Marvel has made Thor female.

I dunno. That might be the most modest and practical (for a warrior) outfit for a high-profile female superhero I've ever seen. No midriff, no spandex, no inexplicable thong. The more I see it the more I like it.

@korwin: Yeah, that was my first reaction when I saw it. The seemingly unavoidable need to make sure that boobs are readily apparent on armored female characters regardless of the medium, film, games, comics, etc, annoys me to no end. If it offered some benefit sure, but it doesn't, it creates a flaw that makes the wearer more vulnerable than normal armor would be. It is small details like this that tend to bother me, that and that apparently Thor loses his name? Seriously it isn't a title, why does it get passed along with the hammer?

@korwin: It's still a comic book design, after all. Unnecessary parts for sex appeal are practically a requirement.

Though, the new Batgirl costume does stray from that a bit.

That origin story has been retconned for a long time now. I think eventually it was established he was always Thor, but that he had lost his memory when Odin had exiled him to midgard, and countless changes to that since I am sure.

@korwin said:

@evilsbane said:

@rockyraccoon37 said:

This is a new character, they didn't just turn Thor, son of Odin, into a woman. Great quote from Jason Aaron: “This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”

More details at The Mary Sue

And she looks badass:

That design is pretty amazing. Like Seriously one of the coolest looking female superheros ever drawn.

Still has useless boob armour though, nothing says stab me directly in the middle of my chest like iron forged cleavage.

Sounds like a good place to have your thickest armor then.

Hello Batman's kevlar under his bat symbol,

Edit: Boob Armor is dumb. But your reasoning isn't why.

So maybe they're retconning it again? heh. I can't keep up.

HEY, WHACHA GOT THE THOR OVER ERE'?

@defaultprophet said:

@korwin said:

@evilsbane said:

@rockyraccoon37 said:

This is a new character, they didn't just turn Thor, son of Odin, into a woman. Great quote from Jason Aaron: “This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”

More details at The Mary Sue

And she looks badass:

That design is pretty amazing. Like Seriously one of the coolest looking female superheros ever drawn.

Still has useless boob armour though, nothing says stab me directly in the middle of my chest like iron forged cleavage.

Sounds like a good place to have your thickest armor then.

Hello Batman's kevlar under his bat symbol

Like a lot of things in comics, it only works if you don't think about it much. I see a huge dude in some sort of armored suit charging at me, I am aiming for the one part obviously unarmored that also happens to be a pretty vulnerable part of the body. Plot armor is the only real effective armor most comic book characters have.

In the above image I like how the boob armor redirects not only to the center of the body, thus preventing a weapon such as a hammer like mjolnir from having its energy partially deflected and sliding off and away from the body, but also points anything sharp right under her gorget which the artist has kindly depicted a sizable gap beneath thanks to the boob armor design.

Well I learned a new word today.

I'm both surprised and not surprised by some of the reactions. You would think comics, where so much can change and often time does, would be a little more understanding when these changes are announced. Why does a female Thor upset so many people?

She is a new character, but yes she replaces Thor.

Also, no one cares. Thor in the comic books? Doesn't matter. It's not like they changed Captain America or Spider-man or Wolverine.

Plus like everyone else said - Man-Thor will definitely be back one day soon.

Most importantly, the design is really cool, and maybe they will actually have an interesting Thor character for the first time in the history of the series.

I don't know if upset is the right word. To me its just a weird choice given all the options at their disposal, especially since they are using the name Thor for this woman. Other people have wielded Mjolnir, none have taken Thor's name from him when they did it, unless they were intentionally trying to pass themselves off as him. Since this appears to be someone new using Thor's hammer, which unless there are really weird stuff going on in asgardian law, doesn't make her a princess of Asgard, doesn't carry on the love/hate relationship with Loki, or familial disputes about duty with Odin. Essentially this isn't Thor is now a woman, but a woman now calls herself Thor. There is a difference, and maybe it will lead to new and interesting plots and storylines, who can say, but I also doubt it will be any more long lasting than various comic book deaths.

I'm cool with this. The original Thor is still around, they've just created a new lady Thor. Ultimate Spider Man is a black kid and he's awesome.

@mrwakka: That and like all boob armor, on the OTHER side of the surface you have metal directed to the middle of your chest....ie the area where you keep all the lifesupport for the 3 pound pilot ensconced in your skull. At least this boob armor doesn't meet as a point or edge like the worst offenders.

To be fair to the community, most of the responses here have either been positive or, if negative, just a bit weary about how all of these big changes in comics are usually either PR stunts or reverted shortly after they're made, which is less a criticism of Thor-as-woman than of the propensity of comic book publishers to do both of those fairly often.

Don't even slightly know enough about comics to comment on the change as a whole (although I do think it's a cool idea) but I will say that I think her design is fucking rad. Just by virtue of being active on the internet I end up running across a lot of the big character redesigns and this is by far the most immediately appealing one I've seen in a while. Something about her just looks imposing. Far more so than her male counterpart who I find a little too goofy for my tastes.

I can agree with that, aside from the impracticality of the design, she does look bad ass. Thor can look kind of goofy at times, this one image at least doesn't. Even if it still goes for the boob armor look, it isn't as drastic an example as many others in the comic book world.

I have seen a lot of that, a lot of people not wanting this to just be PR related and actually would rather have a real honest effort. But there do seem to be a good portion of people getting very angry over this, just seems strange to me.

And I didn't really mean on GB, just in general. I like how calm it's been on here.

About god damn time someone posted this in the thread.

Honestly her art may be what sells me on wanting to pick it up, or, at least look into it when it comes out/happens/howeveryouwanttosayit. The general idea is interesting enough, but suffers a lot from the comic industry's inability to really commit to much of anything for any period of time, which would otherwise make me shrug with indifference at the idea of a female Thor, but her design is pretty top notch and that artwork looks so great that I'm feeling inclined to pick it up, regardless of how long this whole thing might last (which hopefully it goes for quite awhile and this isn't just yet another flash in the pan stunt for attention... even though I know it is.)

Oh comics, you so crazy. I don't read comics, never have and I never will as they seem like they are a clusterfuck of mind numbing content. Why are they doing this exactly? I mean why are they REALLY doing this? Also, didn't someone want to make Spiderman suddenly gay not too long ago? I feel like I read that somewhere.

"We couldn't write a decent female superhero- wait, superheroine, so we took it upon ourselves to rewrite some thousand-year-old mythology."

Those are all really lazy, too, though I'm not sure which is worse. I guess I'm glad I don't follow comics?

What's-his-face is going to be ticked when he doesn't get a call for Avengers 2... or 3... Like I said, I don't follow comics.

Gotta read Song of Ice and Fire.

Cool. As long as they don't butcher her, and try to make her a female with a male mentality, I think it will be cool.

Sure why not.

At least it's not something horrifically dumb like Doctor Octopus stealing Peter Parker's body.

Maybe it's just me being cynical, but I can't help but see the whole Thor getting demoted part of the story as some sort of contingency plan in case the comics featuring the new Thor sell poorly.

Nah, if i had to make a guess what will happen is OG Thor will come back regardless and take back his hammer and his role again. What will happen to ladythor? If no one really likes her then she'll just be forgotten about, but if she's well received she'll get her own spin off and her own powers and such. Thats my guess anyways

Beta Ray Bill shows there is precedent for those who proved worthy of Mjolnir getting their own weapon once Thor reclaimed his. The name thing will be weird though.

Could actually be an attempt to sort of backdoor a new marvel heroine, building her off an established property before spinning her off into her own series, and hopefully as a result get enough hype to help sustain her own comic run. Launching new heroes tends to be difficult, so not a bad idea if it doesn't backfire.

@mlarrabee Been awhile, but She-hulk was great and needs a TV show, she is a defense attorney, it would be like Law & Order: Marvel. Though Harvey Birdman kind of mined similar territory.

@slag I actually kind of liked the concept of Superior Spiderman, weird as it was. I enjoy seeing villains thrust into the role of hero and seeing how they adapt. Some of the most fun examples of Lex Luthor, Magneto, or even Captain Cold have seen them in that position. Doc Ock was a weird choice, but why not.

You are the worst.

Do they have a comic based on Valkyrie? I don't read comics but I think instead of lady thor alt, maybe that would be a better story to explore.....

@demoskinos: lol , no kidding.

Well I think this is more about testing the waters for Marvel, if they feel comfortable gender swapping characters it can allow theM to do the same with other characters. No real problem with that myself, I imagine the comic fans will have strong opinions on this.

Yeah but not Spiderman though. That's not what makes that character work. He's the quintessential everyman type.

Wait you said "was". Is Peter Parker alive once more?

Also the best.

They already quite literally had Loki revived as a woman a few years back. I think this is already proving that they feel comfortable doing it.

I imagine you've seen the new Batgirl, right? I think she probably has the most practical female superhero outfit I've seen.

@adoggz: Don't really need that kind of sarcasm in here.

@truthtellah: Yep, I generally dig it. Although having the hair come down behind the mask would seem to defeat the point of attempting to remain anonymous entirely.

DC did an interesting sort of cheat version of that a while ago. After Infinite Crisis in '06, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman went missing. Their comics didn't stop, but they were suddenly under the banner "One Year Later". Their stories instantly jumped ahead one year, relating their return to society. At the same time, the series 52 started. A weekly fill-in-the-gap-a-thon that related the events week by week in real time when the DC "Trinity" weren't around.

It was actually a pretty great series, and it allowed for a bunch of the c-tier heroes (some of my personal favorites like Animal Man, The Question, Batwoman, Loki, Starfire, Steel, and a bunch more) to take center stage, having the reader know that the big 3 were never going to swoop in to save the day.

So yeah, a cheat for sure, but it was an effective way to satisfy all the fans differing tastes while still creating time in the continuity that explicitly lacked those certain huge characters.

@truthtellah: That's not bad. Still kind of head scratchingly latexy and stupidly tight, but at least it's not screaming sexuality.

Well, she is (I believe) supposed to be in high school, so that'd be a bit weird. And the image says it's leather, which I guess would be hot, but also at least mildly protective when it comes to scrapes and scratches.

@rorie: The leather and latex distinction is fine in theory, but in ink, one is going to look precisely like the other, unless she's wearing a cowhide bomber or something. Which... yeah, that'd be kind of awesome.

Speaking of teens with respectable designs, I thought Hazmat and the big red skull guy from the Avengers teen books had pretty great looks to them that felt young and fairly stylish without being uncomfortably inappropriate like X-23 in the young X-Men comics.

@rorie Yeah, I don't know how well it will hide her identity, but I guess that's pretty par for the course with comic heroes. I mean, one hero just takes off glasses to hide their identity. heh.

@sparky_buzzsaw I think it's maybe not as tight or shiny as it seems in that shot, but I'm not sure until I see the final comic. I think it's more like a tight leather jacket than anything super latexy. Doesn't appear -super- impractical, but still superhero outfit impractical.

For the record, the reason boob cup breast plates are stupid is because if say, someone hits you in the chest and you're a lady and it hits your steel breast, then if it hits the inner side, its going to deflect and redirect that blow down the valley so to speak, so it actually forces to to get hit with more impact.

Real breast plates are either curved or with a wedge to them to help redirect the blow off the chest so most of the energy and force is simply being deflected.

Steel boob cups get you killed! It's a fact!

Figured i'd share that pointless tidbit. Either way her design looks pretty awesome, it'd be cool if she got a badass shield too.

I dunno, I'd expect the more acrobatic heroes to wear more form-fitting outfits. Not stupidly revealing crap obviously, but the same sort of stuff I'd expect a rogue to wear, just more... superhero-y.

That new design looks like pretty much what I'd expect. The biggest standout besides her coat is her actual build, which looks more like the thin and spry I'd expect a Robin/Batgirl to be.

@theht: That's fair. I wouldn't have the first clue what acrobats would want to wear, aside from some tumbling lessons in a few drama classes done by some folks in uni- and leotards.

She looks badass, but I think it's dumb she's also called Thor. I understand why, especially sales wise, but c'mon guys. C'maaaan.

@slag: In one of the multitude of spiderman comics I am sure he is. Not read anything recently though, my comic reading comes and goes, usually along with the rise and fall of my disposable income. Last I heard superior spiderman was still a thing, can't say for certain though.

I personally want to praise you for saying this, because you basically nailed one of the biggest problems marvel has right now. Both Marvel and DC have succumbed to rectons and shameful cash grabs. And this isn't the only change they are actually doing, they also made captain america sick old man who's probably about to be replaced by sam wilson, because you know...why not?It won't last anyways. And the whole Original Sin event is a retcon/change fest as it is, because they are altering some crucial elements in many of the characters histories. Like recently, it has been revealed that Tony Stark is involved in hulks creation, which is bullshit. And the examples go on and on....

The stakes are never high these days because nothing ever really lasts.NOTHING. and how can it when you have guys like Rick remender killing and bringing characters back on a whim? He had a whole arc where most of the main characters were brutally slaughtered and then revived a few issues later. And DC isn't really to far off either IMO, because the people who work there reuse, rehash, and retcon original stories again and again, much like Marvel.