Warning: Spoilers below
Say what you like about Marvel’s last few years that saw numerous heroes replaced by a new generation of icons, but Jane Foster was Thor? That’s a series that has been consistently entertaining thanks to writer Jason Aaron’s long game-plan and the utterly epic art of Russell Dauterman that makes every panel look like the benchmark for fantasy and cosmic adventure. This was a new direction that was more than worthy to carry the mantle of a hero who had existed for decades in print.
Time was always running out for Jane Foster however, when she proved herself worthy to wield the mighty Mjolnir. Stricken with a terminal case of cancer, her every transformation into the latest incarnation of the thunder god killed any chance of her ever recovering from the cruellest of mortal diseases as she spent her remaining days protecting all ten realms of existence.
How do gods die? Not in hospital beds, but in one of the greatest battles ever fought as The Death Of The Mighty Thor storyline finally reached a penultimate conclusion. With numerous gods beaten into submission, Asgardia in ruins and even its powerful royalty easily demolished by the unstoppable might of the Mangog, it looked like no single deity could stop the living embodiment of a billion souls screaming their hate at the divine.
Could a thunder god ever hope to stop the rampage of a walking Ragnarok? No, not even close. Try as she might, the solution to halting the march of the judgement of gods lay not in summoning almighty bolts of lightning or flinging the creature in the very heart of the sun itself, but in the hands of a mortal.
It wasn’t Thor who defeated the Mangog, it was Jane Foster as she summoned the last ounces of her strength to bind the Asgardian nightmare in the chains of Fenris and throw it back into the sun with Mjolnir keeping it there to burn for all eternity. A last ditch effort that proved that perhaps it’s the gods who need to prove themselves worthy of mortals.
With the Mangog stopped, The Mighty Thor #705 doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation as Jane Foster finally succumbs to her disease. A story that began so many years ago ends in blood, fire and heartbreak as Thor has fallen and the Odinson’s long exile of being unworthy is finally at an end as a fresh start beckons him on a new quest.
An emotional and gorgeous final chapter in the life of one of the greatest heroes to ever bear the mantle of mighty Thor, Aaron and Dauterman’s cosmic saga of gods, mortals and monsters is an instant and worthy classic.
Last Updated: March 22, 2018