One of comics’ most recent tightly-held secrets, the identity of lady Thor, is set to be uncovered in a brand new issue of Thor due out tomorrow. However, in an interview with Vulture, Thor writer Jason Aaron spilled the beans on who’s been wielding Mewmew in these past issues. ‘Sif you needed to be reminded, there are spoilers ahead, folks. Prepare yourselves accordingly.
Okay, if you’re reading this, it’s too late. There’s no turning back. Here goes: Lady Thor is… Jane Foster!
So, let’s start from the beginning. Thor can’t wield Mjolnir anymore after an as-of-yet unexplained incident caused it to deem him unworthy. Jane Foster then picks up the hammer and bam, new Thor. The interesting wrinkle in all of this is that when she’s not battling evil dudes as Thor, she’s battling breast cancer as a mortal.
Jane plus hammer equals thunder goddess. Jane minus hammer equals weakened mortal.
Apparently every time she transforms into her super powered goddess self, her condition as a mortal gets worse.
The interview on Vulture with Aaron reveals that Jane was always their choice to succeed Thor’s reign as thunder god. He said:
I think we only ever really talked about Jane. It grew out of the idea of the previous Thor becoming unworthy, which was something I was always building toward. I liked the idea of dealing with his worthiness and the idea of what it means for a god to be worthy in the Marvel universe. You know, the god of thunder waking up every morning and looking at the hammer and not knowing if he’s gonna be worthy to lift it. Then, of course, one day he should wake up and not be able to lift it. That opened the door for someone else to pick up the hammer and carry it around in his place. Really, the only character that was discussed was Jane.
… Jane’s been a part of Thor’s universe going back almost to the very beginning. She was the initial love interest for Donald Blake, who was Thor’s alter-ego [in early Thor stories]. She was the nurse to his doctor. She’s grown and changed and evolved a lot over the years, become a doctor in her own right. 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.
You go back to those very first issues [from the 1960s], and they’re about this disabled doctor, Donald Blake, finding a strange hammer, and when he picks it up, it transforms him into the mighty Thor. That promise of transformation has always been a part of that hammer. Even though we’ve changed the person who’s holding the hammer, it’s very much a Thor story, a story that begins the next step for that promise of transformation.
The promise and the mystery of a lady Thor was enough to drive a lot of hype around the first few issues of this series. Here’s hoping the reaction to the reveal will be just as enthusiastic.
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