Thor Odinson Appreciation 2018

[kilderkin]

I'm really not convinced any of this has anything to do with feminism - Thor has been out of favour with the Marvel creative elite for a while now. If it wasn't Jane replacing Odinson, I'm sure it would have been someone - I don't think Aaron is very comfortable writing a positive Thor, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see the main heroics in the upcoming storyline revolving around contemporary mortals being given the power of the gods.

What makes you say that about marvels opinion on thor?

I agree but I'm curious as to your thoughts

[whiterabbit]

I'm really not convinced any of this has anything to do with feminism - Thor has been out of favour with the Marvel creative elite for a while now. If it wasn't Jane replacing Odinson, I'm sure it would have been someone - I don't think Aaron is very comfortable writing a positive Thor, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see the main heroics in the upcoming storyline revolving around contemporary mortals being given the power of the gods.

I don't know. This makes it seem like they made a conscious decision for female representation. This whole girl power thing is stupid considering Titania nearly beat She-Hulk into a coma in her first few appearances.

[Panic]

We've seen a general trend with Thor over the years - he's tended to suffer from "The Worf Effect", where he's taken down to show how powerful a new hero or villain is, and he's being written as considerably less intelligent and less resourceful than he was in his heyday, with Mjolnir particularly being limited to lightning effects rather than the various other powers Thor once made use of. The writing down of his intelligence is particularly indicative of how writers feel about him, imo, as there are never any positive sides to that development; temporary power-downs can be a good opportunity to show a character's true heroic qualities - ingenuity, courage, inner strength - but dropping a characters IQ tends to make the reader look down on the hero and reduces the ability of the reader to see themselves in the hero's shoes, which is very important for a super-hero. It's a pretty negative turn.

Compare Thor's treatment to Captain (Steve Rogers) America: he loses his super-soldier serum and ages - he still kicks ridiculous amounts of @$$; when he seemingly becomes evil we again see him even more formidable than before, and it's revealed that this is an evil version rather than being the real Steve Rogers, so whilst the evil version shows you what Cap would be like "with the brakes off", his character is in no way besmirched by his evil counterpart's deeds. There is absolutely no deconstruction there. All of it is positive.

Perhaps all this will change with a new writer, but for now I don't think there is a lot of love for Thor, for whatever the reason.

[kilderkin]

We've seen a general trend with Thor over the years - he's tended to suffer from "The Worf Effect", where he's taken down to show how powerful a new hero or villain is, and he's being written as considerably less intelligent and less resourceful than he was in his heyday, with Mjolnir particularly being limited to lightning effects rather than the various other powers Thor once made use of. The writing down of his intelligence is particularly indicative of how writers feel about him, imo, as there are never any positive sides to that development; temporary power-downs can be a good opportunity to show a character's true heroic qualities - ingenuity, courage, inner strength - but dropping a characters IQ tends to make the reader look down on the hero and reduces the ability of the reader to see themselves in the hero's shoes, which is very important for a super-hero. It's a pretty negative turn.

Compare Thor's treatment to Captain (Steve Rogers) America: he loses his super-soldier serum and ages - he still kicks ridiculous amounts of @$$; when he seemingly becomes evil we again see him even more formidable than before, and it's revealed that this is an evil version rather than being the real Steve Rogers, so whilst the evil version shows you what Cap would be like "with the brakes off", his character is in no way besmirched by his evil counterpart's deeds. There is absolutely no deconstruction there. All of it is positive.

Perhaps all this will change with a new writer, but for now I don't think there is a lot of love for Thor, for whatever the reason.

I think upon reflection you make some very sound points here

[theoneandonly]

We've seen a general trend with Thor over the years - he's tended to suffer from "The Worf Effect", where he's taken down to show how powerful a new hero or villain is, and he's being written as considerably less intelligent and less resourceful than he was in his heyday, with Mjolnir particularly being limited to lightning effects rather than the various other powers Thor once made use of. The writing down of his intelligence is particularly indicative of how writers feel about him, imo, as there are never any positive sides to that development; temporary power-downs can be a good opportunity to show a character's true heroic qualities - ingenuity, courage, inner strength - but dropping a characters IQ tends to make the reader look down on the hero and reduces the ability of the reader to see themselves in the hero's shoes, which is very important for a super-hero. It's a pretty negative turn.

Compare Thor's treatment to Captain (Steve Rogers) America: he loses his super-soldier serum and ages - he still kicks ridiculous amounts of @$$; when he seemingly becomes evil we again see him even more formidable than before, and it's revealed that this is an evil version rather than being the real Steve Rogers, so whilst the evil version shows you what Cap would be like "with the brakes off", his character is in no way besmirched by his evil counterpart's deeds. There is absolutely no deconstruction there. All of it is positive.

Perhaps all this will change with a new writer, but for now I don't think there is a lot of love for Thor, for whatever the reason.

have you forgotten about the outrage that Hydra cap caused? for many the character was ruined forever or so they said at least.

[HaveAtThee]

I'm really not convinced any of this has anything to do with feminism - Thor has been out of favour with the Marvel creative elite for a while now. If it wasn't Jane replacing Odinson, I'm sure it would have been someone - I don't think Aaron is very comfortable writing a positive Thor, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see the main heroics in the upcoming storyline revolving around contemporary mortals being given the power of the gods.

I don't think creative ever wanted Thor to return in 2007. I don't think the post-2000 bevy of Indie-style writers care for a character with both mythological, magical and cosmic background. I'm sure they had plans to make a Thor movie, so they decided to bring Thor back.

[Frontier]

You could even look at Ragnarok and see that it doesn't seem like Marvel as a whole really "gets" or cares for Thor as he traditionally is, although I think generally he's pretty on point when it comes to the cartoons.

[The Cool Thatguy]

have you forgotten about the outrage that Hydra cap caused? for many the character was ruined forever or so they said at least.

To be fair, they did introduce an 11th hour 'real' Cap

[Mataza]

have you forgotten about the outrage that Hydra cap caused? for many the character was ruined forever or so they said at least.

I still havent started reading Cap again after the whole fiasco, if that counts for anything.

[kilderkin]

I still havent started reading Cap again after the whole fiasco, if that counts for anything.

Copy this, me too

Heck I haven't read spiderman since o m d

[Panic]

But Cap was revealed to be completely blameless for the whole thing, so his character wasn't actually damaged, though they seem to have underestimated the backlash to it.

Marvel have been relying on shock headline-grabbing stunts to boost the interest in their older heroes for a while now, they seem pretty much locked into this approach. If you look at the trend with Cap, it does tend to be very positive. Back when they killed him off only to resurrect him as the man who would usher in "The Heroic Age", I felt if they wanted to keep the upward trend with him going they would have to pull an "Angelus" and turn him evil to show how formidable he would be if he turned bad; it took longer than I expected to get around to that, but it did happen. Now if they want to continue to shake things up with Cap, but don't want to deconstruct him (which they don't as far as I can see, they love the guy) the one stunt they've got left is to give him a big power-boost, perhaps making him (at least for a short while) the most powerful Marvel hero headlining a long-running comic-book. It won't happen this year if they've just brought back the Sentry, but I think it will happen. They've got few other places to go if they are to continue the upward "legend-building" trend with Steve. Some sort of power-boost, mental or physical, must be on the cards sometime in the next few years, imo.

Thor is definitely trending the other way. I can think of a few things Aaron could do to further damage Thor's character and credibility, leading to him being eventually replaced. I really don't want him to go the way of Hank Pym. The fact that Aaron is a good writer who knows how to sell a story just makes it more of a threat, imo.

[Sutekh]

You could even look at Ragnarok and see that it doesn't seem like Marvel as a whole really "gets" or cares for Thor as he traditionally is, although I think generally he's pretty on point when it comes to the cartoons.

Chris Hemsworth's 'Thor' has never felt like a scary-impressive millennia old god of war and thunder that people like Captain America and Nick Fury regard with a mix of respect and awe (like in the comics). Instead he's just a crinkly-eyed grinning surf-jock who gets funnily tasered and / or backed over by cars. It took them two lackluster movies before they gave up and made a straight up comedy, in the style of Guardians of the Galaxy, with Ragnarok.

I don't think the MCU ever 'got' Thor. (To be fair, it took three tries to get a great Banner / Hulk...)

[Panic]

I've come to love Thor:Ragnarok, but it's certainly not a faithful adaptation of the material. The Surtur War, faithfully adapted, could have been awesome, but by movie 2 I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Thor did get some great action scenes in Ragnarok though, and Hemsworth's comic timing is through the roof.

[brettc1]

I've come to love Thor:Ragnarok, but it's certainly not a faithful adaptation of the material. The Surtur War, faithfully adapted, could have been awesome, but by movie 2 I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Thor did get some great action scenes in Ragnarok though, and Hemsworth's comic timing is through the roof.

I agree - I, too, was hoping to see the Surtur Saga come to life on screen. Especially when I saw the Casket of Ancient Winters in the first movie.

But I wouldn't exactly call it unfaithful. Rather, parts of it reminded me very much of the early Kirby days, when the Asgardians were more technological and Thor had more of a "cosmic" feel to it.

[AJpyro]

I got Simonson Thor vol 1. I can see the seeds of greatness coming.