Burnouts3s3 said:
Wait. On female Thor, isn't that Torunn, Thor's daughter? Or is it actually Thor but female?
This is actually hilarious on some levels. Basically Marvel realized that since they were getting so much attention with all the PC-ethnicity swapping and such that it would be a huge thing for their hype wagon to do it on a larger scale. What's funny is that a lot of these things have already happened before, but they didn't get much attention at the time. We've had several black versions of Captain America over the years (Battlestar, Patriot, etc...) and numerous men behind the mask when cap was indisposed, so really it's not really all that surprising. We've had numerous female versions of Thor as well, including the whole "Earth X" thing and the like. The thing about Thor is that as originally defined Thor was a sort of possessing entity, where a normal person could transform into Thor. Today people tend to forget all about Donald Blake, and others who have held the hammer, as well as bits like in "Infinity Gauntlet" about how when Thor was separated from his hammer in deep space he regressed into a normal human (stopped being Thor) and the host was dying until he got his hands back on the hammer and changed back. It seems more or less like someone remembered this, as opposed to the whole train of logic that created "Beta Ray Bill" as "Beta Ray Thor" where generally speaking being worthy to pick up the hammer should literally have made him Thor when he transformed (personality transfer and all) as opposed to simply giving him the powers, where he otherwise just pretty much remained Beta Ray Bill in a Thor suit. Furthermore during the whole "X-men In Asgard" thing Storm already replaced Thor as the God/goddess of Thunder, albeit briefly, so "Thor" was for about 15 minutes black and female. This is incidently part of the reason Ororo gives her attitude about being a goddess, it wasn't just the tribal role, but also having been given the role (albeit under control of some villains) briefly. She's one of the few mortals who can make that claim.
At any rate the big gimmick here is that they plan to just release the titles as "Thor" and "Captain America" as opposed to a title that makes the difference clear. They are not going to refer to this version as "She Thor", "Thor Girl" or a few other names, but just as "Thor". Just as Falcon will just be called "Captain America" while he holds the title. This will generate press, and of course sell a lot of comics as collectors run out to gobble up the series in hopes that at one time they will be valuable. The amount of time it will last will largely depend on how long the boom does. As a lot of Marvel fans will point out the whole "Milo Morales" Spider-Man series is perhaps the most popular comic few people actually read, it sells heavily because of collectors wanting the run before Marvel realizes that other than political praise nobody actually likes the character or the idea (right up there with the Sam Alexander version of Nova, people want Richard Rider), and of course the collector interest fades, which can then be re-kindled by the original hero coming back into the mantle one way or another (even death is not permanent) and that of course is another huge collector's boom. Basically explaining how Peter Parker returns to again be "Ultimate Spider Man" in the comics is an arc everyone is going to want to put in little plastic baggies and stuff in a closet along with the Milo Morales run so 20 years later they can say "this actually happened" and perhaps get some bucks for the whole set if they have more luck preserving their intact set than others (though like most collector exploitation, the whole problem is that when everyone saves this stuff nowadays, it means there is little value as anyone who would have an interest already has it, or enough people will have it on the market that prices will be low for new collectors).
One joke in some comics circles that shows up once in a while is what stupidly PC thing Marvel is going to do. If you've ever wondered why there have been a few pictures of Wolverine in a dress out there recently is one recurring joke is that as one of Marvel's most popular characters it's inevitable they will have to do something with him. One gag is the possible revelation that he's been a crossdresser for years, and while not gay (I mean this would be hard to recon without a huge universe reboot), will come out of the closet with his secret and insist on kicking butt in a fabulous wardrobe (the visual humor focusing on his height, and extremely hairy, stocky build). So far though Marvel has mostly just recycled their previous ideas for the most part, now that there is more attention on it.
I do have to admit that while I'd never support it in the long run, some other "ideas" like having Iron Man reveal himself to be a furry and run around in heavily armed crotchless fursuits and stuff would be funny... they could even sort of justify that as Iron Man has spent some time in kinky sex clubs like "The Hellfire Club" and I believe he was sort of under Emma's thumb for a while, to make it funnier they could always have he say she was surprised it took this long...
One that would be rather cold would be having Kitty Pryde confide in Majick that she's gay (to match the movie actress) and was secretly glad Colossus was buying into that whole "wait until I turn 18" stuff, and eventually provided an easy out by getting with that alien healer on Battleworld....
Rest assured though, we will likely never see a white Black Panther.... though perhaps Steve Colbert's artwork (from his show) will actually be used briefly for a new Falcon.
I know, I know most of this is actually making light of the "serious political statements" but now that they are going full media-blitz with it, it's almost becoming a parody of the initial issues and attention.