(no subject)

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Thor will be a woman in the comics, Marvel announces.

Comments

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

Though I must admit it's normally Loki who goes for the shape-shifting cross-dressing ergi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergi) stuff, from what I can remember.

Traditionally the bad guys get all the fun. The new Thor is fucking with the patriarchal gender narrative, but even so...and I hope it will be accepted that I'm not in any way heteronormatively biased - this is just plain fucking wrong. (Though I do admit it would be fun to see Chris Hemsworth do a Charles Dance like drag scene.)

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Anything to not talk about how terrible Marvel Now has been.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well...I guess I stopped reading superhero comics in about '78-'79 apart from the first run of DK returns, Sandman, and Watchmen...obviously I didn't stop reading them then...it just changed slightly. :)

But alongside The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, Marvel comics are part of the hinterland of my youth. Just how bad is Marvel Now?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

That's the bunny.
Lokasenna? Poetic Edda?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Speaking only for myself, Marvel has great characters and mostly terrible comic writing right now, and is getting run in circles in that medium by DC. I've loved most of the New 52 reboot they've done.

The difference, though, is that Marvel is exceptional in the film space, so the comics are of limited relevance the further into the Marvel universe we go. Marvel Now comes across as a knee-jerk response to the New 52, and it basically doesn't work for me, leaving Marvel with ultimately two interesting titles - Hawkeye (which is amazing and strange and modern all at once) and Ultimate Spider-Man (which is written by Brian Michael Bendis and only Brian Michael Bendis, and thus actually appears to make sense across the close to 15 years. Meanwhile, DC can't seem to get their movies together in a competent way unless Christopher Nolan is involed.

But then again, I'm a big Spider-man and Wonder Woman fan, so I may be atypical in some regards.

EDIT: And right after I praise it, Marvel cancels Hawkeye. Go figure.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I think I made into the mid-80's but finally dropped X-Men and Thor and that was that.

I'm reading how the new Fantastic Four film won't be based on previous stories and while I think it may well be a shitshow of epic proportions, I wish them luck.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

As a friend put it, yesterday:

"This is not the first time somebody else has wielded the hammer. It is the first time that the change was questioned because of the identity of the person picking it up rather than because anybody else has."

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

This is where my lack of knowledge in this area fails me. Is "Thor" now a title in the Now universe? Isn't the "original Thor" still a character?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Thor is the Aesir the Hammer was made for. But then his power was placed into it by Dad and then he had to regain it. So there's Thor and the Power of Thor in the Hammer.


"And into this Hammer he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life." - Abe Lincoln

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Think of it like this: Thor is not becoming a woman. A woman is becoming Thor.

This isn't the first time someone else has taken up the hammer and become "Thor" for a time (usually after Thor screws up somehow, and has to redeem himself.)

So Thor is both a name AND a title that many have held: the alien Beta Ray Bill most notable among them. And the "original Thor" is still around, but right now he's just Donald Blake.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Makes sense.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that make Thor Sif?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

No. Sif is a different character, who is not Thor. This is Thor.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

This makes me want to play one of the Valkyrie Profile games.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I need enlightening here...

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

Practically speaking...

EDIT: Aha! Look at this article!

http://time.com/2987551/thor-marvel-woman/ (http://time.com/2987551/thor-marvel-woman/)

"Thor is unable to pick up the hammer. There are a number of women in Thor’s life, and we’re going to tease out for quite awhile the identity of who this woman is. But one of the women in Thor’s life picks up the hammer. She is in fact worthy. And she becomes Thor."

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Yes, and? Be worthy of the power, pick up the hammer, become Thor. That's how it works.

Being worthy of the hammer, and being a woman, does not make you Sif. It makes you Thor.

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I wonder who the worthy lady will be?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Whoever she is, she will be Thor, not Sif.

(unless she was Sif to begin with, in which case she will now be Thor *and* Sif. But regardless of whether or not she was Sif before, she's not BECOMING Sif by becoming Thor.)

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

At any rate, this makes more sense than just deciding Thor should be female. At least there's some rationale behind it within the rules of that universe

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

.... did you miss that *in the source material* Asgardians sometimes turn into women, or horses? The bit about Loki being a woman, then a female horse, then giving birth, isn't Marvel. It's Norse. The grandchild in question is Sleipnir, Odin's horse.

"A woman is now Thor because the worthy person who holds the hammer is Thor, and a worthy woman picked it up" makes MORE sense than most of the Eddas.