Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Not Thorita. Thor

A black person forced to
contribute to the success
of America? NONSENSE
Thor is going to be a woman in the next volume of the comic series. This may not be a big deal to you, but this news incited an amazing nerd rage, not seen since Idris Elba was cast as Heimdal in the Thor movies. Or when Marvel made a black Spider-Man. Or when the origins of Captain America not only resembled a superpowered Tuskegee Experiment, but also yielded a family of black Captain Americas. Or when DC made the original Green Lantern gay. Nerds hate change. They love their angrections™, though.
When I collected comic books, I did not pick up Thor. A big blond white dude who came from a European historic theology did not sound that appealing to my adolescent, pro-black, D. Militant mindset. I was more into the freaks and geeks of the comic world, so Spider-Man and of course the X-men, the black people of the comic world, complete with their own Martin Luther King and Malcolm X rivalry! Thor was way too Aryan for me to get into him. I still am not into Thor, but 50% of the Thor movies were cool, and I respect him as a Marvel staple. So why write about a character about whom I don’t really care? Because of two things: The announcement was covered nearly every news outlet, and it proves once again that Marvel > DC.




Twitter went nuts with this news. I heard it on NPR. NPR! Do you know what this means? Comic culture is more and more mainstream. Back when I was deep into comics, I had to hide them with my porn stash (THEY WERE ACTUALLY MAGAZINES! :-o) so as to not be ridiculed for having them. Comics were not cool! I did nothing for my popularity by having a copy of Uncanny X-Men sandwiched between my math and English books! Now, not only are there blockbuster movies that are actually good coming out, but now we are hearing about what’s happening in the actual books from whence they came! It’s like Entertainment Weekly, but with laser beams!


You must love Joss Whedon.
The reason why Marvel > DC right now is that they have been blazing trails in depicting more diverse characters. Ever since Black Panther came on the scene, Marvel has been innovating. Granted, the last time Thor was a woman, it was a punishment. Odin made Thor a woman because that was the “weaker sex”. This is insulting to everyone. This book hopefully makes up for that little indiscretion. A lot of people have been saying that Marvel needs to better develop its female superpowered stars. Well this definitely beats trying to familiarise the masses to Ms. Marvel! The rage will subside. It’s somewhat amusing. Where was this rage when the rebooted Battlestar Galactica made Starbuck a woman, and when Boomer went from being a black dude to an Asian woman? DC needs to step up its game now. I hear a Wonder Woman movie is in the works, but not before yet another Superman/Batman film, a Shazam movie, and a Justice League movie! Really? They should be making up for the whole Women in Refrigerators thing. Having Gail SImone on your staff isn’t absolution for such terrible development of female characters in comic books! It’s not penance! You actually have to DO SOMETHING to develop them...and not kill them off. Marvel has not been an angel over the years, but at least at least they seem to be moving in the right direction. Good for them. At least they don’t have a whole website dedicated to stupid things they did.
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