She-Thor??

[JeyNyce]

First they kill off Wolverine and now Thor is no longer worthy of Mjolnir.  Marvel is really shaking things up

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/15/5901621/marvels-thor-is-now-a-woman

[deano_ue]

wow so marvel take they're big strong mythical male figure and turn in him into a blonde kick arse warrior women

i wonder what brought this on ohhh what could it be ohh wait

http://www.themarysue.com/the-mary-sue-exclusive-she-ra-reveal/



sure its got nothing to do with this little nugget from DC last week. nope nope nope lol

[BentonGrey]

That's a cool piece of art, TUE.

As for this announcement...yeah, I appreciate Marvel reminding me so often of why I don't read their books.   This is pretty asinine. 

[Starman]

Books starring female characters don't sell as well as the ones lead by men. By taking an established popular character, one with an already intact fanbase, and turning them into a woman, you weed out the "OMGZ NO! THOR CAN'T BE A GIRL! NOOOOO!" crowd from the main line, but people who aren't so ... judgemental ... and evaluate the quality of comics by actually reading them will continue to read. Whereas a Sif ongoing book or one based on a brand new female Asgardian character would not sell anywhere near as close to Thor, and would swiftly be cancelled. It's a clever way of letting a capable writer (Jason Aaron's run on Thor: God of Thunder has been great) get a female character into comics and keep them there.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure everyone here is familiar with comics and knows this won't be a permanent change. Plus, Thor has been a frog before and this is a brand new character (not just Thor transformed into a woman), so I'm not sure why this would upset anyone...

[detourne_me]

Thank you for being reasonable about this Starman!
I wonder if Thor is going anywhere,  or will he be Donald Blake? We've seen previews with Sam Wilson carrying Cap's shield and someone looking like Thor carrying Jarnborn the Celestial Killing axe.

Did the Journey into Mystery title with Sif get cancelled?

[JeyNyce]

From Marvel's website:

http://marvel.com/news/comics/2014/7/15/22875/marvel_proudly_presents_thor

[JeyNyce]

Isn't this how we got ThunderStrike?  She will get her own hammer one day and Thor will be himself again.  But I would love to see her go up against She-Ra!

[laughing paradox]

I like the move for a female Thor. Why not?

I find it interesting that Marvel does not have the same caliber of female icons in their universe like DC does with Wonder Woman, or Catwoman, or Supergirl, or ....

[Tomato]

Er... no. Wonder Woman and Catwoman might be more well known (and to be fair, they've been around far longer) but... Storm, Phoenix, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Shadowcat, Emma Frost, Spider Woman, Lady Sif, Invisible Woman, etc. I don't think it's fair to say that Marvel doesn't have high caliber female characters.

[laughing paradox]

Er.. yes.

Wonder Woman and Catwoman, as well as Supergirl and Batgirl, are iconic. They're past the world of comic books, they've become part of pop culture iconography. You can point them out to anyone in the world and most people would know who they are.

Who from Marvel is on that level? I didn't say the same level of quality female characters.. I said female icons.

[kkhohoho]

Er.. yes.

Wonder Woman and Catwoman, as well as Supergirl and Batgirl, are iconic. They're past the world of comic books, they've become part of pop culture iconography. You can point them out to anyone in the world and most people would know who they are.

Who from Marvel is on that level? I didn't say the same level of quality female characters.. I said female icons.

I'm pretty sure that plenty of people know who Storm is, and maybe Rouge, but the others... eh, not so much. Maybe Black Widow, but only because of the Avengers movie, and it remains to be seen if both the movie and the Widow will stand the test of time.

[BentonGrey]

Hmm, I thought that this was just a gender-swap.  If it's a different character taking up the mantle, that's less stupid.

[spydermann93]

So Thor finds out that he has a sister and then he loses his "worthiness" and another character takes up his mantle?

The plot thickens...

[Starman]

Did the Journey into Mystery title with Sif get cancelled?

Yep, the series was cancelled with issue #655 (Oct. 2013).

[bat1987]

They are changing Captain America too (again). They are trying to shake things up a bit, though I'm sure everyone will be back to their usual at the time for Age of Ultron.

[Podmark]

Hmm...intriguing...curious to see how this plays out. Wouldn't be the first female Thor character though.
Decent chance it's Angela of course.
Not huge on the costume right now, but maybe I just need to see more of it.

[DrMike2000]

This is brilliant!
I really have to hand it to Marvel for their concerted push to increase the diversity of their line up over the past few years. They're in the difficult position in that their main strength is a cast of characters created 50 years ago, and as a result are mostly white-male by default. If you're creating a new cast, diversity is relatively easy.

In the past couple of years they've:
- Pushed existing characters into the forefront, eg She Hulk getting her own book again, Valkyrie and Misty Knight in Fearless Defenders, Sif's run in Journey into Mystery. Black Widow and Elektra have their own books. Most importantly they haven't been deterred by cancellation of some of these books.
- Re-tooled figurehead characters eg Carol as Captain Marvel, now a female Thor
- Created new minorities characters, eg Ms Marvel, the new Ghost Rider, Young Avengers

I'm sure that Thor Odinson will hang around in the background, or in Avengers, and wield the hammer and be Thor again in a few years, but that doesn't invalidate what they're doing here. Progress occurs in steps. The X-Men used to be four white men and one white woman - that's almost unimaginable now thanks to Claremont's sterling efforts (even if the originals literally travel through time form the 60s to now ), and an all-female X-Men team was almost not worth commenting on. Hopefully the whole Marvel U will look more like the X-Books one day soon.

I've been meaning to pick up the Marvel Now Thor trades for a while. I'll be buying the new Thor title for sure, and probably track the trades down too now.

[BentonGrey]

Hah, this response had me laughing:
http://ourvaluedcustomers.blogspot.com/2014/07/regarding-marvels-announcement-that.html

[JeyNyce]

Rumor floating around that the new Thor is Jane Foster

[bredon7777]

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard about and makes Marvel look ignorant of its own continuity:

Thor Odinson is a PERSON.  Mjnolir grants him POWERS.  While I am fine with Thor being judged unworthy and someone else getting to wield Mjnolir, that person gains Thor's POWERS, they do NOT BECOME Thor. Thor still exists. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.

Between this and Cap aging when the super-solider serum gets removed (despite the fact that it has been removed BEFORE with no ill effects) Im wondering why the hell Marvel even bothers with continuity, since I can keep it straight and they cant seem to.

As much as I disliked the NEW 52, starting over like that is really the only way to justify ignoring continuity on this scale.

[BentonGrey]

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard about and makes Marvel look ignorant of its own continuity:

Thor Odinson is a PERSON.  Mjnolir grants him POWERS.  While I am fine with Thor being judged unworthy and someone else getting to wield Mjnolir, that person gains Thor's POWERS, they do NOT BECOME Thor. Thor still exists. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.

Between this and Cap aging when the super-solider serum gets removed (despite the fact that it has been removed BEFORE with no ill effects) Im wondering why the hell Marvel even bothers with continuity, since I can keep it straight and they cant seem to.

As much as I disliked the NEW 52, starting over like that is really the only way to justify ignoring continuity on this scale.

Except, DC has their own continuity snafus because they didn't actually start over entirely.   A truly blank slate would have fixed a lot of problems.

[bredon7777]

Someone else posted this on another forum and I thought it was such a good reason why this is so idiotic:

"This is the equivalent of saying that anyone who wears the Iron Man Armor becomes Tony Stark."

[SickAlice]

I'm on board with the " have to wait and see " to have any feelings towards. I'm projecting I won't care that much either way and I don't think it's a big deal really. I thought female Thor in Earth X worked very well. I agree with much of what Dr.Mike is saying here about Marvel making good strides to both promote equality and do it correctly within their publishing mainframe. The NOW Ms.Marvel is above the call of duty in regards to it's cultural dimensions. Though in the negative some of those books immediately failed. Fearless Defenders, a book which I myself sighed in public upon cancellation do to my fondness for it and on this site even wasn't in reality very complimentary and in many case more an example of selling stereotypes under the guise of understanding culture. Just stating the truth of the matter there, at a point the book got to a point of insinuating every woman is a lesbian including characters who were currently firmly established as hetero and in relationships with men at the time. It came off as degrading and milking the current heavy interest in diversity if only for the sake of it than complimenting and giving an honest understanding of a lifestyle choice to me. As well the book as I said I knew was doomed to fail because while I enjoy reading about characters like it's established bookworm hero as much I do reading Strangers In Paradise I'm part of a very small fraction of people that reads books like that. It's nice to have things out of left and take gambles but in the other hand also a risky proposition especially if it turns away a large portion of your long time consumers. And this is Thor after all. Carol Danvers being a woman isn't a shocking twist because she is one. Nor is her having a series as she consistently has for years. Same for She-Hulk. I'm not certain Black Widow nor Elektra having books is a testament to interest in diversity either as much as it is to having movie tie-ins to bring in film goers as new readership (which in itself is of course not a bad thing either). I'm saying there isn't really an aspect there but I'm not sure it's the companies core nor primary interest and hard to believe it would be since they are after all a company, meaning money and maintaining the product comes first and above all. Which brings me to Thor. I can't really deny that it doesn't seem like much else than a sales gimmick intended to plant media ear worms and turn people on to check out the book just to see what the news is about. A large reason I'm convinced is the fact that Marvel has often shook up Thor over the past years now and Loki for that matter as well and in those cases trying to generate interest and up the readership was the primary goal rather than to be prolific nor for the sake of art. Not as much a a denial against the idea that a proactive statement is being made with this move (though it really doesn't look at way to me any more than when Loki was a woman) but more against the idea that this is going to be a fantastic and inspiring piece of literature, rather I expect it'll read as sort of gimmicky and flat. Again we'll see and whose to say right now but I don't think it will be holding a candle to Aphrodite IX. Nor am I saying it will be trash either and sorry if it comes off like that, more just anything amazing. I'll read it anyways but I read anything I can get my hands as well a comic being a masterpiece isn't a prerequisite to my enjoyment of it.

Noting the bubble convo here as well I'm inclined to agree that Marvel has no iconic female characters. They have known characters but that isn't the same type of thing. In addition to the mentioned ones I can think of that are known and also liked by persons who don't read comics are Jean Grey, She-Hulk and surprisingly Spider-Woman. I've met plenty of middle aged girls that are aware of the character. See Spider-Woman had a cartoon series ages ago that's pretty much irrelevant now and I guess I underestimated the cult power of it myself. I don't really know of it and I'm not really old enough for it to be in my experience. I do remember having a 3d comic from I think some fast food place that was merch for it. Anyways though known and liked still there isn't any Marvel woman that are renowned and beloved symbols of femininity. Which personally I think is sad. That's not considering they have a good enough stable to draw from to turn one or more into an icon either. But added the fact that in this day and age they sort of have the support and resources of one of the industry leaders in creating iconic female hero's and getting in touch with girls, Disney, at their disposal and for that matter the makers of Barbie as well. There really isn't anything to hold them back from making it happen overnight if they wanted to at this stage of the game. It makes me think of something I said about their animated division before. They're stacked and ready to go and they have all the inventory, talent and characters to draw from yet where are the results? It feels like they have the comics (naturally), action figure and now live action areas down packed but the rest are neglected. I heard there's plans to bring some of the Women Of Marvel to Netflix which would get them some friends but making a world known icon does actually take a bit more than that and again things they're easily capable of right now. I do hope they prove me wrong sooner than later. As I do and like many of you hopes WB proves some things wrong as well. It would be nice if for any reason just to see the expansion of the craft itself and for the variety.

[kkhohoho]

Walls of text

Look, I'm not trying to be rude, but can you please stop with the walls of text? Because this isn't the first time you've done this. I still read through the whole thing, but honestly, you could have summed up what you wanted to say with much less text, and also make your message more concise and understandable as a result. Just, in the future, try to cut down on the rampant text, alright?

As for 'She-Thor', honestly, both this, Falcon!Cap, Smart!Hulk, (Did you know they're making Hulk smart again? They're making Hulk smart again. Whoop-de-do,) Superior Ironman, and the forthcoming death of Wolverine aren't all that surprising. It's just felt to me like Marvel's been out of ideas. They've been using the same continuity and have had these characters continue on for so long that they've exhausted their usual types of stories, and now Marvel's felt they have no choice but to go out of left field with some of these characters to make things 'fresh.' Cap gets stranded in a Pulp Fiction-Science dimension for a year; Hulk becomes an agent of shield; Iron Man goes off into space; Wolverine loses his healing factor; Spiderman gets taken over by Doc Ock, etc. They've run the gamut, and are desperate to think of 'new' things to do with these characters, to the point where they're using cheap gimmicks to boost sales. (Well, more than before, anyway.) Whatever happened to just telling good stories, rather than reliance on gimmicks and events? It's why I've been taking a break from modern comics, because I've just been disillusioned by the whole thing. I just feel it's all gotten too ridiculous.

[JeyNyce]

I kind of agree with KKhoho, but I also disagree.  I don't think Marvel is out of ideas, but I think they want to go left field with their heroes.  Doc Ock being Spider-man was a great story arc and it didn't felt like a gimmick.  I'm looking forward to the new Thor, not so much because she's a girl, but more about how did lose his unworthiness? Now stuff like Superior this and Superior that is just something that was a hit and now they're running with it.  Let's face, Marvel is doing this one main reason.....to sell comics, and I have to admit that it is working.

[GhostMachine]

The Thor thing is stupid because the male character's name IS Thor. He's a god, not a superhero. Yet they're going to call the female character Thor.

What's the deal with Superior Iron Man, though? Is Tony Stark being replaced by a villain, turning into a jerk, or what? I've seen the new armor design (I like it), but haven't heard anything about what's going on.

[kkhohoho]

The Thor thing is stupid because the male character's name IS Thor. He's a god, not a superhero. Yet they're going to call the female character Thor.

What's the deal with Superior Iron Man, though? Is Tony Stark being replaced by a villain, turning into a jerk, or what? I've seen the new armor design (I like it), but haven't heard anything about what's going on.

The good news: he's not being replaced by a villain. The bad news: he's turning into a jerk. (Again.) Seriously, we had evil 90's Tony, (Avengers: The Crossing,) Fuhrer Stark, (Civil War,) and now this. It's as if whenever Marvel isn't sure what to do with Tony, they just make him evil or a jerk and think that will somehow make the character more 'interesting.' Yeesh.

[thalaw2]

I didn't see this is big news because Thor has been a woman before or at least many a woman has handled his hammer.

[kkhohoho]

I didn't see this is big news because Thor has been a woman before or at least many a woman has handled his hammer.

...I honestly don't remember that being the case at all, outside of Earth X, which doesn't even take place in the main 616 'verse.

[Glitch Girl]

Off the top of my head...

Storm held it in one of the Annuals (the Asgard one - dang, Art Adams was amazing on that book - here's a shot)  I think she got it back once or twice after that.
EDIT: my bad, that was a different hammer.
EDIT 2: but she did wield it at one point according to this page

The whole Marvel vs DC of the 90's had Wonder Woman holding it, and supposedly that is in continuity.