A sex change for Thor

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starscape
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Re: A sex change for Thor

Post by starscape »

suggesting that making a female character male is exactly the same as making a male character female is absurd
Not quite what I was saying. My point was, if these readers are such women-haters, they wouldn't object to Diana Prince becoming Dave. But I'm sure they would object. Many comic fans like continuity of character. I enjoyed when Superman left leaving Mon-El/Valor to take over the title but it wasn't popular. People bought the comic because they wanted the Superman they had been reading for years. That wasn't due to being anti-Daxamite. They just liked the character of Superman.
To suggest a story is wrong and bad
I'm not really expressing a personal opinion, I just don't think not wanting a character to change so radically is necessarily motivated by bigotry.
a character being replaced by a version that is black or female is quite specifically racist/misogynist
No it's not. At least, not necessarily. Hercules is pretty similar to Thor but nowhere near as popular. Why? Because people like characters as much as stories. Change them (whether that be race, gender or even just a personality that doesn't acknowledge their history) and it's no surprise someone will say, that's not the Thor/Wonder Woman/Dennis the Menace I'm interested in.
none of the straw-men you are setting up can hide that
That's just insulting. I have a different viewpoint so why the put down?
changing one of them to be female, black, or LGBT is a move toward equality
...or being a bit ridiculous. It's not creating a new character but changing an existing character into a completely different one. There's no surprise it risks turning off existing fans.
a sense of entitlement that they think they should get to tell the actual comic producers how to write their comics
If they hold extreme views like some on the website you linked to then yes. That said, if someone reads these comics and pays over their money, why shouldn't they be tell the companies what they want? I'm currently re-reading the original X-Men, where someone has complained about not seeing the Evil Mutants. The response to the letter is pointing out how many were sick of seeing Magneto. So, readers have always complained. And why not? I see no reason why readers should just hand over money for a comic they have no liking for.
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Lew Stringer
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Re: A sex change for Thor

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starscape wrote: If they hold extreme views like some on the website you linked to then yes. That said, if someone reads these comics and pays over their money, why shouldn't they be tell the companies what they want?
They're free to ask what they want of the companies, but the companies can't please everyone because each reader has a different view. Why should they only listen to the ones who don't want change?

Of course the character of Thor is in the public domain (just not the Marvel one), so perhaps you'll be more interested in Walt Simonson's new Thor comic Ragnarok, which hits comic stores this Wednesday:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... w&id=22670

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Re: A sex change for Thor

Post by Raven »

I liked it when Thor turned into a frog. Hope this helps.

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Re: A sex change for Thor

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Raven wrote:I liked it when Thor turned into a frog. Hope this helps.
It was a male frog though, and still green, so the fans didn't mind that. :lol:

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Re: A sex change for Thor

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I didn't :lol:

Actually, I wasn't enamoured by his Thor but Walt did a great New Gods.
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Re: A sex change for Thor

Post by Raven »

Lew Stringer wrote: It was a male frog though, and still green, so the fans didn't mind that. :lol:
It was different, though - a time when a writer could still take full control and do totally nutty stuff if he wanted, like his own Carl Barks tribute in a series like Thor - rather than have the idea developed at a "creator summit" and its plot outline rewritten 300 times for Marketing until they approve.

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Re: A sex change for Thor

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starscape wrote:if someone reads these comics and pays over their money, why shouldn't they be tell the companies what they want?
At no time in my comic/story paper-reading life has it ever occurred to me to contact a company to tell them what I wanted. I have been perfectly happy with what they provided.
starscape wrote:I see no reason why readers should just hand over money for a comic they have no liking for.
So don't buy it then! That's hardly a difficult decision to take.

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Re: A sex change for Thor

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starscape wrote:
a character being replaced by a version that is black or female is quite specifically racist/misogynist
No it's not. At least, not necessarily. Hercules is pretty similar to Thor but nowhere near as popular. Why? Because people like characters as much as stories. Change them (whether that be race, gender or even just a personality that doesn't acknowledge their history) and it's no surprise someone will say, that's not the Thor/Wonder Woman/Dennis the Menace I'm interested in.
It is when you are saying this about a story which you have not read or heard any details of, because it isn't going to be published for another two months, and this is the only thing you know about it. And it's the only storyline on which you have expressed an opinion.
That said, if someone reads these comics and pays over their money, why shouldn't they be tell the companies what they want? I'm currently re-reading the original X-Men, where someone has complained about not seeing the Evil Mutants. The response to the letter is pointing out how many were sick of seeing Magneto. So, readers have always complained. And why not? I see no reason why readers should just hand over money for a comic they have no liking for.
As has been pointed out, there's an easy answer to that. Fact is, you could be missing out on a great story because you pre-judged it before it was even published. If you are actually reading Thor at this point. I am. I thought the God-Bomb sequence was clever, but could maybe have been an issue shorter.
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Re: A sex change for Thor

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Marionette wrote:it's the only storyline on which you have expressed an opinion....If you are actually reading Thor at this point....
I've quoted on many threads. I've also commented on and started threads on Marvel UK, both past and recent - it's my main point of collection (or at least it was. I've just stopped Marvel Legends as I thought both Iron Man and Thor were poor, so it's not worth it for just a reasonable Captain America).

It's becoming a bit to-and-fro this argument, so best leave it for a while. But I maintain the majority of people that don't want Thor to change to female would be the same people that don't want Wonder Woman to be male, Superman to be not from Krypton, Shazam to change to Marvelman's costume (and no, that's not creating a new character called Marvelman heavily influenced by Shazam), Luke Cage to reveal he's been lying about being from New York and actually coming from York, or anything else that dramatically changes a character from its history.

Maybe they will miss out on some great stories (Bucky returning also sounded awful but was great, meanwhile Phoenix returning and Gwen Stacy clones and children with Norman Osborne sounded, and were, terrible ideas). But not wanting Green Lantern to be the evil Parallax isn't prejudice or hatred. Maybe it's unadventurous. But it's about keeping a character in line with continuity. Ditto Thor.
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Re: A sex change for Thor

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starscape wrote:
Maybe they will miss out on some great stories (Bucky returning also sounded awful but was great, meanwhile Phoenix returning and Gwen Stacy clones and children with Norman Osborne sounded, and were, terrible ideas). But not wanting Green Lantern to be the evil Parallax isn't prejudice or hatred. Maybe it's unadventurous. But it's about keeping a character in line with continuity. Ditto Thor.

Stories are always going to be hit or miss, whether they change the lead character or not.

From what I gather the continuity isn't changing. A villain has aged Steve Rogers to his true age (about 90) so Falcon is commissioned to become the new Cap. Steve Rogers will still be in the comic. Thor will still be in the new Thor comic, but no longer worthy of the hammer.

These characters have been in continuous publication for over 50 years so every now and then the status quo needs shaking up or the strips become moribund. Sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't. That's the nature of serial drama.

I would say that the evidence shows that when change has happened before it's mostly benefited the comics, going right back 40 years ago to when Steve Rogers gave up being Captain America for a few months and was Nomad for a while. If you just want the status quo to remain static it limits the story potential considerably.
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Re: A sex change for Thor

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Yes, but it doesn't make readers anti-nomadic if they had preferred Steve Rogers to stay Cap. Maybe unadventurous as I've admitted. But not necessarily motivated by hate and prejudice.
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Re: A sex change for Thor

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starscape wrote:Yes, but it doesn't make readers anti-nomadic if they had preferred Steve Rogers to stay Cap. Maybe unadventurous as I've admitted. But not necessarily motivated by hate and prejudice.

I didn't say anything about hate and prejudice! I was talking about the resistance to change purely on the basis of not liking change, which is what you were talking about.

Anyway, got some comics of my own to draw so I've said what I wanted to say.
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Re: A sex change for Thor

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starscape wrote:I maintain the majority of people that don't want Thor to change to female would be the same people that don't want Wonder Woman to be male, Superman to be not from Krypton, Shazam to change to Marvelman's costume (and no, that's not creating a new character called Marvelman heavily influenced by Shazam), Luke Cage to reveal he's been lying about being from New York and actually coming from York, or anything else that dramatically changes a character from its history.
In the great scheme of things, how does this sex change for Thor really impact, if at all, on other titles produced by Marvel? I'll come clean here and admit that I don't read any American comics, although I do have a reasonable number of books about them. I did read some when I was a child that I found on the local municipal tip, and quite enjoyed them, but I was never able to buy any because although my father never gave me any pocket money at the time, I doubt whether they were available in shops. I'm pretty sure that the ones I found came into the country as ballast on American ships during the war. Some years ago, though, a friend and ex-colleague at the local High School we taught at, sold me virtually his entire collection of DC comics. I've never even taken them out of the plastic bags he stored them in, let alone read them. There are titles like Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Superman Family, Superboy, Batman, Justice League of America, Supergirl, and Action Comics. There are others, but they are in the dining room, and I can't get at them. Now the reason he gave for selling them at all was that DC had completely reorganised, or restructured, the universe which all their characters inhabited, and I think this meant rewriting all their back stories. By so doing, this made a nonsense of his entire collection, so he just stopped buying them. He tells me that he has bought some in recent years but his enthusiasm is long gone. In the light of the above comments, what I would like to know is whether the effect of Thor's sex change is likely to be limited just to that title, and therefore contained within it, or whether the ripples will be felt in other titles in the Marvel canon.

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Re: A sex change for Thor

Post by Lew Stringer »

Phoenix wrote:
starscape wrote:I maintain the majority of people that don't want Thor to change to female would be the same people that don't want Wonder Woman to be male, Superman to be not from Krypton, Shazam to change to Marvelman's costume (and no, that's not creating a new character called Marvelman heavily influenced by Shazam), Luke Cage to reveal he's been lying about being from New York and actually coming from York, or anything else that dramatically changes a character from its history.
In the great scheme of things, how does this sex change for Thor really impact, if at all, on other titles produced by Marvel? I'll come clean here and admit that I don't read any American comics, although I do have a reasonable number of books about them. I did read some when I was a child that I found on the local municipal tip, and quite enjoyed them, but I was never able to buy any because although my father never gave me any pocket money at the time, I doubt whether they were available in shops. I'm pretty sure that the ones I found came into the country as ballast on American ships during the war. Some years ago, though, a friend and ex-colleague at the local High School we taught at, sold me virtually his entire collection of DC comics. I've never even taken them out of the plastic bags he stored them in, let alone read them. There are titles like Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Superman Family, Superboy, Batman, Justice League of America, Supergirl, and Action Comics. There are others, but they are in the dining room, and I can't get at them. Now the reason he gave for selling them at all was that DC had completely reorganised, or restructured, the universe which all their characters inhabited, and I think this meant rewriting all their back stories. By so doing, this made a nonsense of his entire collection, so he just stopped buying them. He tells me that he has bought some in recent years but his enthusiasm is long gone. In the light of the above comments, what I would like to know is whether the effect of Thor's sex change is likely to be limited just to that title, and therefore contained within it, or whether the ripples will be felt in other titles in the Marvel canon.

It'll affect other comics too. A glimpse of an upcoming Avengers cover shows Thor with an axe instead of his hammer for example, now that he's no longer worthy of the hammer.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/prev_ ... &oid=53324

There's also a new title, Avengers Now, coming out which will star the three new versions (Falcon's Captain America, female Thor, and Superior Iron Man).

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=54125

Unlike DC's reboot, this is all part of the same continuity that Marvel have had since the beginning.
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Re: A sex change for Thor

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I'd mostly agree with you there, Lew. But read Marionette's post that I was replying to where it is stated that objecting to "a character being replaced by a version that is black or female is quite specifically racist/misogynist". I would say it is mostly objecting to a character being replaced. That's the reason! (due to being what may be called unadventurous). I didn't like Spider-Man joining the Avengers. Or Wolverine. Or Daredevil. But it's not because they are white, male, mutant, blind or even, listen bud, coz they've got radioactive blood. I probably got it right there (for me) but got Bucky drastically wrong.

The reporting also seems to have misled then on Thor. From what I read, it was Thor ("This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR"). That is, the big blonde guy turned into a woman*. What is coming out now seems very different from that.


*which worked for Loki as he is quite capable of using every trick in the book for his schemes but I didn't like when he morphed into the trick-less boy.
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