“Thor with long blonde hair and beautiful features? Count me out! I came here to read a comic about a beautiful, strong, MAN with gorgeous hair.
Wait, no. Actually, I like woman Thor. The truth is, I didn’t have a lot of care or concern about Thor before I picked this up, so the switcheroo doesn’t even remotely fall into that category of “stop fucking with my beloved, favorite-est characters” for me.
I had other issues with this volume.
#1: Secrets
It’s a big secret who Lady Thor really is in here (by the way, I’ll call her lady Thor, not because I disrespect her, but because Man Thor still exists in this universe, and I’m not sure what to call him other than Thor, and I’m also not sure what to call Lady Thor other than Thor. So in the interest of having some vague coherence, one will be Lady Thor, and one will be Man Thor). I purposely have avoided learning Lady Thor’s identity so I could learn it in the story. But the way the secret is kept is SO annoying. Because Lady Thor knows who she is, her regular identity, and it’s like she’s reminding us, over and over, that it’s really important that her secret doesn’t get out. Which, as a reader, amounts to a constant reminder that “I know something you don’t, and trust me, it’s a doozy.”
But also, and I had a think over this one. I think part of what makes the secret annoying is that I don’t really care. Because which woman in the Marvel U could it be that would make this interesting?
And I’m throwing the blame off myself here and pointing to the fact that there just aren’t a lot of super-compelling answers to that question because there aren’t a shitload of super-compelling female characters in Marvel comics. It’s light years better than it was, and it’s improving rapidly, and I love that. But let’s be honest.
You know what? Let’s go through my list of suspects. Like Sherlock Holmes and shit.
I set up a few rules first.
1. I assumed it was, in fact, a woman under the mask. Because otherwise this is a very pointless exercise.
2. I assumed that it does not have to be a white, blonde, human woman because if the hammer can hide this person’s identity, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say the hammer could also give a person long blonde hair and white skin.
3. I assumed it has to be a woman that we are vaguely familiar with, because otherwise, again, it wouldn’t really be a secret FROM THE READER. Take Miles Morales. Of course he doesn’t want everyone to know, but the story, for the reader, hinges on us getting to know this dude. And he’s not some guy we all knew before, so the secret isn’t valuable to a reader. For Lady Thor’s secret to have payoff, she has to be someone we, as readers, know.
Suspects:
Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel
Possible, but unlikely. A new character with a new series, and a lot about that series is her coping with new powers and shit. It would also cut the number of new female characters in half, which seems foolish.
She Hulk aka She Hulk
Hmm. Could be. Although I don’t know why she would really care to hide her identity. She’s pretty famous for never having a dual identity, really. I mean, when you’re a 7-foot ripped green lady running around in a woman’s one-piece bathing suit and punching shit, what would you be hiding? I think if She Hulk picked up the hammer, she’d stay She Hulk or not care about being all secretive.
Sue Storm aka Invisible Woman
This is actually the most interesting prospect, to me. She’s a lady of science, and now she’s in this mystical world. She’s been part of a team, but now she’s flying solo. That’s contrast. That’s going against type. I could get down with that.
Emma Frost aka That Lady Who’s Always In Lingerie With The Boobs
She’s kinda evil. Or was. If 99% of people can’t pick up the hammer on a morality basis, I don’t think Emma Frost could either. I feel like this hammer’s morality is just set up to keep Asgardians from jacking off. Instead of “You’ll go blind” it’s “You’ll never be able to lift mystical weapons.” #NoFapAsgard
Alicia Masters aka Blind Sculpter
Hmm. I guess. But now we’re falling into territory of characters that aren’t super-interesting to see as Thor. Being blind and then able to see would be something. But beyond that, I dunno. She’s another character that I don’t have a strong tie to.
Mary Jane aka Spider-Man’s Girlfriend
Because why not? But also, because why? It’s possible, but pretty uninteresting, no?
Aunt May aka Old Lady
We all remember the disaster when Aunt May got the power cosmic and became Golden Oldie and used her powers to make a giant Twinkie. Do we all remember that? Because that shit happened.
Black Widow aka Super Spy Who’s Sometimes Really Russian and Sometimes Not Really Russian
Is she worthy of the hammer? She killed people. But was also kind of programmed…
Here’s my thing with this option. When you take a character who is kind of interesting in this world because she doesn’t have powers, and you give her powers, you take away what’s interesting about that character in some ways. It’s possible that it’s her, but I think it’d be a poor choice.
Ororo Munroe aka Storm
Maybe. The lighting to lightning connection is solid. But what would be interesting is seeing the contrast, the internal monologue of the differences here. Mutant powers versus mystical powers. Keeping it a secret, in this case, would be a weird way to go.
Medusa aka The Hair Medusa, Not The Snakes One
The jump from Inhuman to Asgardian wouldn’t be all that crazy. I could get down with that.
Dazzler aka Super Rollergirl
Once I hit on Dazzler, that’s the only person I wanted it to be. Fuck it. The world is ready for Dazzler. If DJ’s are all over billboards in LA, then certainly a person with music based ACTUAL POWERS could make a pretty good living for herself. Deadmaus could go fuck himself.
It’s not a comprehensive list, but there we go. The options just aren’t that mind-blowing, and so stringing out the mystery here, eh, who needs it? And the more I think about it, the less excited I am about the possibilities.
An example of a swap done well is Superior Spider-Man. Doc Ock switches into Spider-Man’s body, and nobody knows EXCEPT Spider-Man, Ock, and readers. And the readers are key. They know, which means we’re given all these glimpses into Doc Ock and what it’s like for him to have powers and what he thinks about. It’s a lot more interesting to flush that mystery in favor of the better story.
The other big secret here is how Man Thor lost his powers. Nick Fury whispered something in his ear, and Man Thor was no longer able to lift his hammer. What did he say? Abra-Cadabra? Ala-Kazaam? I have Kazaam on DVD? Whatever Fury said, no one knows but Man Thor, and that includes readers.
I’m down for a stupid premise like magic words or some weird ace Nick Fury had in his hole. Heh. But what I’m not down for is Man Thor getting drunk and almost telling everyone what Fury said, or hesitating to say to his parents, or ALL THESE THINGS WHERE IT’S LIKE “Okay, here’s the secret” and then WHOOPS! frost giant steps in the room, no time to talk now!
Fuck that. Give me a break. It’s one sentence. How long are we teasing one sentence?
#2 Feminist Cake
Alright. Not everyone is going to be with me on this one. But hear me out.
I think this book engages in what Family Guy does at its worst.
If you want to do something racist or sexist or awful in Family Guy, it’s easy. You just have Peter do it. He’s an idiot oaf, and you can have anything come out of his mouth without really getting in any trouble because you’ve created this character that functions, primarily, to do just that. Sometimes it works, and other times it’s like, “Let’s say this awful thing, but let’s make it seem like the JOKE is that it’s so awful and no one would actually say it, but what we’re REALLY doing is getting a pass to do a dumb joke.”
So when asshole frost giants with big stupid guts and bones through their noses comment on Lady Thor’s Ladyness, it’s fine because we’re like, “Yeah, they’re weird idiot men.”
Crusher Creel, aka Absorbing Man, makes some comments which, hold the phone, let me say something about why this is TERRIBLE comics.
Creel uses the word “feminist”, and four panels later Lady Thor’s inner dialogue is all “Thanks for saying ‘feminist’ like it’s a four-letter-word, dillweed!” (Something like that).
This is bad comics because when Creel says it, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT HIS INFLECTION IS?! I have to then go back, re-read that panel, and be like “Oh, okay. NOW I’m retroactively pissed off.” That’s bad comics. That would be like writing a whole page of text dialogue, then writing “BTW, they yelled that stuff at each other and were real mad and shit.” It’s like this comic, in so many ways, is pushing the reader outside. I don’t know who Lady Thor is, I don’t know why Man Thor can’t lift his hammer, and I don’t even know that someone is using the word feminist in a derogatory way until it’s already happened because everything has to be a riddle wrapped in an enigma all jammed inside a goddamn Hellraiser puzzle box, which you DO NOT want to open because you’re about to have a confusing and really gross journey.
*whew*
Anyway, let’s get back to this thing where only oafish characters are saying how Lady Thor is just a girly girl and yadda yadda.
That stuff, feels, to me, like the writer really wanting everyone to know that this is a big deal.
Which is especially weird because in this very story, who is Creel teamed up with? Titania! His wife! A woman! A lady who beats the shit out of people. A lady with the equivalent strength of She Hulk if we bother to Marvel Wiki.
I ask you, why would Crusher Creel be floored by the idea of a woman superhero when he was teamed up, romantically AND professionally, with a female supervillain? When his wife is a super strong lady who can kick his ass, why would we use him to spout this 1950’s bullshit?
Oh, right. Because if it’s a bad guy, then it’s okay for him to verbally express bad values, especially because he’s just going to end up punched in the face. It’s like a literal punching in the face of anti-feminism!
Or is it.
Because here’s my premise.
The problems of anti-feminism are a lot deeper than a guy calling Lady Thor “toots.” And they are problems that aren’t remotely solved or addressed by punching said dude in the face.
And more than that, they’re problems that would be a lot more interesting handled differently.
Here are the people in the book who have a problem with Lady Thor:
Odin (who is a total asshole to everyone in this book, BTW)
Frost Giants
Absorbing Man
Here are the people who have no problem:
Man Thor
Captain America
Spider-Man
Thor’s Mom
Titania
The good guys are into Lady Thor, the bad guys aren’t. Bad guys have bad values. Great. Fun.
Wouldn’t it be a lot more interesting if Man Thor, who we like, had a problem with this? Wouldn’t it be more fascinating if Spider-Man had an issue with this whole thing?
Flipside, wouldn’t it make for a better story if a villain were wholly uninterested in whether Thor was a man or a woman? Or if a villain were, for all his foibles, a feminist through and through?
The notable exception here is Titania. But the exchange between Titania and Lady Thor was super ridiculous and made no sense, and frankly was my absolute least-favorite part of the book. The logic is not there, the point of the scene isn’t there, and Lady Thor still clocks Titania, who has already surrendered completely! What the fuck? They made a JOKE about this very thing in Howard the Duck, when a bad guy surrenders and a superhero reveals he doesn’t carry handcuffs or anything like that because, frankly, he just knocks people unconscious all the time.
Here’s something that, for me separates comics from great comics:
It’s wish fulfillment and it’s fun when Captain America punches Hitler in the face. That’s comics.
But it’s a hell of a lot more interesting when, in a book like Watchmen, the villain is doing something that’s arguably good, but going about it in a destructive way. When you can understand why the villain would want what he wants, and yet his methods are abhorrent. That’s great comics.
My reading of this is that the writer, or Marvel, want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have a woman be Thor, and they want to move into a world where everyone is cool with this. But they also write the character of the anti-Lady-Thor villain into the comics, give that person a voice, and invalidate that voice by putting it in the mouth of a fool who already, thoroughly, deserves a punch to the face for any of a hundred reasons.
Don’t get me wrong. If you’re a person who hates the idea of Lady Thor because Thor is a lady, I don’t think you’re someone who needs a dialog. I think what you NEED is to go fuck yourself. How about you start your own comics line called Chauvinistic Obnoxious Crap Komics (or COCK for short) and you can just make it a womanless world for you to do whatever you like with. And in the meantime, go fuck yourself.
My issue is that this comic dumbs down a problem that goes deeper. There are lots of people who aren’t bank robbers and still have some pretty weird views. And we need to realize that part of the problem is that we don’t get to punch those people in the face. And we can’t. And even if we could, it wouldn’t prove to anything about women or men other than a woman is capable of punching a man in the face.
It would be convenient if all anti-feminists were also bank robbers, but they’re not. If every racist were a criminal, that would make things easier. But it’s not illegal to hate black people because they’re black. It’s not legally-required for people to be, in general, cool with the existence of gay people.
Let’s get concrete. She Hulk gets catcalled, breaks the dude’s jaw. What she does would, NO DOUBT, feel good. But is it right? I don’t know. Does it make men in the future a little more hesitant to catcall, thereby justifying the jaw-bustin’? How do we feel about it if we discover his medical bill means his daughters can’t be enrolled in private school anymore?
I don’t know the answers, but what I DO know is that the question is a lot more interesting than the question of whether or not we should punch frost giants who are taking over the world and who also just so happen to be anti-feminist. There’s no answer to that question that isn’t Yes.
I want more. I want the better questions.
It’s comics, and we can say it’s all just fun, but it’s not. Sorry. It’s not. When you make blockbuster Avengers movies that kill at the box office, it’s not just a couple dudes in a tiny office writing funny books, doing what they think is enjoyable.
I’m being hard on this book because it’s not some indie with no quality control or backing behind it. I’m hard on Marvel because I think their best stuff is about Spider-Man’s real life problems, or the ways in which X-Men are a gateway to a very real, nuanced discussion of civil rights.
I’m tired of people making excuses for comics and saying the audiences aren’t ready. I’m tired of people saying that books with women on the covers and as the protagonists won’t sell, because that’s just not true.
I’m tired of content that seems pointed at detractors, answering their idiotic questions, and also at people who see a woman on the cover and stop there, dust their hands and say “mission complete.”
I’m tired of comics where I feel someone put on the brakes, say “Now a political discussion, after which we return to the fun.” I’m tired of the stark separation between those things.
What I’m really tired of is the content creators blaming the faceless audience and economic forces for the fact that comics are not as progressive and sophisticated as they should be. People will tell you it’s a chicken and the egg argument, but I think that’s just a convenient excuse to get away from doing what we all know is right.
And I know Jason Aaron, the writer, can do better. He has, many, many times. He’s a really good writer. I appreciate his work for its humor and depth, and that’s why it’s a letdown when he doesn’t take it to the limit.
We can do more. We’re ready for more. We’re ready for good stories that can tell anti-feminists to go fuck themselves and also have narrative arcs. For stories that stand on their own as feminist and powerful and let readers and critics do the work of pointing out how awesome they are. That don’t have single panels that are written so Buzzfeed has an easy quotable to tell us about Lady Thor.
We. Are. Fucking. Ready.”