Hot on the tails of DC announcing a revamp of one of their most popular female characters, Marvel announced today that a change is coming for the mighty Thor: and she's not to be trifled with... an all-new female Thor will debut with a renumbering in October.
Writer Jason Aaron will be penning the story and Russell Dauterman will handle art on the new title. Thor: God of Thunder, which began with the Marvel NOW! restart will be coming to an end in September.
According to the Marvel.com release, Thor sounds like he's taking a long vacation and this new female Thor will be "more than just a temporary female substitute." The publisher is stressing that this isn't a parallel Thor ala She-Hulk who will run in tandem with the original male character, she will be the one and only Thor in the universe.
Whether or not it's a complete reboot that retells the character's origins, or if a storyline will necessitate the change remains unclear. One would imagine that more information including how the tag out/tag in will come about at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con. But already there's been decidedly mixed reactions to the announcement of the change. It seems to be a running theme this week with character changes, how they're handled, and whether they are a positive or a negative.
Thor is a character that it's always taken a bit of motivation to get me interested in, I still haven't tackled any of the Thor: God of Thunder books, and admittedly the Cinematic Universe series of films were a pleasant surprise because my familiarity with the character is really slim to none. It'll be interesting to see how and where they take this character and the impact that she'll have on the greater series of Marvel books. And in my eyes, it's hard to get worked up one way or another over the news.
So in summation of my apparent reactions toward character changes: Ninja Turtle Revamp: Nay, Batgirl Revamp: Yay, Thor Gender Change: Indifferent. And thus, my true nature as a fickle and unpredictable fanboy is probably revealed.
