To Blake Or Not To Blake? That’s Thor’s Question

The few details we have surrounding the plot of Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming Thor adaptation are very confusing. Specifically: How can you make a movie with Thor, and with Jane Foster, but not Thor’s alter ego/Jane’s love interest, Dr. Donald Blake?!

Last week, Variety reported that Kat Dennings (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) has been cast as Darcy, who works with Jane Foster at her job as a nurse (Natalie Portman was cast as Foster awhile back). In the same article, the movie is described as “[centering] on a partly disabled med student who discovers his Norse god alter ego, the hammer-swinging Thor.” In the original comics, that alter ego (he was a partly-disabled doctor, not student, but still…) was Donald Blake – who AICN has once again assured us is not in this film.

The question, then, is: what Thor movie are we getting? The Tony Stark and Nick Fury we were shown in Iron Man were closer to their Ultimate Marvel selves, which means we could be heading towards an Avengers movie that runs closer to that universe’s version of the team book, Ultimates (which, at least in its first two, Millar-written volumes, is a modern classic). In Ultimates, there’s no Donald Blake: Thor is just a muscular, anti-establishment Norwegian hippie who controls the weather and claims to be the Norse god of thunder. But then again, Jane appears so briefly in that world that – well, for one thing, there’s no way Natalie Portman would be playing her.

So, which Thor will we get? If I had to guess, I’d say it’ll toe the line between the two versions. That’s certainly what Iron Man did, and it was a winning formula. But the question still remains: if Jane Foster’s involved, and the movie centers around a “partly-disabled med student”… how can that med student not be Dr. Donald Blake?!

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a while for the answer. Production on Thor doesn’t start for awhile, and plot details are being held pretty close to the chest. Of course, there are a few things we do know for sure: Thor will swing a big hammer. He will call lightning down from the sky. And it will be face-meltingly badass.