Every comic book could tell you that Thor is the son of Odin and the Earth goddess Gaea, making him a godly being as a result. He is regarded as one of the mightiest Avengers, and easily one of the most powerful beings in Marvel Comics. This ranking means he’s looked at as a one-man cavalry for many battles, when less powerful mortal heroes reach their limits. So he should be immortal…right? Well, the answer isn’t so clear cut.
Thor has failed, been horrifically injured, and even stared down the mouth of death. To face feats like those, you have to be either insanely powerful like Thanos… or be very patient, and just wait thousands of years until all other cosmic gods and beings have died. So while not truly immortal, Thor, like most Asgardians, has a very long lifespan (that originally required the consumption of the Apples of Idunn). Unfortunately for the Asgardians, they also understand they will face a rapture called Ragnarok in which many of them will indeed die – including Thor himself.
Some are probably wondering: how do you explain Thor’s godly biology? The answer can be found in his parentage. According to the comics, Odin the king of Asgard desired a son whose power would surpass that of normal Asgardians. He got exactly that by mating with the Earth Goddess named Gaea. As a child of both Asgard and Earth, Thor’s strength is much greater on Earth than any other Asgardian (who have denser flesh than humans). Combine that with Elder God genetics from his mother, and you have a mighty recipe. Nevertheless, in Marvel Comics, it is clear Thor can still face death.
In Thor #380 (part of the final stories by artist/writer Walt Simonson) Thor faces a massive Midgard Serpent known as Jormungand during the events of Ragnarok. In the end, despite being weakened by a curse cast on him by his sister Hela, Thor triumphs over the World Serpent and appears to vanish just as the legend demanded of him. Luckily for the Odinson, this apocalyptic event that was supposed to kill him and the rest of the Asgardians was actually the work of Those Who Sit Above in Shadow (beings that gain their power from ritually murdering and recreating Asgard).
Thor manages to break this cycle when he destroys these beings, thus saving himself and Asgard from their ultimate demise. So when Thor defeats the aforementioned Serpent, he doesn’t die. Instead, he enters a void of non-existence… where he remains until his human alter-ego back on Earth touches Mjolnir, summoning him once more. Not exactly death, but not the kind of life Asgardians are used to, either.
Another close call for Thor can be seen in the Fear Itself event from 2011, with Thor’s uncle the God of Fear manifesting as the World Serpent after centuries of dormancy. The Serpent makes its way to Oklahoma where Asgardians have come to live as refugees after Ragnarok, having replanted the famous World Tree that gives them their longevity. To prevent Thor’s uncle from consuming the Tree, Thor takes on the god in combat, wins, and once again ‘dies’ as a result. Nevertheless, this epic one-on-one battle wasn’t enough to keep the God of Thunder down. Though all memory of him is erased after fighting the World Serpent, Loki and Silver Surfer manage to rescue Thor from limbo and bring him back from death yet again.
So as far as Thor dying permanently (or as ‘permanently’ as Marvel Comics will allow him to), the occasions are rare… but they do exist. What seems to stop him from dying forever has to do with some kind of mythical loophole that de-powers the God of Thunder, or pulls him from dimensions less traveled, in some sort of science-fiction miracle. But in 2018, Marvel Comics teased fans with another death. Just not the one they would typically expect, with death promised in the pages of Death of the Mighty Thor.
In Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman’s The Mighty Thor series – in which Jane Foster holds Thor’s hammer and title for some time – Jane takes on two different enemies. On the human side, she is battling terminal cancer. On the Asgardian side, she is the only hope of saving creation from the Mangog. She possesses the same power as the Odinson, but being separated from it now means taking one step closer to death (since its ‘purging of toxins’ renders her chemotherapy null). When things get dire enough, Jane realizes that if she ever becomes the Mighty Thor again, transforming back will lead to certain death. And in a Ragnarok of her own waging war against the Mangog, that is exactly how things played out.
Jane’s death saw her transported to Asgard, the same place that all the spirits of the great warriors find rest and leisure. So Thor can certainly die… just so long as it isn’t the Thor that everybody (including Norse mythology) assumes. Which is probably why Marvel’s writers have always made sure to give him an out. Les things get even more complicated.
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