What If Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor?
What If Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor?
WHAT IF? — Issue No. 10, May 1978
Book: What If?
Issue No.: 10
Published: May 23, 1978
Title: “What If Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor?”
Cover Price: 60¢
Format: Digital reprint
Jane Foster became a Thor in the latest Marvel Thor movie, Love and Thunder. And I believe she has been a Thor in some more modern books. (I also think there was a frog who was a Thor at some point?) I should clarify that by “a Thor,” I mean someone (or some animal) who wields Thor’s magic hammer (named Mjolnir) and gains Thor’s super-powers. Thors also usually end up with a costume similar to the classic Thor costume, or at least some sort of metal winged helmet.
But Jane Foster only became a Thor in 1978 in Marvel’s book dedicated to alternate reality stories, What If.
As someone who isn’t an expert on the comic book version of Thor, this issue of What If filled in a lot of Thor’s backstory for me, while also telling this alternate Jane-Foster-as-a-Thor origin story. The vibe of this book is more 1960s than 1970s, which is appropriate given that the story it is remaking is a classic Silver Age one. As much as I love Bronze Age Marvel stories, I like the Silver Age stuff, too, and it’s fun to see the creative team (led by writer Don Glut and penciler Rick Hoberg) lean into that.
The first bit of classic Thor info I learned was that in the comic books, Jane Foster was Thor alter ego Dr. Don Blake’s nurse. Which means that, because it was a 1960s comic book, she had a crush on Blake. One of the main subplots of the story is a love triangle between Foster, Blake, and the Asgardian Sif, who is destined to marry Thor. Though Blake isn’t Thor for most of this book, because Foster finds the magic hammer instead of Blake.
I should probably explain for folks who don’t know that boss Asgardian and Thor’s dad Odin had turned Thor into human Don Blake and sent him to earth to teach him humility. In the regular Marvel universe, Blake eventually finds the hammer Mjolnir and becomes Thor again. But that obviously can’t happen if Foster has the hammer.
Format-wise, What If is a longer-than-usual Marvel book (this issue is 33 story pages versus the 17 pages that were standard at the time) with a higher cover price (60 cents instead of the standard 35 cents). The art team here has some fun with those pages, opening the book with three (!) splash pages, and deploying another almost-splash page showing the first time Foster becomes Thordis (the name Foster chooses for her hammer-powered alter ego).
Blake finally gets the magic hammer at the book’s end and becomes Thor again. It’s not that Foster wasn’t a worthy Thor. In fact, Thordis teams up with Sif and Don Blake to save Asgard from Ragnarok (AKA the end of life, the universe, and everything). (Seems like it’s always almost Ragnarok in these Thor stories.) Odin explains that it’s just one of those fate things, and the magic hammer belongs with the original Thor. But as something of a consolation prize for her thunder goddess heroics, Odin makes Foster an Asgardian. And, because Odin is a bachelor in this What If reality, Odin and Foster eventually get married. Which is kind of weird, given that Odin’s son was Foster’s first love. But I guess age is just a number when you’re an immortal Asgardian.
Next time — Machine Man, the living robot!