History
Early Years[]
Jane Foster was a nurse hired by Dr. Donald Blake to assist him in his private medical practice. In actuality, the crippled Dr. Blake was the human identity used for many years by the Asgardian god Thor. Blake fell deeply in love with Foster, who was unaware of his double identity. She was infatuated with Thor, whom she had not yet met in his godly identity, but took a protective attitude towards him, worrying about his health and frailty. However, Foster was strongly attracted to Blake, who feared that Foster did not love him but merely pitied him.
Thor's foster brother Loki, knowing his feelings toward Foster, endangered her life in order to attack him. Afterward, Blake decided to reveal his dual identity to Foster, but his father, Odin, monarch of Asgard, appeared to him and forbade him to reveal this secret to any mortal.
Foster, however, truly loved Blake, and one day she told him angrily that she would not wait forever for him to declare his love to her. Thor intended to marry Foster, but then Odin forbade him to marry her on the grounds that she was a mortal, not a goddess. Thor later asked Odin to reconsider the issue, and Odin relented, saying that Thor could marry her if she proved herself worthy. The superhuman criminal Mister Hyde, seeking vengeance on Blake, captured both him and Foster, and made Blake prisoner in a room with a bomb. Blake escaped and, as Thor, battled Hyde, but Foster, fearing that only Hyde could save Blake's life by deactivating the bomb, enabled Hyde to escape. Outraged at this seeming betrayal of Thor, Odin rejected Thor's petition to marry Foster.
Foster was menaced repeatedly by enemies of Thor who either knew he was Blake or knew there was some connection between Thor and Blake, including Hyde, the Cobra, Loki, the Enchantress, and the original Executioner. Foster feel deeply in love with Thor, who rescued her many times from such perils.
Finally, Thor defied Odin and revealed his dual identity to Foster. For a time, Foster left America and took a position with a man who proved to be the High Evolutionary. Thor followed her to the High Evolutionary's citadel at Wundagore Mountain, where they were reunited.
Again petitioning Odin to let him marry Foster, Thor brought her to Asgard itself, a place forbidden to mortals. Odin agreed to let them marry if Foster proved herself capable of functioning as an Asgardian goddess. Odin then physically transformed Foster into an Asgardian, granting her superhuman powers. As Odin must have expected, Foster was confused and bewildered by her new abilities and by Asgard itself. Declaring that Foster had failed her test, Odin turned her back into a mortal woman, sent her back to Earth, and removed her memories of her experiences with Thor. Odin sent Foster to work for the physician Dr. Keith Kincaid, and the doctor and nurse soon fell in ove with each other. As for Thor, Odin saw to it that he was reunited with the Asgardian goddess Sif, whom he had loved in the past, and their romance was quickly rekindled.
Return After Kincaid[]
Years later, Foster fell ill, and, lying close to death, called to Thor in her delirium. Sif stole the enchanted Runestaff of Kamo Tharnn, the Elder of the Universe known as the Possessor, and used it to infuse her own life force into Foster, thereby saving her life. Sif vanished, and Foster recovered, now in full possession of her memories of her past experiences with Thor.
The love between Thor and Foster revived, but soon she was captured by trolls under the leadership of Thor's enemy Ulik. To Thor's surprise, Foster succeeded in capturing the troll king Geirrodur with his own spear; Thor himself defeated Ulik. Subsequently, at her insistence, Foster accompanied Thor on various exploits, going with him into the dimension of the gods of Heliopolis, to the alternate future Earth ruled by the Tomorrow Man, and to the war-torn nation of Costa Verde. Thor attributed Foster's new liking for adventure and fighting spirit to the presence of Sif's spirit within her, although it is possible that Foster's personality had simply evolved this way on its own.
Finally, Foster insisted on accompanying Thor to Asgard. There, the Asgardian Grand Vizier presented her with Sif's sword, and when she struck it against a wall, she was seemingly transformed into Sif. The Vizier theorized that Foster and Sif had become one being, and that Sif would be dominant in Asgard, and Foster on Earth. Yet when Sif returned to Earth many months later, she did not transform into Foster, to Thor's puzzlement.
The Runestaff Dimension[]
Eventually, Dr. Keith Kincaid launched an investigation into the whereabouts of Foster, whom he had not seen since she had been hospitalized. Thor revealed his dual identity to Kincaid and explained what had happened to Foster. Thor and Sif took Kincaid with them on a journey to the world of Kamo Tharnn. It turned out that when Sif had infused her life force into Foster, Sif's spirit and body had actually passed through the Runestaff into an other-dimensional world. When Sif reappeared in Asgard, Foster took her place in that other-dimensional world entered through the Runestaff. But then Kamo Tharnn somehow absorbed the denizens of the latter world into his own body. Sif and Thor used the Runestaff to release the beings trapped within the Possessor, including Foster. Thor and Sif brought Foster and Kincaid back to Earth, where they were married and moved to Chicago, Illinois. Thor soon abandoned his Blake identity, leaving all aspects of that life behind. Regardless, he and the time traveler Justice Peace came to Jane's aid when Thug Thatcher was possessed by the Zaniac creature and tried to kill Jane for revenge on Thor; Thor and Justice Peace ultimately traveled back in time to prevent Jane's death, diverging it to Earth-823019.
Jane soon gave birth to a son, Jimmy. However, over time Keith wanted to return to his original Manhattan practice, and the couple separated, with Jane remaining in Chicago. Jane and Jimmy were kidnapped by the Man-Beast and brought to Mount Wundagore to use against Thor and his new allies the Godpack, a team of godlike beings made by the High Evolutionary. After Thor saved Jane, she met a mystical construct of Donald Blake created by Loki's wife Sigyn, who claimed to be the human Thor's alter ego was based upon. Jane remained on Mount Wundagore for a time, again assisting the High Evolutionary's New Men, this time by providing rehabilitation for those who followed the Man-Beast's plots. Jane and the Blake construct joined Thor and the Godpack on a mission to space to confront the Evolutionary's previous god-like creations, the New Immortals, during which the Blake construct was revealed as a falsehood and ceased to exist. Jane and Jimmy eventually left the High Evolutionary and returned to Manhattan, where Jane helped treat casualties during psionic entity Onslaught's attack.
After Onslaught[]
Jane eventually went to medical school and became a doctor, working at Manhattan's Memorial Hospital. Maintaining close ties to the superhuman community, Jane served as medical consult to Oracle Inc.'s Heroes for Hire, becoming skilled in superhuman medicine by treating team members and their allies. Jane also became personal physician to Tony Stark, learning he was Iron Man and discovering his armor was slowly killing him; with Jane's help, Tony eventually redesigned his armor to eliminate its ill effects. Jane's connection to Iron Man led to her becoming the Avengers' on-call doctor. While Jane made tentative steps to renew her relationship with Keith, Thor re-entered her life in the guise of paramedic Jake Olson (a mortal who had died during a battle between Thor and the Destroyer). Although Thor was forbidden by Odin's servant Marnot from divulging his true identity, Jane quickly surmised who Jake really was. Noting Jake was engaged to Hannah Fairmont, Jane implored Thor to reveal the truth to Hannah to spare her the difficulties Jane had experienced when Thor was Blake.
After Jake was implicated in stealing drugs from Memorial Hospital, Jane helped defend him, despite the real Jake being guilty. Loki had taken over the real Jake's body, so Odin trapped him in it, and Loki, as Jake's "brother" Loren Olson, took the blame. When Thor's foe the Absorbing Man sought a doctor for his cancer-stricken wife, Titania, he kidnapped Jane to force her assistance, but Jane eventually convinced him to surrender to the authorities while she saw to Titania's care. Jane also cared for Thor's friend Hogun when he was nearly killed by the Wrecking Crew. Jane also tended to Jake and Thor's injuries from battled with Gladiator and the Destroyer.
Civil War[]
During the superhuman "Civil War," Jane sided with Captain America's "Secret Avengers" who opposed the Superhuman Registration Act, and offered medical care to the super heroes battling Iron Man's pro-registration forces. Jane and Keith finally entered divorce proceedings, and Keith took custody of Jimmy. Jane began focusing on oncology, just as Thor resumed using his Donald Blake identity. After Jane and Blake renewed their friendship, Jane learned her patient Rose Chambers was Sif, trapped in a dying body by Loki, and Jane alerted Thor in time for him to rescue Sif. Jane soon opened a private practice with Blake in Broxton, Oklahoma, Asgard's new place of residence.
While setting up her practice in Broxton, Jane Foster met quantum cosmologist Dr. Eric Solvang, whom she aided in warning Asgard of the approaching World Eaters. During the World Eaters' invasion, she and Solvang helped locals and refugees from the Nine Realms to find shelter in Broxton. She started a relationship with Solvang after Thor Odinson was believed killed battling Odin's evil brother Cul. Donald Blake, whose existence magically persisted despite the loss of Thor, grew jealous of their relationship. Like the rest of the world, Foster fell victim to a spell cast by the sorceresses Karnilla, Amora, and Kelda that made her forget Thor and accept the magically transformed troll Ulik as the God of Thunder Tanarus, but the returning Thor thwarted the troll's plan. Her relationship with Solvang ended soon after, and Blake left their practice to ally with Amora in an ill-fated attempt to replace Thor. Foster continued helping humans and Asgardians alike at the Broxton Walk-In Medical Clinic and eventually started a relationship with a real estate salesman named Walter.
She quit her job after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and started chemotherapy after the cancerous tissue was surgically removed. Thor offered Asgardian magic to heal her, but Foster insisted on fighting the cancer with conventional medicine, knowing the unpredictable consequences of magic. Gaining a new perspective on life during her treatment, Foster broke up with Walter. When Roxxon CEO Dario Agger caused the destruction of Broxton, Foster took an offer from Thor to become Earth's representative on the Congress of Worlds under the condition that she could continue her cancer treatments on Earth.
Becoming Thor[]
In his role as Earth's first line of defense, super spy Nick Fury (now the Unseen) came into conflict with the Avengers in lunar orbit after Fury learned secrets from the apparently murdered all-seeing Watcher (Uatu). During the battle, Fury whispered an unrevealed secret to Thor Odinson, leaving the thunder god unworthy of holding his enchanted hammer, Mjolnir; both Thor and the hammer subsequently fell to the moon's surface. When neither Thor nor any other Asgardian, including All-Father Odin Borson, were able to lift Mjolnir, it was abandoned on the moon, until it was grasped and lifted by Jane, who assumed the mantle of Thor, noting "There must always be a Thor." After assuming the mantle, she prevented Frost Giants on Roxxon Island from acquiring the skull of their fallen king Laufey to resurrect him. Though Odinson was angered at first, he quickly realized his successor was worthy and granted her the use of Thor's name though he started investigations about her true identity, which she kept secret. Thor continued to ally with Odinson and other heroes like Squirrel Girl, Howard the Duck, and the Avengers against such threats as Mysterion, the Mindless Ones, Talos the Tamer, and the Asgardian monster Ratatoskr. She also gained the approval of the Warriors Three after a serious of adventures. While Thor fought Absorbing Man and Titania, Odin formed a plan to send the Destroyer, controlled by Cul, to retrieve Mjolnir and slay Thor believing her possession of Mjolnir was through theft. Thor returned to Roxxon Island when Agger and the Frost Giants' ally Malekith struck a deal that would grant the Frost Giants Laufey's skull in return for mining rights in conquered realms. Her interference was abruptly stopped by the attacking Destroyer, but Odinson, his adoptive mother Freyja (Frigga), and many heroines from Earth and Asgard came to Thor's aid, and Odin eventually called off the Destroyer.
Threatened by the Multiversal collapse, Thor was among the heroes fighting Earth-1610's forces to save the Earth-616 but couldn't prevent the inevitable end of the Multiverse. Thor was also among the few survivors of the collapse on Reed Richards' life raft, but remained in suspended animation for eight years until Stephen Strange - who was present when Doom created Battleworld from the Multiverse's remains - awakened them. Strange led them to battle the likewise surviving Cabal and Maker, but when their fight caught Doom's attention, Strange teleported everyone to different realms to save them from Doom's wrath. Thor ended up joining Battleworld's police force the Thors and convinced them to turn on Doom. While Foster survived as Thor, mad Thor Corps member Rune Thor murdered many alternate versions of her on Battleworld. After the restoration of the Prime Earth, Thor joined the Avengers to fight for humanity against the likes of Ultron, Warbringer, and Mr. Gryphon (a Kang variant). During the battle with Gryphon, Thor was separated from Mjolnir and reverted to Foster, revealing her cancer to Captain America (Sam Wilson). Foster's cancer continued to progress as her transformations into Thor mystically purged the chemotherapy from her system. Thor also fought Odin over her identity and claim to Mjolnir.
Valkyrie[]
After Thor reclaimed his "name" and Mjolnir, during the War of the Realms, Brunnhilde and all the other Valkyries were killed, and the title was bequeathed to Jane Foster, along with Undrjarn the All-Weapon. She took part in the war against the King in Black, discovering Runa and helping to free her.
Attributes
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Powers
Undrjarn grants Jane a multitude of powers including flight via wings. (Formerly) Using Mjolnir, she can control the weather, absorb energy used against her, open portals to other dimensions, and fly at speeds up to Mach 32.
Abilities
(Formerly) As Thor, she possesses superhuman durability and immunity to convention disease. Mjolnir returns to her hand when thrown and can obey her commands as if alive. She can deflect projectiles and other attacks by spinning Mjolnir rapidly in front of her.
Weaknesses
(formerly) Jane Foster was terminally ill with cancer. Transforming into her Asgardian form undoes any chemotherapy that she has undergone. Without Mjolnir, she transforms back into her mortal form. It is currently unknown if this is for 60 seconds or some other amount of time.
Paraphernalia
Weapons
Transportation
Mr. Horse; (formerly) Flight via Mjolnir
Notes
Voiced by Peg Dixon in the Marvel Super Heroes cartoon.
See Also
- 379 appearance(s) of Jane Foster (Earth-616)
- 6 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Jane Foster (Earth-616)
- 52 minor appearance(s) of Jane Foster (Earth-616)
- 7 mention(s) of Jane Foster (Earth-616)
- 1 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Jane Foster (Earth-616)
- 411 image(s) of Jane Foster (Earth-616)
- 43 quotation(s) by or about Jane Foster (Earth-616)
- 2 item(s) used/owned by Jane Foster (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ Thor: Asgard's Avenger Vol 1 1
- ↑ Avengers NOW! Vol 1 1
- ↑ Marvel Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide Vol 1 3