Thor Is Getting Gender-Flipped. Officially.

[Tono Makt]

I'm cautiously optimistic about this. I will probably buy the first few issues, see if it's worth the investment of time and money, something I haven't done with a comic book in more than 15 years. Then I'll make up my mind about it.

 

[Belaam]

This is a bit weird, because Thor is his name, right? I mean, it's not his superhero alias, like Spider-Man or Batman -- a title that could be passed on. Thor is Thor. He's a guy called Thor.

This. You can't call Batgirl Bruce Wayne. A female Martian Manhunter wouldn't be called J'onn J'onzz. Supergirl is not called Kal'El. My boss is named Laura; if I take over her job, my name doesn't become Laura. Thor is a name. It's not a title, an alias, etc. It is explicitly a Scandinavian -male- name that means "Thunder".

I love the idea of more press for a female superhero brawler. Captain Marvel would be perfect. Would love to see her get her own movie. I'd buy tons (more) of her merchandise for my daughters. I'd be down with Sif or Freya taking over from Thor.

But Thor's replacement being somehow suddenly named Thor is just dumb.

Oh, unless Thor gets magically turned into a woman. Which would make sense for her to keep the name Thor. . . . And be insanely problematic if the idea of being a woman was seen as a punishment.

 

[BeeGeenie]

I demand that they do this with all their heroes, and start calling all their female heroes by their male counterparts' names.

Spidergirl's new name is Peter Parker. Supergirl's new name is Kal El, but just call her Clark. Batgirl is now Bruce, etc.

 

[Drake Barrow]

I'm distinctly 'meh' on this. On the one hand, there was a whole What If...? where Rogue got Thor's powers and the ability to wield the hammer. Interestingly, the only reason she could even do it was that she was worthy in the first place. Bottom line: not without precedent, and not in and of itself a completely objectionable judgement.

On the other hand, this smacks of Superman Red/Superman Blue to me. That is, a way to make hash of a completely legitimate character. I like Miles Morales and Val-Zod because they're reasonable methods to make a new character while keeping the original name. This is a little clumsy for my taste.

Bottom line, I'll withhold judgement and see if it's any good. If it is, go Marvel for making a worthwhile comic! If not, then not.

 

[faefrost]

Considering the runaway success that Ms. Marvel has been so far... if this move gets a lot of support and we all go out and buy Thor comics, there'll be a real chance that we might be on the verge of triggering a major industry shift. I hope this comic is good because it would be so cool. If that is a picture of her, she seems to look fantastic at least.

..heck this might even 'save' DC. If Marvel goes through this huge industry warping shift where it realises that there was a huge chunk of the population they weren't selling comics too and now can, both with the Marvel Movieverse and the comics. Maybe DC will get over all this '30 year old men like dark and gritty' stuff that they've been going through recently.

And then maybe they'll uncancel Young Justice because it's no longer a problem that it attracts a female audience. Hey, I can dream.

The thing is, in spite of the name being a poorly conceived way to quickly lock down a possible character rights issue alongside Spider-Woman and She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel has always been a pretty solid, built from the ground up female character. (ok her first few appearences were unbelievably 70's female stereotypes as written by jewish white guys, but still...) My point is while having some connection to Captain Marvel, she was not simply that character with tits bolted on. she grew evolved, and 30 years later stepped into Captain Marvel's title. and they began organically developing a new Ms. Marvel. It feels right, and proper, and the way it should go. It didn't feel like a cheap patronizing stunt.

Whereas this one? It sounds like somebodies bad erotic fan fiction trying to mask itself as feminism. It's just... WHY? Yeah a good writer may be able to do something halfway interesting with it. But a good editor would have taken cyanide after killing the marketing shills with his bare hands before ever letting it get that far. This isn't a real character. It's Fem-Shep. It's Ms. Pac Man. It's like one of those Silver Age stories where Superman grows boobs and Lois Lane gets a Penis. The fact that the producers probably cannot see why this is a bad thing is probably the most disturbing.

And what makes it worse is we all know exactly how this is going to end. I mean every one of us. Precisely 24 months after this begins good old Thor will be back, and Thunderchick will have been handed either Thunderstrikes mace or the other Uru hammer that Loki originally had forged for Storm years ago in the New Mutants XMen Asgardian stories. 24 months to the day and things will be back to normal. Because that is exactly the length of any editorial mandate like this.

And do they really think that this will grow any readers? (Did putting Boobs and a Vagina on Loki help with that a few years back?)

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

what is it with comics and the whole recent swapping of genders and skin colors for characters? i know its to draw attention and get more money.. but it still makes no sense.. to me Thor will always be a guy.. electro will be a white guy that was a former electrical engineer and Beast boy will be green not red colored..

 

[Frozengale]

Speaking as someone who rarely reads comics and only really knows Thor via snippets of info from the Internet, Video Games, and the movies, my view can be summed up as such:

Spoiler

I'm more surprised that so many people seem to care. Weird changes happening in comic books aren't exactly a "new" thing. Thor comics will now be from the perspective of a lady now. Okay, sure, why not.

 

[scotth266]

Before people go nuts, I would like to remind everyone that the last time Marvel changed something significant about a character (making Miles Morales the new Spider-Man) it turned out to be one of the best things in comics.

I'm actually interested to see where this goes. Hopefully new Thor turns out to be good at her job.

That only happened in the ultimate universe not the mainstream universe that people actually care about.

People cared about it enough to make the same arguments that they're making here: namely that "Marvel's just changing characters for no reason and the comic will now suck!" It's the exact same scenario played out but with gender in the equation instead of race.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Ha, them crazy aliens that inspired Norse mythology and their naming conventions!

 

[Vault101]

wait WHAT? this is real

I've seen it around on the web but I assumed it was just a peice of fan art or something

not surprising that its not "actually' thor but...well this should be interesting

 

[Stormfire Rebellion]

This isn't a real character. It's Fem-Shep.

Look, I'll agree with you on a lot of your points. But Fem-Shep is some alternate gender-swap version of an existing character. Both Male Shep and Fem-Shep were created at the same time, and Fem-Shep definitely had a distinctive voice and character separate from Male Shep. For me, Fem-Shep was the real Commander Shepard, and Male Shep the alternate version.

We need more Fem-Sheps. Except ones where no one feels the need to preface the name with fem-BLANK.

 

[Stormfire Rebellion]

EDIT: Double post

 

[Strazdas]

the best i can come up with is why? Thor didnt ask for this. Nobody asked for this. So apperently gender flipping is a thing now. because there is no reason to keep continuity and basic logic in the series.

ALso from what i udnerstand this will be thor with a reskin, so this makes it completely pointless to begin with. if the only difference is outside look, then there is no point to switch.

 

[iamnotincompliance]

I believe it was Linkara who said "Unless an idea catches outside of mainstream comics, don't count on sticking around more than a year or so."

Or something like that. Dude's got 300+ episodes now; I'm not looking for the real quote. My point (and I do have one) is Liam Hemsworth. You know damn well he's showing up in Avengers 2, and while I haven't heard anything about a Thor 3, I don't doubt its future existence for a second. No way Marvel or their Disney overlords throw lady Thor at the movie audience.

In conclusion, if this is main Marvel continuity, I give it two years, three at the outset. Ultimate universe, this might stick.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Does this mean it's possible to retcon Jesus as a female? That could be interesting, she bleeds for your sins, every month.

I take offense to this, on so, so many lev- pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft, I laughed for a solid minute.

Ahem.

This just seems...unnecessary? I mean...why? Ok, sure, Thor's a woman now, but why is the name the same? It's a masculine name. If it wasn't originally, then it's been made masculine by the fact that it's been the monicker of a burly blonde dude for the better part of a century.

I really don't think this is going to last...but imagine the R34. It's all for the R34, I'd wager.

 

[joshuaayt]

Ha, awesome. No reason to restrict the title to guys; the hammer has always looked for the most worthy, it probably doesn't care about ya dick.

 

[Rastrelly]

OK, now I want to see male Wonder Woman. What? It will be a boy who amazons did not kill, but raised as one of them. It will be as pointless, as Thor gender-flipping. I feel more and more disgust towards modern media. Instead of making good stories they hang shiny things all around, and everything will end up with making Thor a guy again in a couple of years.

 

[Ieyke]

The list of reasons why this is retarded is fairly substantial and varied.

Behold the irrelevance of a publicity stunt that will be undone in time for May's Avengers:Age Of Ultron!

Behold the irrelevance of the SIXTH female "Thor"!
(Thor Girl, Thordis, Thena, Torunn, Valkyrie)

Behold the irrelevance of the TENTH "replacement" "Thor"!
(+ Ragnarok, Beta Ray Bill, Thunderstrike, Thunderstrike II)

Behold the irrelevance of a female character created riding on the coattails of a major male character rather than being given the opportunity to be her own independently successful hero with her own self-sufficient story!

Behold the failure to bring Valkyrie (the Marvel Universe's most badass female Asgardian) into the spotlight!

Behold the failed opportunity to capitalize on Sif's recent surge in popularity!

Behold a character taking a non-transferable name! Thor's not a superhero identity! Thor Odinson is JUST THOR'S NAME. Protip: This is NOT Thor!

Behold the very definition of an ill-conceived character!

Behold the continued lack of a Ms. Marvel movie announcement!

MARVEL, I AM DISAPPOINT.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

If she isn't the one in the movies, then I don't care.

 

[laggyteabag]

I never really cared much for Thor anyway, but I don't really see why they had to genderbend an established character as opposed to just creating a new one, especially considering that you cant really just pass down the mantle of Thor, because unlike "Captain America" or "Iron Man", "Thor" is his actual name. It just seems like one big publicity stunt, like how they killed Brian off in Family Guy so that everybody would watch that episode, then simply bring him back alive again like nothing happened, and I feel like they are going to show us how He-Thor loses his powers, give the hammer to She-Thor, and then just have She-Thor just act like He-Thor but with boobs.