Though “Game of Thrones” helmer Brian Kirk was rumoured this time last week to be the favourite to take the reigns on Marvel’s “Thor” sequel, Variety reports that Patty Jenkins, who also hails from the world of TV (she’s a director on AMC’s “The Killing”), has emerged as the frontrunner for the job.

The trade says Kirk moved onto something else so Marvel has begun courting Jenkins, director of Charlize Theron’s biggie “Monster”, to take over where “Thor” director Kenneth Branagh left off.

Drew Goddard (“Cabin in the Woods”), James McTeigue (“Ninja Assassin”), Noam Murro (“300: Battle of Artemesia”) and Breck Eisner (“The Crazies”) had also been rumoured for the job at one time or another.

Meanwhile, Marvel’s main-man Kevin Feige has confirmed that Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster will return for the follow-up.

Speaking to EW, Feige said the new film will “take Thor literally to other worlds” and that the sequel would “primarily be the journey of that character, of he and Jane Foster and how the new dynamic with his father is working out, as well as what are the broader stakes for The Nine Worlds”.

So you comic-book fans happy that the sequel will take place more in these unexplored cosmic worlds and less on modern-day Earth?