Jane Foster (Earth-199999)

Dr. Jane Foster is an American astrophysicist who in 2010 beared witness to the arrival of Thor, a hero from Asgard who had landed on Earth through a wormhole. As Foster and her colleagues attempted to figure out Thor's origins and motives, she fell in love with him. The two maintain a heartfelt but pragmatically difficult relationship.

Biography

Arrival of Thor

In May of 2010, Foster went with her colleague Erik Selvig and intern Darcy Lewis to investigate a series of atmospheric disturbances near Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. Their study proved fruitful, as they bore witness to a dramatic storm in the night sky that left what appeared to be a man in the sand. The man was in fact Thor, the prince of Asgard who had just been banished from the realm and stripped of his power by his father Odin for arrogance and insubordination. Thor's rage and strange speech threatened Foster's team, and he was tased unconscious by Lewis. The three took him to a hospital while they pondered the night's events, but he escaped the following day. They bumped into him outside the hospital, and took them into their own residence for safe keeping while they studied who he was and how he got there.

Thor was sometimes blunt and abrasive, having lived for hundreds of years as the prince of his realm, and took some time to get used to Earth customs. While eating out at a diner, Thor overheard talk from the locals of a "satellite" that had crash-landed in the desert fifty miles west and caught the attention of government agents. Thor immediately knew that this was Mjölnir, his signature hammer that granted his powers, and was determined above all to find it. Thor asked Foster to drive him there in exchange for information as to his origin, but Selvig vetoed the idea, still suspicious of him. With that, Thor and the others parted ways, though Foster remained curious about his sudden appearance. As the researchers returned to their residence, they found Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. leading a group of other agents in confiscating their equipment and other materials. Foster was furious, irrespective of Coulson assuring her that it was necessary for national security.

Left with nothing to show for her research, Foster went alone to track down Thor—who was searching in vain for a horse to ride to Mjölnir—and agreed to drive him. Arriving at the crash site that night, the two found that S.H.I.E.L.D. had installed a small base around Mjölnir due to the inability of anyone or anything to move it from where it had landed. As Foster watched from a hill overlooking the installation, Thor fought his way through a series of security guards, eventually reaching the hammer at the center of the base. Thor grabbed Mjölnir's handle and pulled, but it didn't budge. Thor fell to his knees and wept as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents calmly cuffed him and took him away. Returning to Selvig, Foster made every effort to convince him that Thor had truly arrived through a wormhole, and wasn't some crazy person. That night, Selvig went to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base around Mjölnir and politely requested Thor's release. Thor was returned safely, and he and Foster bonded that night over talk of Asgardian beliefs as Foster found herself more and more attracted to him.

The next day, Thor and the researchers were approached by some of his friends from Asgard, Sif and the Warriors Three. They had come to take Thor back to Asgard, but were soon followed by the Destroyer, a machine sent to kill Thor by his traitorous brother Loki. The Destroyer wreaked havoc on the small town, and Thor verbally offered up his life to protect the others. The Destroyer struck him in the head, seemingly killing him, and Foster began to weep over his motionless body. But soon, from far off in the distance, Mjölnir came flying to its owner, landing in Thor's hand and granting him his powers once more. The fully powered Thor easily dismantled the Destroyer as Coulson and other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents approached. His true nature now abundantly clear to everyone, Thor proposed an alliance with Coulson on the condition that he return Foster's research materials to her; Coulson readily agreed. Thor had to make haste in returning to Asgard with his friends to face his brother Loki, but vowed to return one day. He and Foster shared a final embrace and a kiss goodbye as Thor entered the wormhole home. Foster continues to study the nature of these wormholes, attempting to find a way to see Thor again. In May 2012, when Loki returned and took control of Selvig's mind for his invasion of Earth, Foster received a well-paying offer to consult at an observatory in Tromsø, Norway. In truth, this offer was constructed by S.H.I.E.L.D. to keep her safe and away from Loki. Thor was also on Earth at this time, but the matter with Loki was too pressing for him to see Foster again.

Malekith and the Aether

In November of 2013, Foster and Darcy Lewis came to London on the advice of Erik Selvig, who claimed to be "on to something." Though Selvig himself seemed to be suffering significant mental side effects from his mind control under Loki in 2012, Lewis did soon notify Foster of some anomalous atmospheric readings. The two and Darcy's intern Ian Boothby went to the location in question, an abandoned warehouse, where various laws of physics were being violated through such methods as a truck floating in midair or the existence of an invisible rift in space. Foster followed the signal to its strongest point, where she was sucked down a hallway into a rift and found an obelisk containing the ancient Aether. The amorphous, fluid force suddenly entered her body, causing her to pass out.

Foster awoke five hours later, shocked that she had been incapacitated for so long. Darcy had called the police, fearing for her safety. More importantly, Thor arrived. Foster was upset that he had been gone for so long—especially having seen him fighting alongside the Avengers in New York—but he explained that the Bifrost had been destroyed (and since repaired) and he had been fighting a war across the realms in the meantime. Police approached Foster for trespassing on public property, but upon being grabbed by the arm she emitted an involuntary burst of red energy. The police began to call for backup, but Thor simply grabbed Jane and took her by the Bifrost to Asgard. They had Asgard's healers examine her: they could not identify the Aether, but recognized that the enormous amount of energy inside of her would prove fatal if left unchecked. Thor's father Odin, king of Asgard, appeared and chastised his son for bringing a "mortal" into their realm. He commanded his guards to take her away, but they were themselves blasted by the Aether's energy.

Seeing this, Odin's interest was piqued. He recognized the Aether's presence, and explained to Thor and Jane the history of the Aether and the Dark Elf Malekith, who had attempted to use it to return the universe to darkness millennia ago. According to popular opinion, Odin's father Bor had destroyed the Aether and the Dark Elves, but the Aether had clearly survived. In any case, there was no clear way to safely remove the Aether from Foster's body.

It soon became clear that the Dark Elves themselves hadn't perished either. There was a breakout in the Asgard dungeons, initiated by Dark Elf Algrim in disguise. Thor flew there to defend Asgard, assured by Frigga that she would watch over Jane. This skirmish presaged a larger invasion, as Dark Elf spaceships (cloaked against Heimdall's sight) soon stormed the city in search of the Aether. Frigga hid Jane away as Algrim and Malekith himself came for her, in the end giving her life to block them from getting to Jane and the Aether. Thor returned too late to save his mother, forcing Malekith and the Dark Elves to retreat. With Asgard secure, Frigga was laid to rest, as nearly all of Asgard saw her to the afterlife.

Following the attack, Asgard was virtually defenseless, and in Thor's eyes another assault from Malekith's forces would surely be catastrophic. Thor implored Odin to let him pursue Malekith with Jane to the Dark Elf world of Svartalfheim, preventing Malekith from attacking Asgard for the Aether again. He would allow Malekith to pull the Aether from Jane's body, leaving him and the Aether vulnerable and allowing Thor to destroy them both. Odin believed this plan to be too great a risk, and was willing to let Asgard's soldiers fight and die in defense of the realm instead. Lacking his father's approval, Thor went ahead with his plan nonetheless. Realizing he could not do it alone, he recruited Heimdall and the Warriors Three, warning them that the plan was "treason of the highest order." Odin had closed the Bifrost after the attack, and the Tesseract was safely stored in the vault, so he would need another way out of the realm, and the only option was Loki. Promised vengeance against Malekith for Frigga's death, Loki agreed to help Thor, albeit on a very short leash. With assistance from Sif and the Warriors Three, Thor secured Jane from her guarded room and took her and Loki aboard a crashed Dark Elf ship, pursued by Odin's guard. The ship served as a distraction to allow the three to jump (or in Loki's case, be pushed) onto a watercraft piloted by Fandral and slip off relatively unnoticed. Loki led them to a virtually invisible crack in a mountain in the distance, which led to a portal straight to Svartalfheim.

There, the three were soon confronted by Malekith, Algrim, and other Dark Elves: Malekith had indeed sensed the Aether's presence. They staged a betrayal on the part of Loki, who played at an alliance with Malekith in exchange for the destruction of Asgard. As Malekith began to absorb the Aether, Thor threw off his feigned weakness and blasted a mighty lightning burst at the Aether, causing a dramatic explosion. But the broken shards of the Aether (or rather, its progenitor the Reality Stone) simply coalesced back into one in moments before being absorbed by Malekith. Malekith calmly walked back to his ship to await the convergence, leaving Thor and Loki behind to fight Algrim and the others. Loki handily dealt with the lesser guards, and snuck up behind Algrim to stab him with his own sword. Algrim responded by pulling Loki close to him, thrusting the sword through his abdomen as well. Loki activated a black-hole grenade on Algrim's belt, which detonated moments later, sucking Algrim into nothingness. Thor held Loki and watched him die in his arms, having apparently sacrificed his life to save Thor. Thor and Jane wandered into a cave nearby, happening upon an invisible portal that led back to the warehouse in London.

The two returned to Dr. Foster's apartment/lab, where Selvig, Lewis, and Boothby were studying the convergence. The latter two had recently claimed Selvig from a mental institution: though his mind was damaged by Loki's control, leading to a pattern of bizarre behavior, his scientific instincts were as sharp as ever. He deduced that Malekith was going to employ the Aether at a point at which all nine realms connected to each other: each would increase the damaging power of the Aether's output exponentially until it was enough to envelop the universe. Luckily, this point would only exist for a brief time, and through his extensive study Selvig had narrowed down the relevant location on Earth to London. Darcy and Ian were tasked with installing Selvig's "gravimetric spikes"—devices designed to "stabilize the focal point of the convergence"—around the area as Malekith's ship landed. Thor confronted the Dark Elf, whom with the power of the Aether proved a formidable threat. Foster and Selvig used his technology to harness the power of the convergence, with the goal being to occupy Malekith through the convergence's full realization, which would occur seven minutes from then. Various portals repeatedly opened and closed in the vicinity, sending Thor and Malekith fighting across several realms. In the end, they were unable to stop Malekith from unleashing the Aether at the appropriate time, creating a large, powerful cloud of red mist around him. Thor got close to him with a gravimetric spike, stabbing it into his chest, powerfully knocking him into his own ship, and allowing Foster to blip Malekith back to Svartalfheim. The damaged ship began to collapse onto Thor's weakened and prone body, but also fell into a portal and fell on Malekith on Svartalfheim instead, killing him. Thor returned to Asgard, expecting reprisal, but was instead commended by his father. Thor returned to Earth and at last shared a romantic embrace with Foster.

See also

• Jane Foster of Earth-616