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As the Avengers regroup following their battle with the Winter Guard, Thor and one of his teammates quickly find themselves at odds.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Avengers #48, on sale now from Marvel.
Carrying the reputation as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the Avengers have become one of the biggest targets in the Marvel Universe, with plenty of rival teams taking on the heroes every step of the way. The Avengers’ latest conflict, with the Russian superhero team the Winter Guard, left the Avengers shaken as they were betrayed by one of their own and attacked in their headquarters of Avengers Mountain. And as the heroes begin to pick up the pieces from this recent attack and develop a strategy to recover the kidnapped She-Hulk, it quickly becomes clear that distrust and interpersonal friction is forming between Thor and the team’s latest recruit Phoenix.
Recently, the Avengers and several other prominent heroes and villains encountered a rogue Phoenix Force when the fiery, cosmic entity arrived on Earth in search for a new human host to bond with. As the candidates to become the new Phoenix took each other on a series of fights around the world, Thor was shocked to learn that the Phoenix of 1,000,000 B.C. was his biological mother after she formed a romance with Odin as the two defended the prehistoric planet together. And as the Phoenix Force settled on its new host Maya Lopez, the superhero Echo, Avengers #48 — by Jason Aaron, Javier Garron, David Curiel and VC’s Cory Petit — makes it clear that the God of Thunder does not wish to be on speaking terms with the new Phoenix, despite being on the same team.
Staying at Avengers Mountain to undergo testing of her new abilities under the watchful supervision of Black Panther, Echo notes that she has the Phoenix Force’s memories, including the earth-shattering revelation Thor received. When Echo attempts to speak with Thor about this, hoping to provide him with some of the answers he had been seeking, the God of Thunder brusquely dismisses her and storms away, with both heroes visibly upset by the unresolved tension regarding Thor’s parentage and what Maya Lopez has since inherited after bonding with the Phoenix Force.
In his defense, Thor has had much drama going on in his life as of late, especially in regards to his longstanding familial issues. Since taking the throne of Asgard, Thor’s relationship with his father has strained to the breaking point while he has yet to speak with the woman who raised him as his mother, Frejya, since the revelation that the Phoenix and not Gaea is his biological mother. All these pressures are exacerbated by recent development of She-Hulk being kidnapped by the Winter Guard and transformed by the Red Room, with Thor having formed a serious romantic relationship with her shortly after she joined the current iteration of the Avengers.
Thor and Echo both have a lot going on in their respective lives right now but Echo’s attempts to help Thor navigate the shocking reveal about his family have been firmly rebuffed. With the Avengers preoccupied with the Winter Guard and stemming the destruction unleashed by She-Hulk, in her new form as the Winter Hulk, there are bigger matters for the two heroes to focus on but, in the meantime, two of the Avengers’ heaviest hitters are currently and uncomfortably not on speaking terms. And with the Avengers at their best and strongest when they stand together, this fissure could lead to disastrous consequences for the team moving forward.
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