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Marvel's New Thor Will Be a Woman

Posted by Soulskill on from the time-to-test-hemsworth's-acting-chops dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Marvel Comics has announced that Thor, the thunder god whose story has been told in comic books, movies, and TV shows since the 1960s, will fall from grace, and no longer be able to wield his hammer Mjolnir. A brand new female character will take up the name Thor and continue the series. Jason Aaron, the series writer, said, "This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it's unlike any Thor we've ever seen before." Marvel's Wil Moss added, "The new Thor continues Marvel's proud tradition of strong female characters like Captain Marvel, Storm, Black Widow and more. And this new Thor isn't a temporary female substitute — she's now the one and only Thor, and she is worthy!"

27 of 590 comments (clear)

  1. Ridiculous! by xfizik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is beyond ridiculous.

    1. Re:Ridiculous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is just lazy pandering. Do they have such little creativity that they best they can do is make a female Thor? This is as pathetic as the Hollywood remake movie spree of the last few decades.

    2. Re:Ridiculous! by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thor is a male god.
      Thor is an established character, based on the mythical Thor.
      Making Thor female is just a publicity stunt.
      Marvel can't create compelling original female characters, but that doesn't mean they should slap tits and a vagina onto existing male characters and hope they stick. What Marvel needs to do is realize that they can't create ANY compelling characters anymore, male or female, and fix that problem first.
      Everyone knows that the real Thor will be back once this "arc" finishes - saying something is permanent in comics is an insult to anyone who reads them.

      Alternatively, Han shot second.

    3. Re:Ridiculous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Thor is a character in Norse mythology. Those stories are part of our cultural heritage. And in those stories, Thor is male.

      This change isn't done because it makes more sense. The Norse Thor didn't have any gender identity issues. This doesn't make the story more interesting or engaging. This is done exclusively as a gimmick to attract audiences of feminists and the obsessively politically correct.

      I think these are bad reasons for making this change to the story. I think there are plenty of opportunities to borrow female heroes from history (Joan of Arc? The goddess Athena?) to create brand new stories of feminine heroism. There is no compelling reason to give Thor a gender change. Its just a (destructive and stupid) attention grab.

    4. Re:Ridiculous! by kruach+aum · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Making Thor a woman is like making Jesus a woman, Mjolnir a screwdriver, or Huginn and Muninn storks. It's like saying "I carpooled to work today" when you came by yourself on your bike, because you want to reclaim the word "carpooling" to refer to biking to work. You can do it, but that doesn't make what you say true. Thor's gender is such a significant feature of his established identity that to change his gender is to change his identity from Thor into Something-that-is-not-Thor. You can say that this new character is both Thor and a woman, but that doesn't make it true.

    5. Re:Ridiculous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just because he prefered the existing gender of a character does not mean that he's misogynist. Not liking change to a beloved character is not a sin. You wouldn't have called him blondist, if he complained after they changed the color of his hair. Comic nerds hate change. They just do. And they love to complain. That's all he's doing complaining about a change.

    6. Re:Ridiculous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Appealing to straight white men like you is even lazier pandering.

    7. Re:Ridiculous! by Bardez · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think that you are mistaking misogyny for something else.

      Misogyny: "dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women"
      Misogyny: "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women."
      Misogynist: "a person who hates women"

      There are female superheroes, so you couldn't be saying that there the statement indicated that there should not be any of those. And Thor was a male god in the mythos, so are you saying that not changing the mythos is hating women? Perhaps you meant that they were speaking in defense of continuity? Or do you instead mean that they are transexualophobes? (what exactly would be the word?)

      Either way, my takeaway from your post is that if anyone were to say that George Washington did not have female reproductive organs, they must be a misogynist.

      --
      Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
    8. Re:Ridiculous! by mvdwege · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Right. So an alien being posing as an Asgardian God? No problem.

      The power of said alien being manifesting in ordinary mortals? No problem.

      Said being a member of a team with among others a Forties soldier who survived decades of being frozen and a man turning into a monster? No problem.

      Incarnating as a woman? HERESY!

      --
      "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
    9. Re:Ridiculous! by Chas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm sorry, but I think sexconker is right.

      This is a gimmick.
      They're going to turn Thor into a guy with a vagina and do some crude stab at "gaining understanding of the female condition".
      In short, it's pandering of the worst and creepiest sort.

      While I'm not a woman, I'd find this sort of treatment both idiotic and insulting in the extreme.
      Since I'm a guy I just think it's idiotic and creepy.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    10. Re:Ridiculous! by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Marvel can't create compelling original female characters

      I disagree. Aunt May has a mysterious side that is only hinted at in the comics. On a more serious note: Rogue, Moonstone, Songbird (screaming mimi), Emma Frost, Mystique, AoA Blink, She-Hulk, and plenty of other women have compelling stories (and no, She-Hulk isn't just tits on a Hulk). Granted, Ororo, Jean Grey, Sue (Storm) Richards, and Alyson Blaire are all pretty boring, but there are equally boring male super heroes (actually, their respective significant others: T'Challa, Scott Summers, Reed Richards, Longshot).
      Actually, now that I think about it, the current time-displaced Jean and Scott from the past are interesting.

      that doesn't mean they should slap tits and a vagina onto existing male characters and hope they stick.

      I agree with this 100%. They can get away with it when it's not an established character (Spider-Woman [all three of them] isn't Spider-Man. She-Hulk isn't Hulk, Lady Bullseye isn't Bullseye, Namorina isn't the Sub-Mariner), but altering an established character arbitrarily (and badly; Thor just recently went through a long disgraced period and regained his honor. Leave the poor godling alone for a while). Maybe give Lady Octopus a chance to be Peter Parker for a while? That should sit well with the fans.

    11. Re:Ridiculous! by Daemonik · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, I think that traditionally the comic book shop has been a very hostile environment for women. The average comic book nerd never believes women read comics in the first place and treat them like idiots. Then it just devolves into yet another place where guys with no sense of boundaries just treat them like shit.

      Statistically, women buy the digital comics more than men do, because it separates the comics from the comic store experience.

      Also, a character doesn't have to be non-sexualized to be popular with women. Women like sex. What the characters have to be are honest portrayals of women, emotionally, sexually and physically, and not some teen boy wank fantasy though.

    12. Re:Ridiculous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >Sure, it would be if she wasn't made to have the same ridiculous and unrealistic body proportions that no woman can live up to.

      How is that different than male superheroes? I've seen some differences in how women and men were portrayed in comics, but this is not one of them.

    13. Re:Ridiculous! by UppercaseM · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is a modern comic inspired by Norse mythology, not a retelling. The old Thor was a stout red head, the next was a blonde pretty boy, the new will be a buff woman. Big deal. Time changes things. It's not like this is the strangest story arc to take place in comics.

    14. Re:Ridiculous! by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a modern comic inspired by Norse mythology, not a retelling. The old Thor was a stout red head, the next was a blonde pretty boy, the new will be a buff woman. Big deal. Time changes things. It's not like this is the strangest story arc to take place in comics.

      Oh, it wouldn't be nearly the most fucked up story from the old sagas either - Loki is a shape changer and the mother of an eight-legged horse for starters - but trying to use the old lore to justify this particular story line doesn't work.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    15. Re:Ridiculous! by electrosoccertux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      right, because keeping with mythology traditions is pandering....

    16. Re:Ridiculous! by Tuidjy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The few comics I read are mostly Humanoid/Vertigo, so I'm not familiar with the original armor... But if it is any less practical than the armor displayed on that screen, it must consist of a funnel channeling all blows to the heart of the wearer.

      Lets see.

      Openings between the helmet and the shoulder pads, to divert blows to the neck. That gorgeous hair must flow!

      Pauldrons coming short of protecting the shoulders. Can't hide too much skin!

      Armpits completely exposed. Those curves must be seen!

      Boob mounds channeling blows towards the center of the chest. What's the point of having a female character if you're not going to draw boobs?!

      The stomach is completely exposed. Even the cloth has a belly window, to make sure that no attacker has any doubts about the entrails being vulnerable.

      Frankly, it is sickening that anyone would call this travesty practical... Female armor should looks like male armor, with slightly different proportions, to account for different shoulder/hip/chest ratios. Once the padding is on, most of the differences are smoothed over.

      Expensive and late period armor that can afford the added weigh would have a single bulge on the chest - to divert the blows, not two to channel them where they would do the most harm.

      --
      No good deed goes unpunished...
    17. Re:Ridiculous! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The whole point is that it is not a new character. It's a cheap attempt to pander to the entire "diversity" and feminist angle by taking something very stereotypically masculine, and slapping a vagina on it, while trying to retain the old associations. That's why it's so offensive and demeaning to precisely the category it's trying to address - their female Thor is showcasing "equality" by taking masculinity and saying "look, females can have a part in all that goodness, too!". So in effect they end up reinforcing the stereotypes - a "strong, independent female character" is, apparently, a female pretending to be male. As opposed to a female being herself.

      And don't even get me started on the whole chainmail bikini angle here, which is also quite prominent.

    18. Re: Ridiculous! by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nice to see the fake nerds are out in force today.

      Apparently none of you whiny children has ever heard of Beta Ray Bill, an orange skinned alien that was considered worthy of wielding Mjolnir (though he eventually ended up with his own hammer, Stormbreaker). He was Thor. He's a goddamn dude from another planet, and you're complaining that Thor can't be a woman?

      Thor in Norse mythology never fought the fucking Hulk or ate shawarma at a local restaurant either. Or lived in the USA. The story is MADE UP. The Marvel version is twice as made up. Try to get a grip. The story goes wherever it needs to.

      http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...

      Beta. Ray. Bill. Get with the cannon, fakers. Or shut the hell up. Both are good.

    19. Re:Ridiculous! by dbIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why not Thor as a lazy Panda!
      I don't really get this since I thought Thor was supposed to be a paticular person and not the job of whoever picks up the hammer, green lantern style.

      However, a young female Thor type has already been done in the animes Nanoha A's and Nanoha StrikerS. Her hammer has a rocket assist.

  2. Re:Congratulations? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They also made Thor come from space, speak English, made Asgard not an afterlife, and changed all sorts of other details.

    What makes this change particularly galling to you?

  3. It makes sense by plopez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One more opportunity for a character with big bazoombas and skimpy clothes to pander to their core reader base.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  4. Re:Tales of Asgard... by savi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, in Norse myth, it was Loki who was fairly transgender, often taking on female form in order to have sex with male creatures (such as an enormous stallion). He gave birth to monstrous demons from these encounters, including Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse.

  5. Outfit by tekrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let me guess... This new female Thor will wear a skimpy outfit, and much less armor than the previous, male Thor. But this is objectification is somehow empowering to women...

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  6. Re:Please, enough. by epyT-R · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yes.

  7. Re:Please, enough. by epyT-R · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You might see it as a problem. I consider the fact you see it as a problem, as the problem (if this was meant as sarcasm, I apologize). What's wrong with white, straight males? Norse mythology comes from scandinavian culture. They are/were largely white. Seems reasonable to me for them to depict their deities as such.

    The name 'Thor' is masculine too. If marvel wanted a new female character, why not create a new one? Either borrow from existing norse mythos like they did with thor, or come up with all new material. I know, what a concept, right? It's pretty clear from the language of the article that this was done for 'grrl power' political correctness and not for any legitimate creative reason.

  8. Proud tradition by jandersen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The new Thor continues Marvel's proud tradition of ...

    ... completely ignoring things like historical background, common knowledge and elementary logic.

    Being Danish, it has always irked me, that this cartoon 'Thor' is portrayed as a tall, sledge-hammer wielding body builder with lanky, blond hair, full body wax and a placid temperament; the traditional thunder-god, son of Odin and married to Sif, was red-haired and -bearded (and generally hairy as a man would be), foul-tempered and wielded a hammer, mjolnir, that was famously short-shafted. I suppose a busty, female 'Thoretta' isn't really all that much further from the original. It just another American, plasticky product, like 'He-Man' and 'Power Rangers'.