Is Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster/Mighty Thor Dead? Her Fate In The MCU Is Uncertain

When Marvel announced that Natalie Portman would be returning to join the cast of Thor: Love and Thunder at San Diego Comic Con in 2019, fans were thrilled. The new movie was not only going to be directed by Taika Waititi, who directed the tongue-in-cheek Thor: Ragnarok, but it also looked like Thor: Love and Thunder. i> would take a beloved story from the comics, one in which jane foster takes up the mantle of thor and transforms into a version of thor, all while he battles cancer. major spoilers for thor: love and thunder follow.

The fans were right: Natalie Portman is taking over god duties from Chris Hemsworth. In Thor: Love and Thunder , Jane Foster temporarily transforms into the mighty Thor while he is suffering from cancer. The cast is star-studded, aside from Portman and Hemsworth, it features Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Russell Crowe and more, but Portman’s Jane is the emotional core of the film. and she doesn’t seem to make it out alive.

so is jane foster really dead? Next, what to know about the character’s fate.

what happens to jane foster in the comics?

Like all Marvel characters, the comic book version of Jane Foster is vastly different from her movie counterpart, in both significant and trivial ways. she (in the comics, for example, she’s a doctor, not a physicist). She’s been around since July 1962, when she first appeared in a Thor comic, and her character has developed and grown over that time, and she’s been involved in a lot of complicated comic book stories.

In 2014, writer Jason Aaron introduced a new arc for Jane: she was diagnosed with breast cancer. By this time, Thor had lost the power to use Mjolnir, and the hammer called out to Jane, who began wielding it and she became known as Thor. No one, not even Thor Odinson, knew her true identity.

jane starred as thor in the comics for four years and was involved in all manner of heroics that are too complicated to summarize here. finally, in 2018, her breast cancer diagnosis caught up with her: it turned out that she was shortening her life each time she transformed from jane foster to thor, because the process, which made her strong, powerful, and temporarily cancer-free, emptied her body chemotherapy drugs needed to treat your condition. She was warned not to transform into Thor again, but she did anyway to save the people of Asgard. This decision led to her death, but because she died heroically in battle, she was allowed to enter Valhalla’s afterlife as a warrior.

But she hesitates before entering, giving Thor and his father, Odin, time to revive her. Once they bring her back, she resumes her chemotherapy treatment and then engages in more world-saving adventures, even temporarily transforming into Thor again.

what happens to jane at the end of thor: love and thunder?

Just like in the Jason Aaron comic arc, the MCU’s Jane Foster in Thor: Love and Thunder is diagnosed with cancer and undergoes “intense” chemotherapy. And just like in the comics, she transforms into Thor’s own version of her, the mighty Thor, wielding Mjolnir, which temporarily makes her feel sane and strong.

However, unlike the comics, Jane’s identity as the mighty Thor is no secret: Thor knows exactly who she is, which helps rekindle their romance. The film also has a bittersweet edge, as Thor knows that Jane’s days are numbered and realizes that her transformations into the mighty Thor are shortening her life. but just like in the comics, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop her.

In the film, Jane undergoes her final transformation to protect the Asgardian children from the film’s villain, Gorr, the Butcher God (Bale). Once she and Thor have successfully saved the children, as well as saved Gorr’s infant daughter, Jane dies, transforming into stardust.

however, in a post-credits scene, jane arrives in valhalla, where she is greeted by heimdall (idris elba), who died in the previous thor movie, thor: ragnarok . Given the precedent of the comics, where no one, including jane, actually dies, and the fact that the mcu is exploring the multiverse right now, it’s not a given that jane is actually dead. Audiences will just have to wait and see if Natalie Portman decides that he wants to wield Mjolnir one more time.