Thor Now a "Woman"

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:25 am

US Comic Fans (as calculated via facebook demographic info)

Which isn't to say there aren't like fifty other things wrong with your shitty argument, but

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:32 am

Momo, thank you. That said...

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:54 am

Fuck, you're right. My bad.

sarcasmoverdose · Post by **sarcasmoverdose** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 6:16 am

momothefiddler wrote: Which isn't to say there aren't like fifty other things wrong with your shitty argument, but

So what do you think my argument is, anyways?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:15 am

I'm not certain that people are actually more satisfied with entertainment that stars people like them. However, I am certain, because there's a very easy and horribly depressing test that confirms it, that people's views of others are shaped by the media they consume even if they consciously and violently disagree with those portrayals. So increasing diversity is unlikely to drive away anyone who isn't opposed to diversity by virtue of bigotry, and also does real good because it improves your target audience's subconscious ability to recognize other people as fully human.

You're probably wondering what this test is, and I can't remember who devised it so I can't link you to it. I can, however, reproduce it right now, and you can take it, right now, and be sad. I'll put it in a couple of spoiler blocks. Don't look at any of the phases until you've read and completed the section of the test in all previous phases. It probably won't change anything, but it makes the experiment less blind, and that's bad practice.

Phase one:

Alright, get a sheet of paper and mark two columns, left and right. Also look up a stopwatch. Your goal is to assign words from a list I'll print below to the correct column based on criteria given by the test, and to do so as fast as possible. Some of the words are a bit ambiguous, like an adjective that you're not quite sure if it's more domestic or more entrepreneurial. Don't agonize over this, because the goal is speed. If you're not sure, take your best guess and keep moving.

To get the idea and to set a control, we're going to start with a list of names. If it's a woman's name, put a checkmark on the left column. If it's a man's name, but a checkmark on the right column. When you're done, record your time and go on to the next phase.

David
Agatha
Cheryl
Mark
Leonard
Darla
Melissa
Mike
Gary
Vincent
Mary
Peter
Vanessa
Valerie
Pollyanna
Greg
Iris
Charles
Robert
Susan

Phase two:

Alright, now things get moderately more complicated. This list will have names and regular words. If it's a word best described as domestic or a female name, mark a tally on the left column. If it's a word best described as entrepreneurial or a male name, mark a tally on the right. Record your time and compare it to the first - it'll probably be slightly slower, since it's a slightly more complicated task.

Betty
Larry
Business
Caring
Edward
Pioneering
Beatrice
Family
Clark
Bob
Home-loving
Lucrative
Successful
Susan
Child-loving
Lisa
Vocation
Gwen
Cleaning
Fred

Phase three:

By now, you probably know where this is going, which is bad for purposes of being double-blind, but whatever. This time, if it's a woman's name or an entrepreneurial word, mark a tally on the left. If it's a man's name or a domestic word, mark a tally on the right. Remember to record your time.

Geoff
Career
Lucy
Docile
Beatrice
Bruce
Triumphant
Helpless
Ron
Harry
Home
Innovative
Anne
Diana
Baking
Consultant
Ambitious
Greg
Alice
Pet

Now compare your three times and see which one of them is not like the others. Congratulations, assuming my reproduction of this test from memory hasn't badly skewed its results, you are now sad.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:34 am

My times from one and three are the closest, with my time from two higher than either... Does that just mean I'm good at remembering instructions?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:47 am

It might just mean I constructed the test poorly. When I had the actual book, everyone who took the test got a horribly worse time on the third test. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of that book.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:54 am

Any keywords on that book? Or the author? I might be able to google something up.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 8:12 am

I can't think of any key words or the author. I certainly would've tried Googling it before trying to reconstruct the test myself if I could think of how.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 8:16 am

Fair enough. I try to not leave out the possibility that peoples' google skills may not be very good, or they just overlook googling stuff through alternative means.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 8:27 am

I'm assuming the new Thor will be switched in during the current Original Sin storyline, and is quite likely to be Thor's sister, Angela (whom has a rather longer and more sordid history than of which I was aware). I would suppose that the things to make wagers upon at this point would be if the new Thor lasts longer than Sam Wilson as Cap. America, and if either of them last as long as Doc Ock did in Superior Spider Man. SSM was biweekly, while Thora and FalCap almost certainly won't be.

My guess is that it all gets switched back after 21 issues, right around when they bring back Uatu.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:28 am

Chamomile wrote:It might just mean I constructed the test poorly. When I had the actual book, everyone who took the test got a horribly worse time on the third test. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of that book.

It's called the Implicit Association Test (or, colloquially, the Harvard Bigotry Test). Cham's simplified version is wrong, though, because a larger number of errors in the third group is due to switching from one complex set of instructions to another. The online version runs a second series to control for it.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:25 pm

I am more than okay with FalCap. He's been a recurring sidekick to Captain America since before I was born. That makes him a hell of a lot more suited to the role that USAgentCap or WinterSoldierCap was.

Concise Locket · Post by **Concise Locket** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:15 pm

1. Marvel/DC superhero comics are about the illusion of change, not actual change. Thor was a frog in the 1980s fer fucksake and the 1990s had electric Superman. Default Thor will return so long as Chris Hemsworth is a moneymaker. Which leads to...

2. Marvel/DC comics are dictated by the films. Media conglomerates don't like brands that aren't unified. Off the top of my head:

a) Wolverine was a runty scrapper until Hugh Jackman stepped in. In the books he became taller and handsome.
b) Caucasian WW2 vet Nick Fury is being phased out for his son, Nick Fury, Jr., who happens to look like Samuel L. Jackson and who also has an eye patch.
c) The Joker had cuts on his mouth like the Heath Ledger character - until he sliced his entire face off.

Creator owned books (Image, Icon, some Vertigo, et. all) are the only place where character changes remain permanent.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:46 pm

c) The Joker had cuts on his mouth like the Heath Ledger character - until he sliced his entire face off.

wha?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:28 pm

Stahlseele wrote:
c) The Joker had cuts on his mouth like the Heath Ledger character - until he sliced his entire face off.
wha?

There was a plotline where they found Joker's face and presumed that he was dead. There were huge anti-Batman and anti-police protests afterwards.

http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/3535929.html

It later turned out that Joker cut off his own face for some reason and faked his death. And then kidnapped the entire bat family and horribly tortured them all.

Currently he wears his severed face as a mask.

http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/4232631.html

sarcasmoverdose wrote: They weren't Thor though, they were guys who wielded Thor's hammer.

Masterson was Thor's host for 24 issues and then headlined as Thor for 27 issues

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:51 pm

@hyzmarca
Thanks . . that was surprisingly stupid . .

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:42 pm

You realize that Nick Fury Jr. started before the movies even came out. Bendis actually wanted his ultimate version of Fury to look like Sam Jackson. This was before the movies.

I really see the movie versions of the comics separating to a different universe. For example, Miles Morales as Ultimate Spiderman. The MTV ultimate spiderman series has completely ignored this storyline. It still sticks with Parker.

---

It is something of a marketing stance in that Marvel is pushing the number of female led titles. ALong with Thor, we also have X-men, Captain Marvel, Elektra, Black WIdow, Storm and who knows what else. It might be a marketing gimmick but so what?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 8:24 pm

Cynic wrote:It is something of a marketing stance in that Marvel is pushing the number of female led titles. ALong with Thor, we also have X-men, Captain Marvel, Elektra, Black WIdow, Storm and who knows what else. It might be a marketing gimmick but so what?

I'm torn here. On one hand, slotting women into big-time superhero titles like Thor and Captain Marvel is a move for both diversity and marketing.

On the other hand, it's a lazy shortcut inferior to developing interesting female characters with their own brand, and thereby it continues to marginalize women - albeit to a slightly lesser degree. What I'm trying to say it that this is basically an updated and improved version of retreading male characters into female knockoffs like Supergirl, Batgirl, She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, X-23 etc.

What would truly impress me is if they would also ocassionally start slotting younger male sidekicks into previously female title roles, thereby showing that female characters also had legacies worth emulating. But that's linguistically problematic as most of the title-carrying females in comics are named things like Wonder Woman, Power Girl , She-Hulk Ms. Marvel and The White Queen. It's almost as if the defining characteristic of such characters was their gender and everything else was secondary.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 8:28 pm

Eh. I lose patience with that argument. Superman, Batman, Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Superboy, Beastboy, Aqualad. It's a convention of the genre, and it applies equally well to either gender.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 9:32 pm

Noun-Man is the stock superhero naming scheme. The only one of those names I really take issue with is She-Hulk, and that fits into the same genre of Spider-Girl, Batgirl, Supergirl, characters with identical powersets and costumes (though occasionally with less fabric). And the new Thor kind of fits into that same category. I, too, would have preferred that instead of reimagining the existing characters in more diverse roles that will inevitably revert, they instead start spitting out new heroes who are female or black or whatever and hope that a couple of them stick.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 11:08 pm

The problem with spitting out new properties is that they are not guaranteed sellers

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sun Jul 20, 2014 10:46 pm

I always thought She-Hulk was an "out and proud" metaphor. Because of that, her frequent cheesecake and such takes on a different character.

T-Pain expresses my feelings best here.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 20, 2014 11:44 pm

She's a fourth wall breaking lingerie model and lawyer who, unlike her cousin (most of the time) does not change, she's always big and green. I think there could be some "out and proud" metaphor there, but it's really more about not being ashamed of your body and, by metaphorical extension, its scars.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:41 am

fectin wrote:I always thought She-Hulk was an "out and proud" metaphor. Because of that, her frequent cheesecake and such takes on a different character.

T-Pain expresses my feelings best here.

She-Hulk is very much heterosexual.

But the thing is, she's strong, powerful, and in charge of her own sexuality.

Prak_Anima wrote:She's a fourth wall breaking lingerie model and lawyer who, unlike her cousin (most of the time) does not change, she's always big and green. I think there could be some "out and proud" metaphor there, but it's really more about not being ashamed of your body and, by metaphorical extension, its scars.

Oh, she transforms. It's just that once she gained the ability to control her transformations she decided that she prefered being She-Hulk.

The main point of She-Hulk is that she's a shy, mousy, and somewhat timid lawyer who transforms into an outgoing, boisterous, and extremely muscular superhero.

Josh_Kablack wrote: What would truly impress me is if they would also ocassionally start slotting younger male sidekicks into previously female title roles, thereby showing that female characters also had legacies worth emulating. But that's linguistically problematic as most of the title-carrying females in comics are named things like Wonder Woman, Power Girl , She-Hulk Ms. Marvel and The White Queen. It's almost as if the defining characteristic of such characters was their gender and everything else was secondary.

There's actually a cartoon about, SheZow. A young boy klearns that his late aunt was a superhero and takes up her mantle, which is somewhat embarrassing given that the costume and equipment he inherited is extremely feminine.