Thor has been in publication since ’62, and in all those years we’ve rarely seen a woman pick up the hammer. I didn’t know who initially, but once I started thinking about it, I knew that I wanted it to be a woman. "But at some point I got to the story of somebody new carrying the hammer. "The plan was always to get to the point where the Thor that we knew had become unworthy," he said. With all this already written, that even the name Thor should pass to a woman was an obvious, if not immediate, decision Aaron was more than ready to make, a reaction to all the changes that have already begun to take root in his corner of the Marvel universe. And in the future, Thor has three super-powerful granddaughters, Frigg, Ellisiv, and Atli, who are known as the Girls of Thunder and are warriors of the same stripe as the Odinson himself. He has a newfound sister in Angela, a powerful lost Asgardian from the Tenth Realm who is strong enough to defeat him at his best. Asgardia itself, the renewed home of the gods in Marvel continuity, is now ruled by goddesses collectively known as the All-Mothers. Meanwhile, Thor’s whole world has also changed around him, particularly because women now play increasingly central roles in his existence. I love the idea of taking that away from him." This is a dark time in the character’s life, he says, and it’s his greatest test grappling with the loss of his greatest weapon. "So he’s always sort of worrying and praying about if he’s a good enough god and is he truly worthy in the grand scheme of things. "I’ve always written him as a god who wakes up everyday and looks at that hammer and doesn’t know if he’s gonna be able to pick it up," said Aaron. His Thor is the kind of character that can face off against threats like the God Butcher and the Phoenix Force, but he’s well aware his strength isn’t a given. The question of worthiness has always served as a through line in Aaron's work. "To have somebody else come in and pick up that hammer and be changed by it, to me, is an evolution of that idea started by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby back in 1962."Īaron has served as steward for Thor’s mythology since 2012, when he launched Thor: God of Thunder, throwing readers back eons to see the god’s earliest adventures while also sending them into the far future when an aged Thor sits the throne in Asgard. "It goes back really to Thor’s first appearance," Aaron told me. It’s easily one of the biggest changes Marvel has ever made - and, according to series writer Jason Aaron, that's exactly how he wanted it.Įvolving the story first told by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Now a mystery woman has taken up not only his famous weapon, but his role and even his name. The hammer Mjolnir, for reasons that are still unclear at the beginning of this new series, has judged the Odinson unworthy, leaving the God of Thunder weakened. More change is on the way and the latest wave hits tomorrow, as Thor, one of Marvel’s core characters, becomes a woman. As creators slowly but surely create characters that reflect their audience in toto - readers from different backgrounds, races, genders, and sexual orientations - comics as a whole get better for everyone. Today, however, there's a black Spider-Man out there, one that’s not only valid but beloved. The few that did weren’t exactly marquee characters, the icons like Spider-Man and Wonder Woman that fans could rally behind outside their local comic book shops. When I was a kid, few of the characters I loved looked much like me. It's also one of the best parts about loving comics. It’s a dilemma the comics industry has struggled with for decades, here and there resisting and elsewhere confronting head on. For superheroes to stay alive, they have to change with the times.
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