Mighty Thor #20 – War Thor Reveal - Spoilers

[Panic]

I get a very different read here.

Jane is terrified of dying, and is worried that she's going to continue to ignore her real life to live as the magical princess with immortality and super-powers, leaving behind her responsibilities and the people in her life (she had a boyfriend, who stood by her, and I think even has a child, both of whom she's abandoned her cancer treatments and any chance at a life with to avoid her unpleasant life). She isn't *fighting* her fate, she's avoiding it, and making things worse for herself and the people who care about her, which is kind of the ultimate in selfish choices.

And her choices are completely understandable. Does she owe her family or friends a miserable lingering death at their sides when she can steal a moment of glory and ride out in a wash of thunder and lightning, and just sort of throw her head back and say, 'screw cancer!'? Not really. Or, in any case, it's certainly not the place of anyone not dying of cancer to judge how she wants to handle (or avoid, or run away from) this fate.

But she sure as heck isn't coming across as 'saintly' or 'all very positive.' She's riddled with self-doubt. She knows that she's being irresponsible. (And even tells Thor that she doesn't feel worthy of responsibilities like being a Senator, and that she's too far gone to do her original job, of being a doctor.)

Meanwhile, the Odinson remains as he has been through much of his life, a bit full of himself. He got kicked out of Asgard once and made a mortal for that very reason, IIRC. And he's come to associate his godhood and his 'worth' with a magic hammer that his dad gave him, which seems foolish. He's, in theory, going to be king of Asgard someday, a title that goes to the son of Odin, not the holder of a hammer. And so he's (ever so slowly, because he can be a bit thick, at times) learning a lesson that being the Odinson is a source of power, and not just 'whoesoever holdeth this hammer.' When he figures out that he was Thor *before* the hammer, and that he can be Thor again, *without* the hammer, perhaps he'll be worthy of it again, and not lean on it like a crutch (as Jane is very much doing. I sometimes feel that Mjolnir 'likes' Jane for this very purpose. Thor can live without Mjolnir. He's immortal without the hammer. He's a god without the hammer. He's one of the stronger individuals in the Marvel Universe without the hammer. Jane explicitly *cannot* live without Mjolnir. She's utterly, cripplingly dependent upon it. It's the source of her life, and, right now, every good thing in it. She knows it. Mjolnir knows it. Mjolnir is cutting loose right now, because it has a wielder that, unlike Thor Odinson, it utterly dominates, and who only lives by it's leave, and who nothing without it, a literal dead woman walking.).

So yeah, I'm seeing nearly the opposite of what you are seeing. Jane's hardly a saint. She's a desperate woman running as fast as she can from a lousy fate, being taken for a ride by a magical hammer that has it's own agenda, of which she, and we, know nothing.

If your idea of Thor is that he's a bit thick and that he constantly needs to learn the same lessons over again no wonder we're not seeing things eye to eye.


He learned his lesson by living as Blake. Or he was supposed to.

An idiot hero is not very appealing. You expect people to get smarter and more competent in life, not go backwards like Thor has done; you certainly aren't getting more Thor fans by having him be stupid and lacking in compassion for someone dying of cancer.

And part of Thor's soul is in the hammer, isn't it?

I don't mind if they get an alternate Mjolnir from another reality and have both be Thor. But I would like to see Thor Odinson written by a writer who doesn't see him as a bit thick and full of himself. At the moment we keep getting Thor being self-pitying and awful while Jane is smart and heroic.

[pugbuddy]

I totally agree that JMS onwards is a great era for Thor (perhaps excepting Fraction who I don't think quite hit his mark.) I am less convinced by anything that came before that, although I have come around to the Jurgens run now, and I see much merit in Simonson even if I don't really enjoy him as a writer and actively don't like some key choices he made. There are lots of fun comics in the corpus, but not necessarily great work.
I love Kirby and Lee's concepts but the execution lacks too much for modern readers to really enjoy it IMO. My biggest frustration is that some fans think you have to worship Simonson as the model for all Thor. That just isn't workable unless you want reduced sales to the point of cancellation. The story needs to be fresh, just as Simonson freshened the concepts when he took over. As did all the best writers that have worked on him since, and some of the bad ones too.

Well, we can all agree to disagree. I've soured on the JMS run, which I found too lofty and a bit too slow, and Fraction almost destroyed the characters of Odin and Thor, although his overall story ideas were, IMHO, very good. Sadly, he couldn't write the characters at all (although he was excellent with Volstagg). Aaron has some very good story ideas but he lost me when he brought in she-Thor and relegated Thor (Odinson) to the background. I think he's a good writer but I don't necessarily think he's writing a very good story overall.

And...Volstagg as the War-Thor. Called it.

[Sutekh]

I don't mind if they get an alternate Mjolnir from another reality and have both be Thor. But I would like to see Thor Odinson written by a writer who doesn't see him as a bit thick and full of himself. At the moment we keep getting Thor being self-pitying and awful while Jane is smart and heroic.

And yet, just on the last page of this thread, someone posted from Walt Simonson's run, Thor lying in bed whining about how he was going to go into exile because horse-head picked up Mjolnir. This is hardly the first time he's been self-pitying and kind of foolish (particularly over someone taking his hammer).

Character growth shouldn't be something that happened once, and will never happen again. Thor still has lessons to learn, and one of them, IMO, is that the hammer doesn't make the god. He's no less a god, no less *Thor,* despite not holding the hammer than Baldar is any less Baldar for not having a hammer, or Heimdall is any less Heimdall for not having a hammer, which is something he didn't seem to 'get' when it was Simonson writing the book and he was sulking in bed about going into exile, or now that it's Aaron writing it and he's being churlish to Jane.

[davew128]

And yet, just on the last page of this thread, someone posted from Walt Simonson's run, Thor lying in bed whining about how he was going to go into exile because horse-head picked up Mjolnir. This is hardly the first time he's been self-pitying and kind of foolish (particularly over someone taking his hammer).

Character growth shouldn't be something that happened once, and will never happen again. Thor still has lessons to learn, and one of them, IMO, is that the hammer doesn't make the god. He's no less a god, no less *Thor,* despite not holding the hammer than Baldar is any less Baldar for not having a hammer, or Heimdall is any less Heimdall for not having a hammer, which is something he didn't seem to 'get' when it was Simonson writing the book and he was sulking in bed about going into exile, or now that it's Aaron writing it and he's being churlish to Jane.

I'm willing to give Thor a pass on what happened when Bill took Mjolnir. Until that time, nobody but Thor and Odin had ever picked up the hammer. It was probably unanticipated by both than anyone else even COULD be worthy. I'm sure that did a number on Thor's ego, and is understandable.

[Panic]

And yet, just on the last page of this thread, someone posted from Walt Simonson's run, Thor lying in bed whining about how he was going to go into exile because horse-head picked up Mjolnir. This is hardly the first time he's been self-pitying and kind of foolish (particularly over someone taking his hammer).

Character growth shouldn't be something that happened once, and will never happen again. Thor still has lessons to learn, and one of them, IMO, is that the hammer doesn't make the god. He's no less a god, no less *Thor,* despite not holding the hammer than Baldar is any less Baldar for not having a hammer, or Heimdall is any less Heimdall for not having a hammer, which is something he didn't seem to 'get' when it was Simonson writing the book and he was sulking in bed about going into exile, or now that it's Aaron writing it and he's being churlish to Jane.

But he's not growing as a character, it is wash, rinse, and repeat. He learns this lesson, then he regresses. He's not being allowed to grow.

And in the Simonson issue he got over it in a matter of pages.

[WaxHawk]

I get a very different read here.

Jane is terrified of dying, and is worried that she's going to continue to ignore her real life to live as the magical princess with immortality and super-powers, leaving behind her responsibilities and the people in her life (she had a boyfriend, who stood by her, and I think even has a child, both of whom she's abandoned her cancer treatments and any chance at a life with to avoid her unpleasant life). She isn't *fighting* her fate, she's avoiding it, and making things worse for herself and the people who care about her, which is kind of the ultimate in selfish choices.

And her choices are completely understandable. Does she owe her family or friends a miserable lingering death at their sides when she can steal a moment of glory and ride out in a wash of thunder and lightning, and just sort of throw her head back and say, 'screw cancer!'? Not really. Or, in any case, it's certainly not the place of anyone not dying of cancer to judge how she wants to handle (or avoid, or run away from) this fate.

But she sure as heck isn't coming across as 'saintly' or 'all very positive.' She's riddled with self-doubt. She knows that she's being irresponsible. (And even tells Thor that she doesn't feel worthy of responsibilities like being a Senator, and that she's too far gone to do her original job, of being a doctor.)

Meanwhile, the Odinson remains as he has been through much of his life, a bit full of himself. He got kicked out of Asgard once and made a mortal for that very reason, IIRC. And he's come to associate his godhood and his 'worth' with a magic hammer that his dad gave him, which seems foolish. He's, in theory, going to be king of Asgard someday, a title that goes to the son of Odin, not the holder of a hammer. And so he's (ever so slowly, because he can be a bit thick, at times) learning a lesson that being the Odinson is a source of power, and not just 'whoesoever holdeth this hammer.' When he figures out that he was Thor *before* the hammer, and that he can be Thor again, *without* the hammer, perhaps he'll be worthy of it again, and not lean on it like a crutch (as Jane is very much doing. I sometimes feel that Mjolnir 'likes' Jane for this very purpose. Thor can live without Mjolnir. He's immortal without the hammer. He's a god without the hammer. He's one of the stronger individuals in the Marvel Universe without the hammer. Jane explicitly *cannot* live without Mjolnir. She's utterly, cripplingly dependent upon it. It's the source of her life, and, right now, every good thing in it. She knows it. Mjolnir knows it. Mjolnir is cutting loose right now, because it has a wielder that, unlike Thor Odinson, it utterly dominates, and who only lives by it's leave, and who nothing without it, a literal dead woman walking.).

So yeah, I'm seeing nearly the opposite of what you are seeing. Jane's hardly a saint. She's a desperate woman running as fast as she can from a lousy fate, being taken for a ride by a magical hammer that has it's own agenda, of which she, and we, know nothing.

Some very interesting stuff here. Particularly what you are saying about Jane. When I think about Jane they way you are describing her I like her a lot. If I don't she comes off too Mary Sue (or when reflecting Thor, she becomes a bit of a non character).

I'm not convinced about your views on Mjolnir's motives are accurate but it is certainly interesting.

[Frontier]

This thread has made me nolstalgic to re-read some classic Thor stuff...

[JKtheMac]

This 'mary-sue' idea is insidious. I would be willing to bet that Aaron isn't for one minute thinking of Jane like that. I believe that is being brought to the table by people perceiving Aaron as promoting one character over another, when he is actually using one character as an analogy of the other. Jane is not supposed to be the perfect Thor, she is supposed to be a slightly different version of Thor, used to highlight the issues that Mjölnir and indeed being a deity, bring up.

The conflicted nature of her treatment issues and her believing that she has a duty to take up Mjölnir, are supposed to be in tension. Her fears about loosing her humanity are supposed to reflect on how she witnessed what the same thing did to Blake. She saw first hand the tension between being a human in a human world, and being a god, and now she is experiencing it. Jane had as much to learn as Odinson in this story, and this issue only serves to highlight that they have much to learn about each other.

[Sutekh]

Some very interesting stuff here. Particularly what you are saying about Jane. When I think about Jane they way you are describing her I like her a lot. If I don't she comes off too Mary Sue (or when reflecting Thor, she becomes a bit of a non character).

I'm not convinced about your views on Mjolnir's motives are accurate but it is certainly interesting.

I'm glad it's provoked some thought. The notion that Jane is being portrayed as some sort of saint when she's almost been depicted as the opposite, someone defined and controlled by her fear, is just weird to me.

As for Mjolnir, it's hard to say. We've never seen a thought-bubble from Mjolnir, and every hint we've gotten of what Mjolnir is feeling (generally exuberance and joy at unleashing carnage and cutting loose) comes from Jane herself (who, frankly, could well be delusional and totally imagining things, on this topic...). But if Mjolnir is self-aware, then it's got to be aware that it is literally murdering Jane Foster every time she turns into Thor. She's clinging to it to survive, and it's killing her a little more every time she uses it, and undoes her chemo, as sure as if it was giving her cancer itself.

It's got to know this. And it shows no sign of caring. It rushes to her side when there's a new fight, because it seems to love the fight, and it knows that Jane is too weak to resist.

I have no idea whether it is doing this because, as Jane seems to feel, it's a swirling maelstrom that laughs in the face of danger and lives to unleash it's power, or if perhaps it's an older, colder entity that recognizes that 'there must always be a Thor' and is showing up to drag her into conflicts (in Nidavallir, in this latest issue) because it has an agenda that it feels is more important than some mortal woman's life. The former, I think, fits better with the cosmic storm origin we've seen recently, but the latter could work as well, with Odin's enchantment taking on a life of it's own, and being all duty and worthiness and whatever, and even being willing to reject Odin himself if he fails to live up to the standards he set for Thor's 'worthiness' back in the day. (Odin, for instance, was utterly willing to ignore frost giants attacking Midgard and just go home to Asgard, which an honorable Mjolnir all about duty and worthiness would have found appalling and unacceptable. A chaos storm that just wants to smash faces would *also* find this unacceptable. Turn down a fight against giants to go home and brood in your castle? Not a properly 'viking' answer for the mother storm!)

Having read Thor for 35 years or so now, and remembering the stories of 'young Thor,' who carried a sword, I don't feel as strongly as some about the importance of Mjolnir to Thor. Thor was Thor before the hammer. He's lost the hammer before and gone into a sulk, and now he's kind of in an epic sulk, convinced that without the hammer, he's not even Thor, which is silly (and kind of like him, as he's overreacted in the past to this same circumstance). He's managed, in the past, to 'learn' that he's actually a god, not a dude who turns into a god, but now he's got some more learnin' to do, and part of it ties into Gorr the God-Butcher's words. Maybe now he needs to accept that people don't need him to be a god, all distant and uncaring, up there in Asgard on a throne, as much as they need him to be a *hero,* down there on Midgard, making a difference in their lives, that being a god was never the best thing about him (since there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of gods, in Asgard alone, not to mention Olympus, Heliopolis, etc.), but it was that he chose to be a hero. By calling himself 'Odinson,' he might be taking a step backwards, reinforcing his ties to Asgard (and defining his self-worth to who his daddy is, and not who *he* is, just as he has, in the past, tied his self-worth to the weapon in his hand, and, again, not himself, making him, kind of ironically, not prideful *enough,* in that he keeps making the best thing about himself something external to himself, or out of his control, like his hammer, or his daddy, or his godhood, and not something internal, like his choices, or the hero he has grown into, so that, when he is proud of himself, he's proud of all the wrong things), which just make him one of many Asgardians, and not necessarily any more relevant or noteworthy than Tyr or Vidar or Frey.

I'm *far* less thrilled about the arm being chopped off by Malekith so casually, and then replaced with 'black uru' and kind of forgotten almost immediately. That whole thing happened, and was resolved, *way* too fast, for my tastes.

[Rosebunse]

Yeah, everyone is so caught up by the damn hammer and if they like/hate Jane as Thor that they forget about his arm. Shouldn't Thor/Odinson and everyone else be more concerned with that?

[WaxHawk]

This 'mary-sue' idea is insidious. I would be willing to bet that Aaron isn't for one minute thinking of Jane like that. I believe that is being brought to the table by people perceiving Aaron as promoting one character over another, when he is actually using one character as an analogy of the other. Jane is not supposed to be the perfect Thor, she is supposed to be a slightly different version of Thor, used to highlight the issues that Mjölnir and indeed being a deity, bring up.

The conflicted nature of her treatment issues and her believing that she has a duty to take up Mjölnir, are supposed to be in tension. Her fears about loosing her humanity are supposed to reflect on how she witnessed what the same thing did to Blake. She saw first hand the tension between being a human in a human world, and being a god, and now she is experiencing it. Jane had as much to learn as Odinson in this story, and this issue only serves to highlight that they have much to learn about each other.

I know what Aaron is trying to do with Jane and most of the time it works for me - sometimes I have to step back and remind myself. I can assure you in my case that it has nothing to do with 'promoting one character over another'. I've been a comic reader for over 35 years but a Thor reader for less than one. I've read all of Aaron's run and mayyyyybe 5 other issues total (many moons ago). I don't have an inbuilt, particular preference for one over the other and I'm not being influenced by anyone, well with the possible exception of yourself as I wouldn't be reading Thor at all without your insights.

In fact, the main reason I've not been all that interested in Thor (Odinson) as a character in the past is because he came off to me as a 'Mary Sue' (or whatever the male equivalent of that term is).

[WaxHawk]

I'm glad it's provoked some thought. The notion that Jane is being portrayed as some sort of saint when she's almost been depicted as the opposite, someone defined and controlled by her fear, is just weird to me.

As for Mjolnir, it's hard to say. We've never seen a thought-bubble from Mjolnir, and every hint we've gotten of what Mjolnir is feeling (generally exuberance and joy at unleashing carnage and cutting loose) comes from Jane herself (who, frankly, could well be delusional and totally imagining things, on this topic...). But if Mjolnir is self-aware, then it's got to be aware that it is literally murdering Jane Foster every time she turns into Thor. She's clinging to it to survive, and it's killing her a little more every time she uses it, and undoes her chemo, as sure as if it was giving her cancer itself.

It's got to know this. And it shows no sign of caring. It rushes to her side when there's a new fight, because it seems to love the fight, and it knows that Jane is too weak to resist.

I have no idea whether it is doing this because, as Jane seems to feel, it's a swirling maelstrom that laughs in the face of danger and lives to unleash it's power, or if perhaps it's an older, colder entity that recognizes that 'there must always be a Thor' and is showing up to drag her into conflicts (in Nidavallir, in this latest issue) because it has an agenda that it feels is more important than some mortal woman's life. The former, I think, fits better with the cosmic storm origin we've seen recently, but the latter could work as well, with Odin's enchantment taking on a life of it's own, and being all duty and worthiness and whatever, and even being willing to reject Odin himself if he fails to live up to the standards he set for Thor's 'worthiness' back in the day. (Odin, for instance, was utterly willing to ignore frost giants attacking Midgard and just go home to Asgard, which an honorable Mjolnir all about duty and worthiness would have found appalling and unacceptable. A chaos storm that just wants to smash faces would *also* find this unacceptable. Turn down a fight against giants to go home and brood in your castle? Not a properly 'viking' answer for the mother storm!)

Having read Thor for 35 years or so now, and remembering the stories of 'young Thor,' who carried a sword, I don't feel as strongly as some about the importance of Mjolnir to Thor. Thor was Thor before the hammer. He's lost the hammer before and gone into a sulk, and now he's kind of in an epic sulk, convinced that without the hammer, he's not even Thor, which is silly (and kind of like him, as he's overreacted in the past to this same circumstance). He's managed, in the past, to 'learn' that he's actually a god, not a dude who turns into a god, but now he's got some more learnin' to do, and part of it ties into Gorr the God-Butcher's words. Maybe now he needs to accept that people don't need him to be a god, all distant and uncaring, up there in Asgard on a throne, as much as they need him to be a *hero,* down there on Midgard, making a difference in their lives, that being a god was never the best thing about him (since there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of gods, in Asgard alone, not to mention Olympus, Heliopolis, etc.), but it was that he chose to be a hero. By calling himself 'Odinson,' he might be taking a step backwards, reinforcing his ties to Asgard (and defining his self-worth to who his daddy is, and not who *he* is, just as he has, in the past, tied his self-worth to the weapon in his hand, and, again, not himself, making him, kind of ironically, not prideful *enough,* in that he keeps making the best thing about himself something external to himself, or out of his control, like his hammer, or his daddy, or his godhood, and not something internal, like his choices, or the hero he has grown into, so that, when he is proud of himself, he's proud of all the wrong things), which just make him one of many Asgardians, and not necessarily any more relevant or noteworthy than Tyr or Vidar or Frey.

I'm *far* less thrilled about the arm being chopped off by Malekith so casually, and then replaced with 'black uru' and kind of forgotten almost immediately. That whole thing happened, and was resolved, *way* too fast, for my tastes.

More interesting stuff. We are alike in that we've been reading comics for about 35 years but different in that I've only been reading Thor for a year. So, yeah, I can see my view of Mjolnir's importance being different to you. Thanks for expanding your opinions. I personally think Mjolnir is a more benevolent than you (and pretty much everyone else's opinion that I've read). I think that she is helping Jane because of the respect for her that she has seen over the years with Thor and Jane needs more help than Thor did.

I agree with what you are saying about Odinson.

I've hardly given any though to the arm. Was there a point to that?

[megaharrison]

3 years ago I said that I was no longer going to buy another Thor book until the real Thor came back. True to my word I haven't, and apparently I wasn't alone given Marvel's sales.

But I've popped back in for the first time in a few years to as: has he come back yet? Or is the impostor still in place? I will buy a Thor book again once Thor is actually in it.

[JKtheMac]

3 years ago I said that I was no longer going to buy another Thor book until the real Thor came back. True to my word I haven't, and apparently I wasn't alone given Marvel's sales.

But I've popped back in for the first time in a few years to as: has he come back yet? Or is the impostor still in place? I will buy a Thor book again once Thor is actually in it.

Given Marvel's sales? Slightly confusing. This is one of the most popular comics on the stands, not just Marvel. And Marvel are still the #1 publisher in an industry that is having sales issues. (Although still very high from a historical perspective. Considering the last couple of years saw record unit sales and current sales have not hugely dropped.) If you think this book is part of the problem you are looking at the wrong target.

Marvel are turning to Aaron to write Legacy, he is apparently drawing upon and expanding the concepts he introduced in this very book*. Marvel see this book as part of the solution.

*spoilers:

Viking Avengers expanded to 1,000,000 BC Avengers

end of spoilers

[JKtheMac]

@sutek, you make many of the points I have been making during this run. Especially my concerns about the actual nature of Mjölnir. I was also sceptical that Jane may be just projecting the sentience, but I think we have moved past that now. Personally I believe the storm inside Mjölnir has been weak and mostly dormant until recently, but is now feeding on Jane and the Odin-force latent in the enchantment. It's plan may be to position itself to take down Odin, and the Jane/Mjölnir combo is just the weapon to achieve that. I wonder if Aaron deliberately introduced the Phoenix to give us something to compare Mother Storm too. A transcendent power with an agenda, a power that cannot truely be defeated because it comes back again to reassert itself.

I do believe Odinson needs to learn the lesson you describe. I believe Aaron is drawing on the fact that he has lost the perspective of humanity. He has lost sight of what being a god means to humans. Gor's words are both right and wrong. Odinson needs to remember who his mother is, and instead has retreated into his default self image as the son of his father.

The kind of prediction that some consider a spoiler:

spoilers:

I suspect Jane will die, Thor will still remain, as a tool of the storm and try and destroy Asgard and Odin, and Odinson will need to quest to Valhalla and try and bring Jane back, to regain control of Mjölnir. The storm will eventually be seperated from Mjölnir and defeated but will probably skulk away invisible, for future writers to use.

end of spoilers


P.S. For those sceptical of the conceptual link between the Death of Captain Marvel and Mighty Thor we have the latest cover reveal from Legacy to nail the point to the door.