Guide to Jane Foster, Thor & Valkyrie (Early Access for ALL PATRONS) (Patreon)

I'm back with a new Marvel Guide that's about to be very relevant in a few weeks, for a run that I hold in very high regard...

Guide to Jane Foster, Thor & Valkyrie

As a reminder, you no longer need a special CK login to access guides! When you visit a Patreon guide you should be prompted to log in to CK using your Patreon login. If you aren't prompted when visiting a guide page, try visiting the CK login page directly.

##

Jane Foster is one of a particular group of Marvel's Silver and Bronze Age supporting characters who had a few hundred appearances without ever having a specific story of their own until relatively recently.

That recent story is a huge one. Jane Foster's turn as The Mighty Thor during Jason Aaron's run on Thor might be Marvel's most-definitive modern classic of the 2010s! It's big, it's gorgeous, and it's an incredibly emotional read. It is by far my top recommended reading from both Marvel and DC from the past decade!

It would've been easy to simply pull together a guide to Jane as Thor and her subsequent transformation to Valkyrie. I've read every single issue of Marvel since that transformation and I have extensive notes on them all! Yes, it's been recollected across a number of formats - Omnibus, deluxe hardcover, Complete Collection, and a pair of new "greatest hits" style paperbacks - but her story covers a finite set of issues across a number of specifically ordered series.

Yet, I had questions about Jane's past. When did she stop being Thor's love interest to get married to another man? When did she go from Nurse Foster to Doctor Foster? Had she ever been super-powered in the past? And, did any of her past stories have an influence on Aaron's modern direction for her character?

Thor of you who have been following me for a while will not be surprised to hear that these questions lead me down a rabbit hole of inquiry, as I realized that no other guide or wiki on the internet answered them the way I wanted them to be answered.

The solution? Re-read every single panel of Jane Foster from 1962 to 2012 and summarize it in my guide.

What did I learn? That Jane Foster was uniquely assertive in the Silver Age, though that was often due to her (and the writers') disdain for Dr. Donald Blake's disability. That Jane was a short-lived love interest who was quickly shuffled off-stage in favor of Sif (both by Thor's writers and in-story by Odin). That she later had her own Thor / Donald Blake switcheroo relationship with Sif. That she has a special connection with the High Evolutionary, several reasons to distrust Odin, a medical degree obtained off-panel in a matter of months, and multiple estrangements from her (now-deceased) family.

(I also learned (or, was reminded) that I really love Thor comics! I've long collected his line whenever it popped up in quarter bins dating back to the 90s, but I've seldom read it for more than an issue two at a time prior to 2006. Now that I've skimmed a few hundred issues, I really want to go back for a big master read of everything!)

I had no idea I'd be digging this deep for this guide. Had I stuck to the original plan, I think I would've finished in my projection of four hours. That's about how long the final "Thor & Valkyrie" bit of the guide took to map and link. But, uh... it took longer than that. A lot longer.

And it was all worth it. And it was fun! And I would do it all over again!

Anyway, we couldn't call it a definitive guide if I didn't do all that, eh? So, instead of just a summary of Jane Foster from 2012 to present, you get a guide to EVERY JANE FOSTER COMIC EVER, with complete issue-by-issue summaries of the plots of all of her appearances prior to 2013.

(Of those ~180 historic issues, there are about 18 that are worth reading to learn Jane's story, and I highlight them all in a "Greatest Hits" section at the start of the guide.)

##

What's up next for comic guides?

In case it's not immediately obvious, I've focused on this guide to get it to you a few weeks ahead of Thor: Love & Thunder. It will go public just before the release of the film.

This is part of an experiment on my part, where I do a deep-dive on adding guides for supporting titles around a specific major guide that needs an equally major update.

What other guides could arrive to support an updated Guide to Thor, The Odinson before the release of this new film? Valkyrie and Sif would be my two highest priorities, since both also appear in the films. Perhaps also Beta Ray Bill? I know I'm saving the oft-requested Loki guide for the second season of his show, but what about The Enchantress? Angela? Warriors Three? Thunderstrike? Throg?

I make no guarantees that you'll see all of those guides prior to an update of the Thor Guide and the debut of the film, but I'm hoping to get you at least another one or two from that list, if not more.

I probably won't go quite this hard on each of them in the interest of getting more new content to you (and to the general public) before the film... but, you never know.

I also have some lingering DC business to wrap up so I can charge forward with new guides and lines for some of their upcoming media releases. And, I'd like to re-awaken my indie comics guides in a perhaps-surprising way.

But, before we get to all of that, I need to knock out another of these Asgard-adjacent guides ... hopefully later this week.

##

Meanwhile, on Crushing Krisis...

I massively updated the Guide to Ms. Marvel - Kamala Khan and released it to the public! I also wrote up a detailed step-by-step guide to making comic guides.

I kicked off new coverage of Dungeons & Dragons with an essay about my history with the brand; I already wrote about the live-saving nature of my ongoing campaign with friends.

I wrote about different kinds of musical nostalgia from Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" and The Knocks' "Slow Song." 

And, I'm continuing to recap and power-rank Drag Race's special "All Winners" season.

That's not even every post from the past few weeks! If you enjoy my pop culture and personal essay writing outside of comic guides, there's plenty to read.

##

Current Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 23 Guides!

DC Guides (6): Batman - Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men

Marvel Guides (17): Alpha Flight, Blade, Captain Britain, Dazzler, Domino, Dracula, Elsa Bloodstone, The Eternals, Jane Foster - Thor & Valkyrie, Legion, Marvel Era: Marvel Legacy, Mister Sinister, Sabretooth, Spider-Ham, Vision, Weapon X, X-Man - Nate Grey

Current Exclusives For Pledgeonauts ($1.99+/month): 50 Guides!

All of the 23 guides above, plus...

DC Guides (15): Animal Man, Aquaman, Books of Magic, Catwoman, Flash, Harley Quinn, Houses & Horrors, Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League, Lucifer, Mister Miracle, Nightwing, Outsiders, Suicide Squad, Swamp Thing

Marvel Guides (12): Ant-Man & Giant-Man, Champions, Darkhawk, Falcon, Gwenpool, Moon Boy / Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, Power Pack, Sentry, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Venom

Indie & Licensed Comics: None right now