Do modern Marvel writers hate Thor?

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

I think a lot of it has to do with the lack or interest and/or ability to write a book that leans more towards fantasy than your average big fight in the streets comic book. Marvel, certainly modern Marvel, does not know how to handle this character. They just know, despite everything, he's still popular. So many people still see Thor as Conan in a cape from a weird rainbow space city. Thor is nothing like Conan, like at all. Too many creators also know almost nothing about Thor, his mythos or the most basic superficial knowledge of the real myths. A lot of the time it honestly feels like Marvel keeps Thor going and involved in evens and Avengers, not because they understand him or like him, but because they feel they're supposed to.

Jason Aaron doesn't know how Fantasy and Cosmic characters work. I will Always point to Tegan O'Neil review of Thanos Rising.

Jason Aaron is not the man to bring forth the hidden facets of Thanos' character. When presented with such a rich and conceptually heavy figure, he gives us the standard narrative of a sociopathic youth. Let's back up and think about the fact that not merely is Thanos a rich character, but his milieu is even more interesting: he is a mutant born in a society of gods, the son of the ruler of the Titanian Eternals. (Thanos and his race of Titans were created in 1973, three years before Kirby introduced the Eternals to Marvel, and later retconned into being an offshoot of the Earth Eternals.) Thanos hails from a race of supermen who have built a technological Utopia in a moon of Saturn. The best Aaron can imagine to do with this setting and this backstory is to give us the story of Lil' Thanos as a burgeoning serial killer. I don't necessarily blame Aaron: he is a competent writer who is resolutely hamstrung by a severe lack of imagination. He doesn't strike me as someone who has done much in the way of serious reading, because all of his storytelling touchstones appear to be other comics or movies or popular fiction. This actually works to his advantage in telling the stories of a character like Wolverine, because Wolverine is himself such a pastiche of received modes of hard-boiled mens's adventure, action, and noir storytelling that his best stories usually function themselves on the level of high pastiche. But Thanos isn't Wolverine, and writing an overly-literal interpretation of Thanos' childhood and development is one of the most fantastic examples of a creator completely missing the point that I have ever seen. I don't doubt that Aaron knows a fair bit about criminals and sociopaths, but that is hardly to the story's favor. We don't need to read a psychological thriller about a young murderer-in-training, we need to see gods and monsters whose every thought and deed is dripping with metaphor.

That's what cosmic is all about. Cosmic isn't about telling crime stories or action stories or thrillers in an exotic setting. Cosmic is about heightened reality, a form of storytelling defined by the absence of familiar referents, riven with symbolism, and steeped in fanciful mythology. Kirby got that, and he helped create the very idea of cosmic storytelling in comics because he understood that one of the best ways to tell "real" stories in childrens' comics was to put those stories into outer space and other worlds, and thereby to make them about everything that they couldn't be about if the stories had been stuck on the planet Earth. Starlin understood this too - in fact, he devoted much of his career to developing fantasy in comics as a springboard with which to talk about all the weird stuff in his own psyche. Jason Aaron isn't much of a fantasist. Thanos Rising is a story about Thanos, yes, but it's not a very good one: it's a very mundane story about a young killer such as you have probably seen and read many times before. Aaron would probably point to its familiarity as a feature, with the observation that the ways in which sociopaths grow up are often very similar, and that the most truly unsettling facet of these narratives are the ways in which the characters transform under the influence of their banal context to become monsters. (See Derf Backderf's My Friend Dahmer for a perfect distillation of this principle in action.)

This is all well and good, and certainly, the outlines of Thanos' story were all put there by Starlin. But Starlin knew better than to dwell on the sordid details of Thanos' upbringing: he wasn't a real character, after all, he was a metaphor. I know I said above that Thanos was a more interesting character than Darkseid - well, guess what, I lied. Neither of them are real "characters." They're lines on paper. They're symbols. Darkseid is a rich metaphor, as is Thanos. I think Thanos is a tad richer for the simple reason that, because the baseline of his character is so steeped in adolescent angst, he can always be placed in the position of needing to grow up in some manner - as we saw throughout the 90s, after the Infinity Gauntlet, when Thanos was left to his own devices without an overriding need to dominate the universe, and became almost a kind of pilgrim. Keith Giffen wrote perhaps the best non-Starlin Thanos when he picked up on this aspect of Thanos' behavior following Starlin's own short******d return to the character in the early 00s. The point is, there are so many interesting things that you can do with this guy, and telling the story of how he was born and became a child serial killer is probably the least interesting of all possible options.

[Skullkid]

Why do you need like 10 threads just to complain about the same thing?
Answer that to me, like all your threads boil down to "I don't like Aaron's Thor"

Yeah, Hemsworth Thor is light years away from 'My god has a hammer' or 'Ultron, we would have words with thee.' And I do think movie synergy is indeed part of it. The same sort of thing that has Tony Stark being a snark machine, on par with Spider-Man (or comic-book Hawkeye used to be), or that has resulted in the same Scott Lang who *beat up Dr. Doom with science!*, turning into a lovable screwup who fails upward (humorously) at just about everything like MCU Scott.

Which makes me wonder. Tony Stark being such a quippy fellow turned MCU Hawkeye into a deadly dull waste of celluloid, since Tony had pretty much already stolen his niche. Since MCU Thor has similarly drank Hercules Falstaffian buffoon milkshake all up, what sort of tremendous ponderous bore is MCU Hercules going to be?

It's funny to me how amazingly wrong all of this is.
Gives the sense you don't actually watch the movies but still want to complain about them.

[your_name_here]

Of course they don’t hate Thor.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

Why do you need like 10 threads just to complain about the same thing?
Answer that to me, like all your threads boil down to "I don't like Aaron's Thor"





It's funny to me how amazingly wrong all of this is.
Gives the sense you don't actually watch the movies but still want to complain about them.

I was talking about current Marvel writers in general. Kelly Thompson and Ewing were also pretty bad at writing Thor and Odin.

[Skullkid]

Does not quite change pretty much all of your threads are about the same thing.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

Does not quite change pretty much all of your threads are about the same thing.

I made a thread on Al Ewing's Guardians of the Galaxy run

[HaveAtThee]

It's not hatred, but it's perhaps a stable of creators who are ill-equipped to handle conceptual cosmic fantasy and mythical and/or mystical characters. When in doubt, they try as much to "humanize" them as possible. Because, y'know, a virtually immortal character who traverses the universe and has life-altering mystical abilities would think exactly like a human being would. JMS spoke of this when he took on Thor. That other writers wanted nothing to do with Asgard. The Marvel Knights and Ultimate line in the early 00's greatly influenced the style of characterization going forward, for better or worse.

[Paradox_Nihil]

Jason Aaron doesn't know hoe Fantasy and Cosmic characters work. I will Always point to Tegan O'Neil review of Thanos Rising.

I agree with Tegan O'Neil 90% of the time, but that notion that Thanos is more interesting or richer character or metaphor than Darkseid sits very firmly in those other 10%. Anyway, her opinions are always worth reading.

It seems many of you think that the biggest sign of the bad writers is how they misrepresent the characters. "Bendis' writing is bad because he miscasts almost anyone" or something like that. No. Bendis is bad because he cannot write a decent plot. His (mis)characterization is only insult added to injury. He is a situational writer, and he knows how to construct a good verbal exchange or a good scene. The problem is, he doesn't write comics suited to that type of talent. He writes long-form narratives, often very epic in scope, which he imbues with artificial twists and stupid or false motivations in order to move the plot forward. Sometimes he has very good ideas, but that doesn't help in the long run, not when he has been intent on writing a million pages a year.

I don't know about Aaron. Besides his work on Scalped (and maybe Southern Bastards) I haven't found much interest in what he writes. I don't think he hates Thor, but he operates in a world and with a set of conditions I am also not interested in. And I can't really argue about things I am not interested in.

For example, Doctor Strange without a magical background isn't really worth reading imho. If someone tries to write his comic like a standard superhero fare, it will take away the most recognizable aspect of that character and his world. Mark Waid recently wrote a quite good Fantastic Four comic with Doctor Strange in the main role, but it's not good enough Fantastic Four comic for me to ignore the mentioned 'shortcomings'. You could say that Mark Waid couldn't write good fantasy characters if he had to save his life, for his comfort zone was and always will be superheroics. Maybe that's true, but I don't have time and inclination to attempt to prove it.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

It's not hatred, but it's perhaps a stable of creators who are ill-equipped to handle conceptual cosmic fantasy and mythical and/or mystical characters. When in doubt, they try as much to "humanize" them as possible. Because, y'know, a virtually immortal character who traverses the universe and has life-altering mystical abilities would think exactly like a human being would. JMS spoke of this when he took on Thor. That other writers wanted nothing to do with Asgard. The Marvel Knights and Ultimate line in the early 00's greatly influenced the style of characterization going forward, for better or worse.

When did Staczinsky said that? Is there a link to an interview?

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

I agree with Tegan O'Neil 90% of the time, but that notion that Thanos is more interesting or richer character or metaphor than Darkseid sits very firmly in those other 10%. Anyway, her opinions are always worth reading.

It seems many of you think that the biggest sign of the bad writers is how they misrepresent the characters. "Bendis' writing is bad because he miscasts almost anyone" or something like that. No. Bendis is bad because he cannot write a decent plot. His (mis)characterization is only insult added to injury. He is a situational writer, and he knows how to construct a good verbal exchange or a good scene. The problem is, he doesn't write comics suited to that type of talent. He writes long-form narratives, often very epic in scope, which he imbues with artificial twists and stupid or false motivations in order to move the plot forward. Sometimes he has very good ideas, but that doesn't help in the long run, not when he has been intended on writing a million pages a year.

I don't know about Aaron. Beside his work on Scalped (and maybe Southern Bastards) I haven't found much interest in what he writes. I don't think he hates Thor, but he operates in a world and with a set of conditions I am also not interested in. And I can't really argue about things I am not interested in.

For example, Doctor Strange without a magical background isn't really worth reading imho. If someone tries to write his comic like a standard superhero fare, it will take away the most recognizable aspect of that character and his world. Mark Waid recently wrote a quite good Fantastic Four comic with Doctor Strange in the main role, but it's not good enough Fantastic Four comic for me to ignore the mentioned 'shortcomings'. You could say that Mark Waid couldn't write good fantasy characters if he had to save his life, for his comfort zone was and always will be superheroics. Maybe that's true, but I don't have time and inclination to attempt to prove it.

Personally, i really like Jack Kirby's Fourth World but i don't find Darkseid as appealing as Thanos. I don't think Kirby wanted to develop Darkseid and Apokolips beyond being a satire on totalitarianism, while Thanos is more of a psychedelic byronic villain turned anti-hero.

It's a pity Tegan hates the MCU version of Thanos though.

[stormphoenix]

Why would they Hate Thor??? Marvel just gave him a huge Power Boost. AND made him King of Asgard.....

If anything it seems like Marvel is showering Thor with Gifts....

[Sutekh]

It's funny to me how amazingly wrong all of this is.
Gives the sense you don't actually watch the movies but still want to complain about them.

Tastes differ. I found the 'funny' Thor of the MCU, who got backed over by Jane's van, or tasered, or whatever, to be kind of un-impressive. (He was, IMO, much more impressive in the first Avengers movie, than in his own movies, where he's taken a more comedic turn.)

And yeah, I've seen them all. Iron Man and Captain America looked pretty amazing in their solo movies, even when a viewer could disagree with this decision or that. Thor, not so much, IMO (although the second movie did attempt a more serious Thor, not so successfully).

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

Tastes differ. I found the 'funny' Thor of the MCU, who got backed over by Jane's van, or tasered, or whatever, to be kind of un-impressive. (He was, IMO, much more impressive in the first Avengers movie, than in his own movies, where he's taken a more comedic turn.)

And yeah, I've seen them all. Iron Man and Captain America looked pretty amazing in their solo movies, even when a viewer could disagree with this decision or that. Thor, not so much, IMO (although the second movie did attempt a more serious Thor, not so successfully).

Dark world was a mess because of executive meddling from behind the scenes and because of Jane and her Scooby Gang. And Malekith was a textbook example of Generic Doomsday Villain. I felt sorry for Eccleston

[Skullkid]

Tastes differ. I found the 'funny' Thor of the MCU, who got backed over by Jane's van, or tasered, or whatever, to be kind of un-impressive. (He was, IMO, much more impressive in the first Avengers movie, than in his own movies, where he's taken a more comedic turn.)

And yeah, I've seen them all. Iron Man and Captain America looked pretty amazing in their solo movies, even when a viewer could disagree with this decision or that. Thor, not so much, IMO (although the second movie did attempt a more serious Thor, not so successfully).

Saying tastes differ doesn't excuse the fact you're flat out wrong and inaccurate, the first two Thor movies had some funny moments but despite that they very much made Thor a serious character in those, and that changed because people found Thor to be the most boring Avenger and one of the least liked things about his own movies.
And frankly you have to have a very low opinion of characters like Thor and Hercules or Iron Man and Hawkeye if according to you the one difference between the characters is one's funny and one's not or one's snarky and one's not.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

Why would they Hate Thor??? Marvel just gave him a huge Power Boost. AND made him King of Asgard.....

If anything it seems like Marvel is showering Thor with Gifts....

They still writing him as a thuggish meathead who barely uses his powers.