Two Avengers Kiss for the First Time

The Avengers are Earth's Mightiest Heroes, a band of heroes who, through bonds forged in battle and elsewhere, become like a family. Today's Avengers #4 -- from the creative team of Jason Aaron, Paco Medina, Ed McGuinness, Juan Vlasco, Mark Morales, and David Curiel -- showed that a certain pair of Avengers may be growing into something even more.

SPOILERS for Avengers #4 follow.

Since the relaunch of Avengers earlier this year, the hastily reformed team of heroes have been dealing with a crisis of an epic scale. Loki has seemingly returned to his villainous ways and brought the First Host, a group of Dark Celestials, down to Earth to "cure" the world.

Desperate for a clue as to how to stop the First Host, the Avengers split into teams to investigate further. Captain Marvel and Black Panther went to Alpha Flight headquarters to scan the group's databanks for answers. Doctor Strange and Iron Man went to Mount Olympus to ask the Eternals, a race of beings created by the Celestials, for help. She-Hulk and Thor went to Asgard to seek the wisdom of Odin, whose prehistoric team of Avengers encountered the First Host eons ago. Ghost Rider, being left out of the other Avengers' plans, drove off to try to find and rescue Captain America, who had been captured by Loki and the First Host.

Odin wasn't much help to She-Hulk and Thor. He seemed utterly convinced that the Final Host could not be stopped. However, he was more than happy to provide the Avengers with armaments to help them go down in a blaze of glory. If they're going to die, they might as well die well.

Odin presented the Avengers with a door which She-Hulk was quick to break down. Inside the door was a wall of ice. She-Hulk and Thor teamed up to smash through the ice and eventually came face-to-face with their prize, the Blood of Ymir, father of giants.

However, the Blood of Ymir was kept in a room with immense cold, either emanating from the blood itself or otherwise surrounding it. The cold was so strong that even the mighty god of thunder felt its effects. Thor was about to succumb to its effects, but She-Hulk stepped in, claiming to be "the warmest one there is," and did what she needed to do to save Thor:

This kiss occurs in an extreme situation, so whether there are romantic feelings behind it is unclear. It could be a major step for both of these heroes, who have suffered some traumatic experiences in their romantic lives recently.

Thor's last kiss was with Thor -- the other Thor -- Jane Foster just before she succumbed to her cancer after flinging Mjolnir into the Sun. Thor believed he was saying goodbye at that moment, but he and Odin were able to use their combined power to revive Jane Foster.

At the start of Civil War II, Thanos' attack on Project Pegasus left She-Hulk physically wounded and emotionally scarred. That, plus the death of her cousin Bruce Banner, put such stress on her psyche that her current, more savage Hulk personality came to the fore.

Could this be the first step towards healing for both Thor and She-Hulk?

Avengers #4 is now on sale.

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article mistakenly stated that Jennifer Walters and James Rhodes were an item before Civil War II when Rhodey was actually with Carol Danvers, not Jen. Corrections have been made.