Thor: Love And Thunder Fixed The MCU's Jane Problem
Warning: Contains spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder.
In Thor: Love and Thunder, the MCU managed to fix its longstanding issue with Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster created in Thor: The Dark World. Jane was introduced in 2011’s Thor, the fourth movie in the now expansive MCU. However, as the franchise progressed, Jane Foster slipped away, in part because of how the character was treated in early movies.
In Thor, Jane Foster is introduced as an excellent scientist who is key in helping to save Thor from his exile to Earth and Loki’s plans against him. In Thor: The Dark World, Jane is given less agency and largely serves as a plot device to give Thor’s mission some agency. While Jane is shown to have continued the research around her Thor discoveries, the sequel sees her put in mortal peril from becoming a host of the Aether, later confirmed to be the Reality Stone.
Related: Phase 4 Introduced A Bigger «Thanos Was Right» Problem Than Endgame
After Thor: The Dark World, Jane Foster seemed to disappear from the MCU, only briefly referenced in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Thor: Ragnarok before she was revealed to have been a victim of Thanos’ snap in Avengers: Endgame. The lack of Natalie Portman appearances as Jane Foster was often given brief in-universe explanations, but Natalie Portman said in an interview (via WSJ) that she was done with the MCU. Suggestions have been made her exit was related to being unhappy with the direction that Jane’s character took and a change in director for Thor: The Dark World after she had already signed on.
The Early Marvel Cinematic Universe was light on characters that were important and not male. Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster represented a light in that early MCU of a woman valued for her
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