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Marvel's New Thor Will Be a Woman
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!"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.