‘The Death of the Mighty Thor’ lives up to its name, today

“The Death of the Mighty Thor” is name of the story currently being told in the pages of Marvel Comics’ The Mighty Thor, a comic about the adventures of Jane Foster, the god of thunder. In this month’s The Mighty Thor #705, it seems to have delivered on its promise to show us the death of Thor.

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Mighty Thor #705.]

But first, a Mighty Mjolnir recap

Jane has wielded Mjolnir as the god Thor since 2014, when a mysterious woman picked up the hammer of Thor and began using it to defeat evil wherever it might be found. Thor Odinson was unable to retake it at the time, as he had recently found himself rendered unworthy to heft it. This mysterious woman was eventually revealed to be Jane Foster, a long-time mortal ally of the Odinson.

But Jane’s use of the hammer wasn’t all fun and crime fighting: She was battling terminal cancer. As Thor, she had all the power of a god, but whenever she transformed back — or was separated from Mjolnir long enough to involuntarily transform back — her mortal form became frailer and frailer. Eventually, in “The Death of the Mighty Thor,” Jane confronts the fact that if she ever becomes Thor again, when she transforms back she will surely die.

Naturally this comes at the worst possible moment for Asgard.

Behind him ... Ragnarok!

The ancient monster Mangog, the judgement of all gods, has returned to seek his revenge on the Norse pantheon. Don’t bother looking Mangog up in any mythology textbooks — he’s strictly a Stan Lee and Jack Kirby creation, the embodied vengeance of an entire race of people destroyed by Odin. Truly, there’s nothing like a big, ugly Jack Kirby monster to cap off a Marvel story.

In this week’s The Mighty Thor #705, not even the combined might of All-Father Odin, All-Mother Freya and Odinson himself can halt Mangog’s rampage. And so, even though she’s sworn to her friends to never pick up the hammer again, Jane Foster calls upon Mjolnir and rushes to their aid.

It’s a battle between a monster who believes all gods should die, and a mortal woman who has often felt abandoned by them.

Jason Aaron,Russell Dauterman/Marvel Comics

Eventually, after a lot of fighting and epic monologuing, Thor (Jane) binds Mangog in the chains that once held the wolf Fenris, attaches Mjolnir to the free end, and hurls both monster and hammer into the heart of the sun. Mangog is defeated, but Mjolnir is destroyed as well (or at least it’s been rendered unreachable), and now that she’s separated from it, Thor only has a few moments before she transforms back into Jane. The final page of The Mighty Thor #705 doesn’t leave a lot of room for a last minute revival:

Jason Aaron, Russell Dauterman/Marvel Comics

But either way, we know that Thor Odinson will be returning to the fore of Marvel’s Thor books this spring, with a story all about recovering Asgard’s many artifacts and weapons, and even producing new hammers. Jane’s story, however, looks like it’ll be wrapping up — at least for now — in The Mighty Thor #706 on Apr. 18.