Spider-Man, Diversity and "Who Cares?"

happyninja42

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Silvanus said:
Happyninja42 said:
It's a mantle of power, and also a specific person's name, so it gets a little fuzzy. I personally don't care, because my issues with FemThor is the terrible writing and direction they took the story. You want to shake up the story and do something new with it? Fine, I applaud you, go for it. But you better make it work, or kiss my ass.
Certainly, I agree. From what little I've seen of the writing, it doesn't seem stellar.

...But it also doesn't seem uniquely worse than a dozen other contemporary comics I could pull up. It only seems to grind peoples' gears to the same extent when it's a situation like this, in which political correctness (or what-have-you) can be blamed.
I'll take your word for it. I don't read a lot of comics, working in a comic shop for 2 years kind of burned me out on it. I picked up FemThor because I wanted to see where they went with it. It was terrible. And not because she's a woman, but because of the writing. If that's the typical level of writing today in comics then....well....shit how are they making so much money off so much shit? I mean seriously, if that's "average quality writing", why isn't the industry imploding in a giant turd of it's own writing?!

I mean, the Miles Moralis storyline was at least good for a while. I've heard it slacks off quality wise after a while, but the initial arc of him coming into his own was really damn good.

I'll run with just about any story you give me, if it's a good story. That's really my only hangup on these kind of things. I don't care if you make Spiderman a female, purple, alien transvestite drag queen, write a good damn story.
 

Nazrel

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Silvanus said:
Nazrel said:
Thor wasn't gone, he was just unworthy to wield the hammer... because of "reasons".

He still had his inherit godly powers, still on the avengers, but gives up the name he was born with because of "contrivance".

Odin can't lift the hammer, despite the fact he controls the Odinforce, the thing powering both the hammer and the worthiness spell, and Mj?lnir has traditionally been the plaything of him and any others who might posses even the tinyist fraction of the Odinforce, including when old school God of Evil Loki was possessing his body... because of "reasons".

Jane, among all who might try to pick it up, is alone worthy because of "reasons".
Honestly, this doesn't seem any more contrived than a hundred other comic occurrences. Circumstances contrive to further the plot in highly unlikely ways on a daily basis in comics.
Wow... what a gross generalization, and horribly reductive view of the medium.

Your counter argument seems to be "Comics are nonsensical crap, so why are you complaining about them being nonsensical crap?"

No, well written they have an internal logic and consistency; badly written comics are nonsensical crap.

The issue isn't even that the explanations are contrived, it's that they're non-existent.

Silvanus said:
Nazrel said:
There is a half Black half Hispanic Spider-Man, a Black Captain America, and a woman Wolverine, but these threads always inevitability turn to an argument about Thor.

Want to know why? Because it's the one that's stupid!!!
But people do complain about Miles Morales being Spider-Man, and I don't doubt people moaned about a black Captain America and a female Wolverine, too. It's simply not true that it's just this example that provoked people.
I didn't say no one complained about them, I said these kinds of threads inevitability turn into an argument about Thor.

"There is only one true-", and "SJW's ruin everything." aren't real arguments, so the discussion turns to the one character that has valid complaints about them.

Though this is I suppose, based on my own subjective personal observations of these things, as opposed to an actual case study, so it's not exactly incontrovertible fact.
 

Silvanus

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Nazrel said:
Wow... what a gross generalization, and horribly reductive view of the medium.

Your counter argument seems to be "Comics are nonsensical crap, so why are you complaining about them being nonsensical crap?"

No, well written they have an internal logic and consistency; badly written comics are nonsensical crap.
No, that's not what I said at all. I love the comic medium, and read a lot of them. A criticism of one tendency in a medium I love is not a condemnation on all examples of that medium, or the medium itself. Not one bit.

Nazrel said:
I didn't say no one complained about them, I said these kinds of threads inevitability turn into an argument about Thor.

"There is only one true-", and "SJW's ruin everything." aren't real arguments, so the discussion turns to the one character that has valid complaints about them.

Though this is I suppose, based on my own subjective personal observations of these things, as opposed to an actual case study, so it's not exactly incontrovertible fact.
Perhaps, though when people decry (what they see as) pandering, Miles Morales and others are brought up frequently as well. Good writing does not save them, which leads me to think that the quality of writing is not actually the metric people are using half the time.
 

Nazrel

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Silvanus said:
Nazrel said:
Wow... what a gross generalization, and horribly reductive view of the medium.

Your counter argument seems to be "Comics are nonsensical crap, so why are you complaining about them being nonsensical crap?"

No, well written they have an internal logic and consistency; badly written comics are nonsensical crap.
No, that's not what I said at all. I love the comic medium, and read a lot of them. A criticism of one tendency in a medium I love is not a condemnation on all examples of that medium, or the medium itself. Not one bit.
You weren't criticizing it, you were using it as a defense.

Silvanus said:
Nazrel said:
I didn't say no one complained about them, I said these kinds of threads inevitability turn into an argument about Thor.

"There is only one true-", and "SJW's ruin everything." aren't real arguments, so the discussion turns to the one character that has valid complaints about them.

Though this is I suppose, based on my own subjective personal observations of these things, as opposed to an actual case study, so it's not exactly incontrovertible fact.
Perhaps, though when people decry (what they see as) pandering, Miles Morales and others are brought up frequently as well. Good writing does not save them, which leads me to think that the quality of writing is not actually the metric people are using half the time.
Decrying a character just because they are a woman/ethic minority is idiotic; conversely, so is blanketly defending said woman/ethic minority characters from criticism, with a total disregard for the validity of said criticism.
 

Silvanus

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Nazrel said:
You weren't criticizing it, you were using it as a defense.
I know my own intention, y'know. It was a wider criticism, intended to place the specific example of Jane Foster in context.

Nazrel said:
Decrying a character just because they are a woman/ethic minority is idiotic; conversely, so is blanketly defending them from criticism, with a total disregard for the validity of said criticism.
Indeed! Glad we're on the same page.

I didn't do that.
 

Nazrel

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Silvanus said:
Nazrel said:
You weren't criticizing it, you were using it as a defense.
I know my own intention, y'know.
Well other people don't.

Silvanus said:
It was a wider criticism, intended to place the specific example of Jane Foster in context.
How was it doing that?

Please be clear, I'm very confused at this point, cause it came off as hand waving the criticism away.
 

Jetfan007

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Silvanus said:
Perhaps, though when people decry (what they see as) pandering, Miles Morales and others are brought up frequently as well. Good writing does not save them, which leads me to think that the quality of writing is not actually the metric people are using half the time.
Those characters are typically brought up by people trying to defend FemThor, in a "you OBVIOUSLY hate these characters, too, you racist homophobic islamophobic ass" context. Which leads the accused to the good-writing defense, which is rarely believed by the accuser. Otherwise, they're brought up as examples of how to make a change, even a pandering change, in the right way: with well written stories that prove the character to be a worthwhile addition rather than a cheap stunt.

If the question is, "Who cares," the answer is that if it's written well no one actually does. No one that reads the comics, at least. These changes are not targeted at comic readers, though, and particularly FemThor was not targeted at people that actually read comics. It was an attempt to leverage Thor's name and mainstream popularity in order to draw in readers of a certain demographic by being "progressive." That's not how to draw in readers, though. It may draw in spectators, but not readers. Readers want engaging, well-written stories. The demographic they targeted does not care about the story, only the spectacle.

This whole, "comics are almost entirely white and male" nonsense is just that, nonsense. It's stated by people that know very little of the depths of Marvel's and DC's (and Image, and every other major publisher's) libraries. There are a number of characters of all genders, races and even religions (I'd bet the average "diversity" complainer doesn't know or even care that Kitty Pryde is Jewish, for example) but these characters never took off in a massive way. That doesn't make them good characters, but it doesn't negate their existence. What annoys readers isn't necessarily that Marvel is choosing to make changes, but that they're making the cheapest, stuntiest changes they possibly can. They have many female characters they could be promoting more, but they chose to change Thor instead. That's worse than just not creating a new character (which can, of course, be very difficult), it's insulting to the fans of the existing ones, their writers and artists and the characters themselves.

When the writing is such garbage, it just amplifies those issues. It's Marvel showing disrespect to its own history and library. That's what annoys me most, the flagrant disrespect.
 

Silvanus

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Nazrel said:
Well other people don't.
Well, you didn't. But now y'do!

Nazrel said:
How was it doing that?

Please be clear, I'm very confused at this point, cause it came off as hand waving the criticism away.
Well, it was pointing out that contrivance (or unlikely circumstance) are actually fairly common in the medium. I say that as a fan. The point being that Jane Foster is not a unique example of contrivance, nor actually a particularly noteworthy one.

Jetfan007 said:
Those characters are typically brought up by people trying to defend FemThor, in a "you OBVIOUSLY hate these characters, too, you racist homophobic islamophobic ass" context.
I... don't believe you, frankly. I've never seen that sentiment expressed, and it looks like a pretty big exaggeration.
 

Bob_McMillan

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Silvanus said:
Nazrel said:
There is a half Black half Hispanic Spider-Man, a Black Captain America, and a woman Wolverine, but these threads always inevitability turn to an argument about Thor.

Want to know why? Because it's the one that's stupid!!!
But people do complain about Miles Morales being Spider-Man, and I don't doubt people moaned about a black Captain America and a female Wolverine, too. It's simply not true that it's just this example that provoked people.
If anyone has a problem with Miles Morales, I think they have stopped caring over the years. But I think that no one has a problem with the in-universe reasons for him becoming Spider-man. And TBH, that's all I care about.

All I know is, very little people have a problem with female Wolverine. First, because the old Wolverine is actually dead (while Steve Rogers and Thor Odinson are just lounging about), and not killed off just to have a new one (ala Ultimate Peter Parker). Second, she makes sense. Laura Kinney is X-23, a clone, and is literally Wolverine except without a metal skeleton and has the third claw on her foot. She truly was Logan's sidekick, hell she's pretty much his daughter, and considered taking up the mantle out of respect for him. She is the most obvious and reasonable choice for the new Wolverine. Third, her comics are just plain good. And that what's important, no?

TLDR; If you want to have a new character take up the mantle without people throwing shitstorms a) Don't do random shit to the original just so you can have the new one b) take time to develop your character, so that people actually care about them and the character actually makes sense for the role and c) don't turn the comic into a mouthpiece for some agenda, and just make GOOD STORIES.

I just felt like replying because the new Wolverine series is one of my favorites of the post-Secret War Marvel lineup.
 

Therumancer

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Silvanus said:
But people do complain about Miles Morales being Spider-Man, and I don't doubt people moaned about a black Captain America and a female Wolverine, too. It's simply not true that it's just this example that provoked people.

.
Very true, however it's more accurate to say that people want Steve Rogers and Peter Parker in the respective roles, just as they want Thor to be Thor as he's always been. The racist accusations seem to mostly be the political spin thrown onto this entire thing. To be fair when it comes to Cap for example people didn't want Walker or Barnes (Winter Soldier) filling in for him full time either. Neither X-23 or her precursor "Wild Thing" (pretty obscure) were an issue because they were treated as separate, and distinct entities, never pretending to be "the" Wolverine.

I've been of the opinion for a while that if they decided to stop calling Milo, errr excuse me Miles "Spider Man" there likely wouldn't be an issue either. Having other spider-heroes around has not been a big deal, but they have their own, unique, names. "The Scarlet Spider" is a good example of how to properly handle such things.
 

RedRockRun

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Diversity isn't the problem - people take umbrage with the fact that filmmakers, TV producers, and comic writers want to feel like heroes by "standing up" for the "disenfranchised".
 

Nazrel

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Silvanus said:
Nazrel said:
How was it doing that?

Please be clear, I'm very confused at this point, cause it came off as hand waving the criticism away.
Well, it was pointing out that contrivance (or unlikely circumstance) are actually fairly common in the medium. I say that as a fan. The point being that Jane Foster is not a unique example of contrivance, nor actually a particularly noteworthy one.
Again, more a lack explanation then contrivance; but you do acknowledge these things are badly written, worthy of criticism, and not to be excused or emulated, correct?
 

Mikeybb

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I've always had an idea in my head floating around since I first heard that there was going to be a female Thor.
Wondering how they were going to implement it I started (as every massive nerd does) theory crafting.
How to make a female Thor, I pondered...

Make her the daughter that Thor never knew he had, either through some midgard relationship of times long gone or with an Aesir of low rank.
A daughter that Odin, the all seeing, knows about but due to her lowly origin has kept this knowledge hidden.

Thor was a bit of a wild one in the recent past you see (recent to gods that is).
So much so he needed a lesson in humility so great that he was placed in the body of a mortal midgardian who needed a walking stick to get about.
Who knows what unworthy deeds he could have got up to in this shameful past?

This would have helped in two ways.

Firstly, she could be legitimately named ">insert name here< Thorsdottir".
That's a bit of a mouthful, but shortens quite easily into the obvious.

Secondly, people have been wondering for a very long time what Thor was told in that whisper which robbed him of his sense of worthiness.

To learn that you have a child that you never acknowledged left in the wake of your most shameful era of behaviour, a child likely as tumultuous and willful as you were in your youth, to be raised by a mother alone and unprepared for the challenge of raising a godling...
That, and what suffering that resulted, would be enough to make him feel as unworthy as he once truly was.

Such a path could have opened the possibilities of Game of Thrones like maneuvering between members of the Aesir nobility in the background of all the heroics, those who knew her secret, those who want to use this new, powerful and politically naive (at the start) piece in their own machinations.
The new Thor, of course, is more concerned with helping people.
Driven to live up to the heroic example of her father (whether she knew his true identity or not), she would have stepped up at the time depicted knowing that the world still needs the god of thunder.
"There must always be a Thor", as the lady herself said.

Of course, I went spiralling off into my own far more horrible fanfic level ideas of what you could do with such a character.
Obviously the answer of "someone else more worthy picked up the hammer" was a disappointment and, of course, I got a little hung up on the idea of goldilocks having to give over his hammer piloting license and ID with the transaction.

I can understand why they chose to go the way they did.
The mystery angle is hard to pull off in comics at the best of times and, if you're going to have a shock reveal of who a person really is, then having it be an already established character grabs more gasps and hopefully sales.

I just always thought the lineage of a "Thorsdottir" storyline would have satisfied the old school of fans, introduced a new character and given the writers something very interesting to play around with regarding the relationship between a regretful absentee father and a strong young hero carrying the burden of such a lineage of heroism while attempting to define her own place in a new, far larger world than the one she grew up in.
 

Something Amyss

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RedRockRun said:
Diversity isn't the problem - people take umbrage with the fact that filmmakers, TV producers, and comic writers want to feel like heroes by "standing up" for the "disenfranchised".
Come now, this is about Spider-Man, not superheroes and empo...ohhhhhh!
 

Silvanus

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Nazrel said:
Again, more a lack explanation then contrivance; but you do acknowledge these things are badly written, worthy of criticism, and not to be excused or emulated, correct?
I'd agree to that. I love the medium, but that's one of its worst tendencies. And, from what I've seen posted about Jane Foster-Thor (Jane Thorster?), the writing isn't great-- but other writers will probably take the helm at some point.

RedRockRun said:
Diversity isn't the problem - people take umbrage with the fact that filmmakers, TV producers, and comic writers want to feel like heroes by "standing up" for the "disenfranchised".
Who're you quoting?
 

hermes

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I have no problem with it as long as it is written competently and not transparent in its intention of making them comic book events to sell more. For example, I have no issue with the new Ms Marvel or Miles Morales' Spiderman, because they are, for the most part, decently written and not just "a core hero with a new look"; I do take issue with changing an established character to appeal to diversity and making a marketing push of it, like (new) Thor and (old) Green Lantern...

Not that diversity in comic book characters is not a good thing, but advertising it for its own sake feels like a calculating, poor way of handling it.
 

Silverspetz

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Nazrel said:
Silvanus said:
webkilla said:
never mind that it takes a huge crap on established comic-Thor lore. You wield the hammer, fine? You wield the power of thor, but you don't get his name. That has never been how it worked.
Well, no, but there's nothing stopping Foster calling herself Thor. As I understood it, she took the name because she believed the world needed a Thor in Odinson's absence-- much like Jean-Paul Valley or Dick Grayson taking the mantle of Batman. They're not literally becoming him, but they believe the role needs to be filled.

That's not a crap on Thor-Lore (Thore?).
Thor wasn't gone, he was just unworthy to wield the hammer... because of "reasons".

He still had his inherit godly powers, still on the avengers, but gives up the name he was born with because of "contrivance".

Odin can't lift the hammer, despite the fact he controls the Odinforce, the thing powering both the hammer and the worthiness spell, and Mj?lnir has traditionally been the plaything of him and any others who might posses even the tinyist fraction of the Odinforce, including when old school God of Evil Loki was possessing his body... because of "reasons".

Jane, among all who might try to pick it up, is alone worthy because of "reasons".

She then appropriates the name of this still living god without permission (after the fact doesn't count.)

This half dead mortal with no martial training is now wielding it better then the actual god with the millennia worth of experience... because of "reasons".

There is a half Black half Hispanic Spider-Man, a Black Captain America, and a woman Wolverine, but these threads always inevitability turn to an argument about Thor.

Want to know why? Because it's the one that's stupid!!!

P.S. Read the Masterson arc to see this concept done competently.
1. The mystery of what exactly made Thor unworthy is just that, a mystery. You don't need to know it.

2. He only gave up his name AFTER a new Thor was chosen. It makes sense because he is no longer the God of thunder and that title now belongs to Jane. It's not that hard to understand. (And as a matter of fact that IS how it worked since the beginning. You pick up the hammer and you become Thor. Then they retconned it.)

3. I don't know why Odin can no longer cheat the hammer spell by using the Odinforce but it seems pretty obvious that he isn't worthy himself because a subplot of the story is that there is something very wrong with Odin.

4. As for why Jane alone is worthy, that is a lot easier to explain. It has always been pretty vague as to what the hammer considers "worthy" but one key virtue has always been humility. That is literary why Odin originally punished Thor by putting him in the body of a disabled mortal. Physical prowess has absolutely nothing to do with it so bringing up that she is "half dead" as if it should be a disqualifier is pointless. It makes a great deal of sense that Jane, a mortal who is constantly aware of her own mortality due to being sick with cancer, would have the kind of humility the hammer seeks. She is also a sufficiently good and very intelligent person and having seen the hammer in action numerous times she could use it reasonably well. No one has said she uses it better than the original Thor but she is smart enough to find new and inventive ways of using it.

5. As I recall, she never really referred to herself as Thor until the original gave it to her.
Also, "appropriated"? Really? That isn't really something you can do with personal names you know.

In short, no one is dismissing your criticisms because the character is a woman. We are dismissing them because they are poorly thought out and easily dismissable. At best they are nitpicks about the kind of minor inconcistancies that all comics are guilty of, yet somehow they become unforgivable sins when it is about a fmeal character.
 

GestaltEsper

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Y'know, times like this, when I see people still arguing about a female Thor it makes me think...whatever happened to Thor-Girl?
 

Nazrel

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Silverspetz said:
Nazrel said:
Silvanus said:
webkilla said:
never mind that it takes a huge crap on established comic-Thor lore. You wield the hammer, fine? You wield the power of thor, but you don't get his name. That has never been how it worked.
Well, no, but there's nothing stopping Foster calling herself Thor. As I understood it, she took the name because she believed the world needed a Thor in Odinson's absence-- much like Jean-Paul Valley or Dick Grayson taking the mantle of Batman. They're not literally becoming him, but they believe the role needs to be filled.

That's not a crap on Thor-Lore (Thore?).
Thor wasn't gone, he was just unworthy to wield the hammer... because of "reasons".

He still had his inherit godly powers, still on the avengers, but gives up the name he was born with because of "contrivance".

Odin can't lift the hammer, despite the fact he controls the Odinforce, the thing powering both the hammer and the worthiness spell, and Mj?lnir has traditionally been the plaything of him and any others who might posses even the tinyist fraction of the Odinforce, including when old school God of Evil Loki was possessing his body... because of "reasons".

Jane, among all who might try to pick it up, is alone worthy because of "reasons".

She then appropriates the name of this still living god without permission (after the fact doesn't count.)

This half dead mortal with no martial training is now wielding it better then the actual god with the millennia worth of experience... because of "reasons".

There is a half Black half Hispanic Spider-Man, a Black Captain America, and a woman Wolverine, but these threads always inevitability turn to an argument about Thor.

Want to know why? Because it's the one that's stupid!!!

P.S. Read the Masterson arc to see this concept done competently.
1. The mystery of what exactly made Thor unworthy is just that, a mystery. You don't need to know it.
You have a massive character development of the hero the story's been following, that's completely independent of the development of said hero i.e. Nick Fury whispers something in his ear and instant unworth, and the author can't even be bothered to let the audience know why.

Then they shift to a new main character, who's plot doesn't seem to be in anyway playing into finding this out.

That's bad writing.


Silverspetz said:
2. He only gave up his name AFTER a new Thor was chosen. It makes sense because he is no longer the God of thunder and that title now belongs to Jane. It's not that hard to understand. (And as a matter of fact that IS how it worked since the beginning. You pick up the hammer and you become Thor. Then they retconned it.)
No, he was being emo, and calling himself "the Odinson" when the hammer was still just laying on the moon; and yes the title is God of Thunder, not Thor, Thor's his given name.

It would still be contrived regardless, of when he started calling himself the "the Odinson".

and though it the initial conceit was that you turned into Thor, (though an argument could be made it was simply changeling his power.), the retcon that was made, was that Donald Blake never existed and he was Thor the whole time, stripped of his memory and bonded to human form to teach him humility, and this happened back in 68 (the character only being introduced in 62.) so that was only the case 6 years out of the 54 years of the franchise.

Silverspetz said:
3. I don't know why Odin can no longer cheat the hammer spell by using the Odinforce but it seems pretty obvious that he isn'the worthy himself because a subplot of the story is that there is something very wrong with Odin.
You might have a point, there could be a valid plot reason for this, though unless he's lost the Odinforce it really shouldn't matter what else is happening to him.

Silverspetz said:
4. As for why Jane alone is worthy, that is a lot easier to explain. It has always been pretty vague as to what the hammer considers "worthy" but one key virtue has always been humility. That is literary why Odin originally punished Thor by putting him in the body of a disabled mortal. Physical prowess has absolutely nothing to do with it so bringing up that she is "half dead" as if it should be a disqualifier is pointless. It makes a great deal of sense that Jane, a mortal who is constantly aware of her own mortality due to being sick with cancer, would have the kind of humility the hammer seeks. She is also a sufficiently good and very intelligent person and having seen the hammer in action numerous times she could use it reasonably well. No one has said she uses it better than the original Thor but she is smart enough to find new and inventive ways of using it.
I can't really say, yeah or nay on what makes her worthy.

As for the half dead, it relates more to an issue of lack of agency, and the no martial training was the more relevant point.

The hammer is doing everything, she's contributing nothing; the idea of her of picking this stuff up just by watching him is ridicules.

Let's go back to the Masterson arc shall we; he was literally sharing his body with Thor before hand, and when he was shoved into role of interim God of Thunder (though the title was actually "protector of earth"), had absolutely no idea what he was doing and had his ass kicked by a single troll, and never got anywhere close to Thor in skill. (At least as interim God of Thunder, no idea if did as Thunder Strike.)

She kicks the asses of several frost giants and does stuff that real Thor didn't know was possible with the hammer first day.

You need a balance between magic macguffin and character, otherwise the character is irrelevant.

It's the difference between one who has mastered a weapon of legend, and a flesh puppet moved around by a magic mallet.

Also, the "I'm more awesome then you." moment; kinda obnoxious, which is not helped by the fact we have no idea why he's unworthy in the first place.

Silverspetz said:
5. As I recall, she never really referred to herself as Thor until the original gave it to her.
Also, "appropriated"? Really? That isn't really something you can do with personal names you know.
(Double checks)

You appear to be correct.

Still contrived.

Silverspetz said:
In short, no one is dismissing your criticisms because the character is a woman. We are dismissing them because they are poorly thought out and easily dismissable. At best they are nitpick about the kind of minor inconcisatncies that all comics are guilty of, yet somehow they become unforgivable sins when it is about a female character.
No, these are unforgivable sins regardless of race or gender. Perhaps I just have high standards.

Maybe some of this stuff will eventually be explained in an acceptable manner, but some of it is just a matter of poor execution.

I'll admit to not having kept up with it, but it's been almost 2 years and as far as people have told me none of this has been addressed.

(All right, to be fair, secret wars did throw a speed bump in everyone's way.)
 

Zenja

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First, the main argument behind the campaigns for gender/race bending for more representation is that "race/gender doesn't matter". Yet, clearly they don't believe this because that is all they seem to be able to focus on. If an overabundance of white people bothers you, then race MATTERS to you. It is racist in its own way, at least in the USA.

In the USA, you have 3 white people for every 1 person of non-white ethnicity. They are going to outnumber minorities. They just are, because there is more of them. Now, in comics this is not as true because the characters are drawn - but clearly making a white character automatically makes a much larger demographic identify with your character. So that point MUST be made if only to keep everyone's head in a realistic demographic position. That is to say, we use the term 'minority' for a reason in regards to race.

Now, let's look at James Bond for a second, the chauvinistic white male that he is. Every one thinks Sean Connery is THE definitive James Bond, by a landslide at that. You can weigh in all you want (I am a Moore fan myself), but the majority of fans prefer Connery. My guess is because he is the original. This happens a lot in media. AC/DC, Van Halen, or anytime a new face joins a popular franchise replacing someone in a starring position. To the point that changing leads risks ruining the franchise.

So when the line comes up "I don't want to be black spider-man, I just want to be spider-man", that seat is taken by Peter Parker. Peter Parker is Spiderman, just as when Ben Reilly (a white guy that looked EXACTLY like Peter) was deemed the 'real' spiderman people still insisted on referring to him as Ben or the clone or Scarlet Spider even while cannon said it was Peter who was the clone. People would not accept that they collected comics of the clone for 30 years. Fan backlash convinced Marvel to set things right and make Peter the real one, not Ben.

You can't take a character people have been collecting for years and simply toss all that development in the metaphorical trashcan and expect fans to embrace it. You can expect people who don't read it to embrace it though because it is controversial, and they don't see where the problem is because they haven't been invested this whole time. Spiderman took a clone of Peter Parker himself and said "that's the real one" and people got pissed. They changed him out for a clone of himself and it still spits on the fans. It wouldn't have went any better if they killed him and brought in a black guy.

I don't know about you all but I would like to see some heroes actually retire. Not some story where the story starts off with them retired but has an excuse to dawn the costume again like Batman often does. But if Peter Parker grew old with Mary Jane and maybe had some kids, maybe not. But then every so often in the story, he was visited by some newer superheroes while he is tinkering with some gadget in his garage and works as a engineering professor at a local college.