few months, Marvel has been revamping and reworking some of its most iconic heroes. Captain America is now Sam Wilson, a black man who used to be the superhero Falcon. Iceman — a.k.a. Bobby Drake — came out as a gay man. And in July, Marvel announced that Thor would be a woman.
The catch was we didn’t know who this female Thor was or where she came from. Writer Jason Aaron purposely made it hard to guess. All we knew was that she was “worthy” enough to pick up his hammer, Mjolnir.
“The inscription on Thor’s hammer reads, ‘Whosoever holds this hammer, if HE be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.’ Well, it’s time to update that inscription,” Marvel editor Wil Moss said at the time.
This mystery was solved on Tuesday when Aaron revealed that Jane Foster (played by Natalie Portman in the movies) was worthy to pick up Thor’s magical hammer and wield the powers of a thunder god.
“She’s grown and changed and evolved a lot over the years, become a doctor in her own right,” Aaron told Vulture. “So this to me is not just the next step for her character, but really the next evolution of the core promise that has always been at the heart of Thor’s mythology.”
Does this change the movies?
No. Probably not.
Chris Hemsworth is locked into his contract for three more movies. And there’s no way (though I’d like to be proven wrong) that Marvel would switch things up now. When you consider the company’s track record of producing female Avengers characters, it looks exponentially more impossible. If anything, I’d bet on a tiny Easter egg scene where Jane lifts the hammer, like the rest of the Avengers try to do in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The comics are a different story.
Marvel has, with some bumps, really pushed for more diversity in its comics. Jane’s story is compelling and tragic. She has cancer in the comic books, and is frail. But when she turns into Thor, the powers of the Norse god pump through her veins. When she changes back, the transition affects her human state and makes her weaker.
FosThor, the nickname I am now bestowing on the female Thor, will headline Marvel’s All-New All Different Avengers comic book and be part of the Thors miniseries, which will debut during Marvel’s summer comic book event Secret Wars.
