Valkyrie: Jane Foster #1 // Review
Jane Foster has had many lives in the nearly six decades since she was first introduced in Journey Into Mystery #84. The mighty Thor’s former love interest had been a nurse and a doctor and an incarnation of Thor...and as of the most recent events, she is now serving as the last of a group of warrior women in the new ongoing series Valkyrie. Jason Aaron and Al Ewing write an engrossing story drawn with flair and wonder by Carlos Alberto Fernandez Urbano (better-known as CAFU.) Color comes to the page courtesy of Jesus Aburtov. With humor and vigor, Aaron, Ewing, and CAFU deliver an immensely enjoyable opening chapter to the story of Jane Foster’s first steps as the last Valkyrie.
Jane Foster opens her first issue as Valkyrie. She’s chasing down a group of costumed thieves led by Blue Streak who are making off with Asgardian artifacts that could all be very, very dangerous if sold into the right hands. Power overcomes the group, but carelessness and inexperience with the powers of a Valkyrie leave Foster having lost Dragonfang--the single most important of the stolen artifacts. It had been the property of Brunnhilde--formerly the most prominent Valkyrie in the Marvel Universe. Meanwhile, duties as Valkyrie get in the way of Foster’s professional life, and she is relegated to being a hospital morgue assistant. A job which could prove appropriate AND useful for a woman who is also a Valkyrie.
Building on the original schtick from Thor’s days as Dr. Donald Blake in the dawn of the Silver Age, Aaron and Ewing pit Foster’s mortal life against her life as a powerful magical guardian. The complexity of her dual life is complicated by the fact that she’s only just getting to know what a Valkyrie does. Caught between worlds of magic and medical science, its a really good place for Foster. In a story that shows her to be smart, cunning and vulnerable even as she learns the full extent of her considerable powers. It’s a compelling mix for Marvel’s latest new hero.
CAFU gives the magic of the story an even dramatic weight. The complex emotions and emotional weight of someone dealing with great power and responsibility are rendered in the substantial beauty of her face. Action glides across the page with great grace even when Foster falters. Aburtov’s color is deeply textured. In places, it almost approaches a kind of Hildebrandt-esque pseudo-photo realism.
Jane Foster had been Thor. It’s recently been announced that she’s going to get to be the thunder goddess in the next MCU Thor film. Thanks to Aaron and Ewing’s smart construction in this first issue, she really feels MUCH more at home as Valkyrie than she did as Thor. A Valkyrie in one life is a morgue assistant in another. It’s such an amusing contrast between hero and civilian persona. There’s great potential here.
