A lot of comic book fans are purists and hate to see the slightest deviation of their beloved characters. Well, Marvel has taken deviation to an entirely new level with what they have in store for Thor fans.
Thor the God of Thunder will soon be Thor the Goddess of Thunder.
That's right. The most masculine guy with long hair in all of Marvel Comics is getting a sex change. Well, I actually don't know how they plan on writing her into the story, but know that "he" is soon to be a "she."
I wonder if Marvel is doing this for shock value. Changes like this grabs headlines and there's nothing wrong with a little buzz around your product even if it's from angry purists. Another alternative could be that maybe they're trying to bring in a female fan base. After all, girls probably read a lot more than boys these days. Either way I'm guessing that Marvel will want to keep from causing confusion and this will be a temporary move until the Avengers movie comes out in 2015. It would be extremely odd to have Thor as a woman in the comics and a man on the silver screen.
In any event, I don't care about this one way or the other. If I were 8 years old again and still reading comics regularly then I'm sure that I would be pissed. But, Marvel can do no wrong when it comes to making money, so who am I to question their decision making.
I will admit that the change caught me completely by surprise though. And I thought Archie Andrews getting shot was a shocker. The next thing you'll be trying to get me to believe is that Captain America will be replaced by a black man.
I'm not a purist either but I have to admit I'm not too keen on the idea of gender-swapping Thor. We've already seen someone besides Steve Rogers don the Captain America outfit when he presumed dead (I swear, I'm not a comic book geek!) so having another guy wearing the outfit is less of a shock. It's easier to reboot an existing character rather than come up with a totally new, strong one and build on it so I think Marvel is just taking the lazy way out of trying to cater to a wider demographic.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right. It would have made more sense just to create a new character, even if similar in powers, costume, etc. I guess they did try to take the easy way out.
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