Let's Talk About: The New Thor

If you just happened to not have access to the internet this week then you probably haven't heard the news that Thor is going to be a woman. There are a ton of media outlets ( here are a list of outlets) talking about this story so you can see what they all think about it, but if you're reading this then you're more interested in what I have to say ( or you're not and just happened to stumble upon this link and if that's true consider it a happy accident) so let's get right into it.

She's the new "Thor" but she isn't Thor

In the history of comic books, many crazy things happen to characters in order to get sales, this is a business after all, and often the biggest sales boosts comes from replacing an icon character. Batman, Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man have all at one time had their names given to other characters (well it happened twice with Spider-Man and Superman had the whole "Death of Superman" debacle but that's for another time) and now it's Thor's turn, but its a little bit different this time. In the cases I've mentioned those were all legacy titles ( names that can be passed on since they are just codenames) but Thor isn't a code name...it's his actual name...Thor Odinson, son of Odin, God of Thunder, Man of really big arms, you get it and it's a bit weird that someone else is now going to be him. Before I get killed for it, yes I know other heroes and characters have wielded Mjolnir and have had his power, but they didn't actually become Thor ( Well Blake and Eric did but those were due to either being bound to Thor or Odin giving them the form and power of Thor) so this is actually the first time someone has owner ship of Mjolnir that isn't Thor Odinson.

Yeah I think Thor will be fine without Mjolnir 

New Thor is apparently worthy enough to be the new owner of Mjolnir so that begs the question  "What will Old Thor be using then?" I believe the answer to that is the weapon he had before he had the hammer; Jarnbjorn. It's an axe, well an enchanted axe because duh enchantments are all the rage on Asgard, that is powerful enough to cut their the armor of a Celestial...needless to say I don't think Old Thor will be too bothered by not having his old hammer; how he feels about being so unworthy that he would give up his own name? Well that's something that we will just have to wait and see.

I don't know much about how exactly the New Thor will come to be or how she will interact with Thor/Asgard/other heroes but I still have a few things to say about all the hooplah. Representation in media is important no matter what anyone says, yes you can and should be able to connect with characters regardless of race and gender but doesn't that mean we should have more diversity because what's important is the character? An argument can be made that since the race/gender is irrelevant then it really doesn't matter if the lead is a male or female so why not have more females? People want to feel represented and I don't think that there is anything wrong with that, I do however take issue when creators/companies think they can just do a gender or race swap, call it equality and then pat themselves on the back. It is obvious to me that this a pandering move to reach the female audience and there isn't anything wrong with targeting that audience but why not take that chance to give them something they haven't seen before? I don't know really anything about the woman who is to be Thor but she's going to be Thor so we can expect to see some of the stuff we have seen from Thor...but instead of a man performing the deeds it will be a woman going all Norse myth on fools. I say all that but deep down I know why they decided to do it this way, it's because they know that this will generate buzz and give them the best chance to make sales. This isn't the first time Marvel ( or any company) has done this, they just did this with Ms. Marvel, making it Kamala Khan but still using the popular name, and that gambit paid off nicely for them so why not try it again with Thor? A lot of people will take issue with the change either because Thor is now a woman, they wanted a brand new superhero or a myriad of reasons and all I can say is I understand that having a character of yours change can be scary but until we see what they do with it, we just have to kinda relax. I am talking from experience here, I was pissed when Peter died and Ock replaced (we all knew Peter was coming back but still) but after the fact I thoroughly enjoyed the Superior Spider-Man run. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I don't like it when companies pander to minorities, I do understand reasoning why and I am actually interested in exactly how all of this will come together so good job Marvel, you have piqued my interest.