Hey, does anyone know why in Thor #136 Jane Foster was written out of the title as Thor's love interest & replaced by Sif?
Thanks
Hey, does anyone know why in Thor #136 Jane Foster was written out of the title as Thor's love interest & replaced by Sif?
Thanks
Is that when Donald Blake was retconned out of the picture? Because if so, it was probably part of the same thing. I.e. going in a direction that focused on Thor as a mythological figure instead of as Marvel's Shazam.
I always thought Jane was kinda meh compared to Sif.
Maybe it´s because the stories of Marvel tend to be original in all their aspects (including the romantic interest of the main character)
Like Betty Brant was Peter Parker first girlfriend,but in the stories this changed quickly.
Well Sif was Thor's love interest way before Jane was even born. Also there was more of a push to use Norse mythology more.
I have to agree with those who think that Jane Foster (at least as she started) was not a particularly interesting character. 60s Jane Foster was one of the worst Silver Age romantic interests (although rereading the initial Journey into Mystery/Thor stories recently she does tbf have a bit of a character progression; she really does not come across very well in some of the early issues, such as Journey into Mystery 84, and is much better later). Sif had a great deal more to offer in terms of story possibilities, and of course in being less annoying.
I don't know if that's the reason she was introduced, though
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were still on the book so most likely they got bored of her.
At the time they wrote Jane out in 136, Thor's stories were moving away from Earth to Asgard and Space. When Thor came back to Earth, and resumed his Blake identity, it was Sif that got stiffed. In fact she got stiffed so hard that Conway had her actually disappear into Jane as a means of saving Jane's life in 236, which gave her a lot of Sif's courage, something Jane had previously lacked. Once again, when Thor started spending more time off Earth, Jane turned into Sif. They finally split the two for good in Thor 335, and packed Jane off with Dr. Kincaid.
Of course, the first time that they wrote Sif out was something of a mercy killing. Writers had taken Kirby's bold warrior woman and largely turned her into a sterotypical hand-wringing comics girlfriend. I think that it was Moench that brought Sif back to form.
It would have denied us Jane's recent turn, but I always thought it would have been better if Kirby had revealed that Jane was Sif all along, placed with Blake by Odin to secretly watch over his son.
It's been years since I read it but, Stan wrote a piece in a book called "The Super Women" and Stan said exactly that...he got bored writing Jane so she faded away and they brought in Sif.
Ironically enuff, the piece was on Hela, but Sif figured heavily in the Hela story they reprinted so Stan addressed the Jane/Sif issue.
It's too bad that Sif doesn't get more push. I would have made her an Avenger by now. Or at least a Defender.
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