At this year's Comic-Con, we learned that Natalie Portman is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to suit up as the Mighty Thor in Taika Waititi's
Thor: Love and Thunder. While comic book fans will be familiar with the character's origin story, we're bound to get a different take on the big screen, and now an
Avengers: Infinity War tie-in novel may provide some clues.
Brandon T. Snider's
The Cosmic Quest Vol. 2: Aftermath is considered canon and follows Thor supporting characters Dr. Erik Selvig and Darcy as they investigate The Snap.
As you might expect, that leads to them crossing paths with Jane Foster, and it's revealed that her contact with the Aether (a.k.a. the Reality Stone) means she could sense that it was the Infinity Stones that caused half of the planet's population to vanish. In Tønsberg, Norway - revealed to be New Asgard in
Avengers: Endgame - she uses the Waters of Sight to learn more about Thanos.
Jane's interaction with both the Aether and the Waters of Sight could mean that she has the "Cosmic Awareness," the same ability that her comic book counterpart has. That's generally something mortals who are viable hosts for major cosmic powers develop, and that may go some way to explaining what leads to her being able to wield Mjolnir.
Time will tell how much Marvel Studios chooses to explore this, but, as of right now, we don't even know how Thor's hammer finds its way into the present day after it was destroyed in
Thor: Ragnarok!
Hit the "View List" button to check out a gallery of
photos from the Marvel Studios Comic-Con panel!
Meet your new Captain America! Anthony Mackie is wielding the shield that Steve Rogers gave Sam Wilson at the end of
Avengers: Endgame and recently confirmed that he'll be donning a new suit.
Who would have guessed that we'd ever see Angelina Jolie on stage at Comic-Con to promote a Marvel Studios movie? This truly proves that they can get anyone to join the MCU these days!
Simi Liu was cast as Shang-Chi this past Tuesday and it's fair to say that this will be the actor's biggest role to date. He'll need to spend a lot of time training to do the hero justice, though!
The Vision and Scarlet Witch together again! We still have no idea how the android returns from the dead in
WandaVision but we can assume it has something to do with Wanda's powers.
We thought Tom Hiddleston was done playing Loki after the last two
Avengers movies but we now know that
Loki will revolve around the 2012 version of him after he escaped with the Tesseract.
The crowd at Comic-Con sang Benedict Cumberbatch "Happy Birthday!" as he came out to announce the next instalment of the Doctor Strange franchise alongside co-star Elizabeth Olsen.
Richard Madden is one of Hollywood's hottest commodities after
The Bodyguard and
Rocketman so having him lead the cast of
The Eternals as Ikaris is obviously a huge win for Marvel Studios.
Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi presents the returning Natalie Portman with Thor's hammer Mjolnir as she will be playing the female God of Thunder in that fourth instalment.
Jeffrey Wright is coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as The Watcher...in an animated form! The show will stream on Disney+ and is set to visit a number of alternate timelines and realities.
Jeremy Renner will return as Hawkeye in a series that promises to delve both into his time as Ronin during that five-year time jump and him training his replacement, comic book character Kate Bishop.
So much for Millie Bobby Brown playing Sprite, eh? This is Lia McHugh and she appears to be quite a bit younger than the
Stranger Things star so maybe Marvel Studios chose a different direction!
The last time we saw Thor, he was heading into outer space with the "Asgardians of the Galaxy" but something must have brought him back to Earth...could that be the fact there's a new Thor?
Black Widow may have been killed off in
Avengers: Endgame but Scarlett Johansson is back for an adventure which will take place between
Captain America: Civil War and
Avengers: Infinity War.
David Harbour is playing Red Guardian and the reason he's wearing a Captain America t-shirt is apparently because his character has some "complicated" feelings for Steve Rogers. Do they know each other?
Florence Pugh's star is on the rise and she'll be playing Yelena Belova in
Black Widow. That's a character with a lot of history in the comics but it sounds like she'll be an ally to Natasha in the MCU.
Rachel Weisz is another surprising addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and we don't currently know who she'll be playing in
Black Widow. However, she's probably a villainous Russian of some sort!
In one of the biggest surprises of the night, it was revealed that Teyonah Parris is going to play an adult version of Monica Rambeau in
WandaVision. We first met the character in
Captain Marvel.
Meet the new Blade! Mahershala Ali stole the show in the first season of Luke Cage as Cottonmouth and he was cast by Marvel Studios after calling Kevin Feige to discuss playing the character.
What a way to end the panel! The Oscar-winning actor came out on stage after Marvel Studios handed out
Black Widow caps and then put on one of his own featuring the new
Blade logo.
Tessa Thompson says that Valkyrie is looking for a "Queen" in
Thor: Love and Thunder and it's going to be very interesting seeing who that winds up being. Is Jane Foster a remote possibility?