While Jane Foster doesn’t often use magic in Marvel Comics, in Thor: Love and Thunder, Jane is more open to magic and its properties.
Kodoani.com – The following part contains spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunderis currently showing in theaters.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is full of scientists including Shuri, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark and The Mighty Thor himself, Jane Foster. Introduced in Thor, Dr. Jane Foster is the brightest astrophysicist and leading astronomer in the MCU, writing the famous Foster Theory and making major breakthroughs involving wormholes, Travel between galaxies and beyond. While focusing on science, she is open to the world of magic, seeing the two as one and the same, but her manga character has a different view of this, which makes her decide intends to pursue magical means to cure her cancer in Thor: Love and Thunder shocking to those familiar with her comic book title The Mighty Thor.
How does Jane Foster feel about magic in Marvel comics?
There are many differences between the Jane in the comics and the MCU Jane, including the fact that the Jane in the comics isn’t a physicist and astronomer – she’s a medical doctor. Another big difference is how she views magic, evident during her time battling cancer. In the comics, Thor proposes a miraculous solution to her cancer, as it doesn’t seem like she’s improving from scientific means, but Jane refuses to turn to magic, because it always comes at a cost and it can be unpredictable.
She is right, as her health does not improve, even when she uses Mjolnir like The Mighty Thor, and while using it she is endowed with divine strength, stamina and durability, but as soon as she drops the hammer, she reverts back to her mortal form, with the caveat that Mjolnir has undone any positive results from her chemotherapy. Her transformation into The Mighty Thor is proof that magic in Marvel Comics comes with a price, and there’s a reason she doesn’t use hammer magic – or any magic to treat her cancer, but she’ll risk magic for the sake of saving others as the mighty Thor.
How does Jane Foster feel about magic in the MCU?
Just like in the manga, come Thor: Love and Thunder, Jane battled cancer; However, unlike in the comics, her cancer has progressed to the point where chemotherapy and science can’t save her. There’s still a glimmer of hope that science can save Jane in the comics, and that happens when she comes back to life and eventually gives up being The Mighty Thor to commit to her treatment. On the other hand, MCU Jane has no other science resources to use.
After her own research failed, Jane got the idea to head to Asgardian magic, where she read about how Mjolnir could come up with healing properties. Around this time, Mjolnir calls out to her, as Thor has sworn to always protect Jane, and since then, her relationship with the hammer is very similar to that seen in the comics, when she received Thor’s powers. with it–including strength, endurance, and stamina–but without it, her cancer grew worse, as the hammer drained her mortal powers.
Just like in the comics, this is possible because all magic comes with a price to pay. However, Marvel Comics has many branches of magic and many rules that correlate with each, but the MCU is still relatively new to magic and its various fields. Doctor Strange has been the biggest opportunity for magic in the MCU, as the birth of witches through Wanda Maximoff and Agatha Harkness didn’t officially happen until WandaVision in 2021. Meanwhile, Loki and the Asgardians. touched on magic as early as 2011, but even that is minuscule compared to what has been seen in the comics. The fact that magic isn’t as common in the MCU, nor as its rules, may be one reason why Jane is more open to it.
Another possible reason is that her perception of magic is similar to her perception of science. When he was first introduced to the concept by Thor, he said that magic and science were one and the same in Asgard. This claim is demonstrated to Jane when she arrives in Asgard in Thor: The Dark World, as the magic used to determine what is happening to her body is similar to a scientific theory she is familiar with, and she even surprised the healers by explaining it perfectly.
For the Jane Foster comic, magic is too different from science. It’s unpredictable and comes with a price to pay, so she doesn’t look to it for answers. On the other hand, MCU Jane sees science and magic as one and the same, so she doesn’t mind coming back to it. While magic may seem like unexplained science in the MCU, the unknown has never been something that can stop Jane and her inquisitive, determined mind.
Theo: Kodoani.com
