Is Marvel Comics Thor Character a Mantle?

Stan Lee is totally bitter about Superman.

In any case. I'm pretty sure its his name. Though I guess since Marvel owns the character, they can't really misunderstand him. They just change the definition as it suits them :p

@fallschirmjager: In this case don't forget that the source material is as known as the adaptation from marvel, everyone can make a movie or a comic with Thor adapting him from N. Mythology ,he is not like Hulk and Spider-Man...

@t_aesir: They created the one in question and own everything about him, including his name and if its a mantle or not.

@fallschirmjager: but if that contradicts his past and creation in marvel comics like Stan lee says, they could be wrong, but still they can do it, and are doing it with the female Thor...

bottom line is they can do what they want. You however are still free to buy it or not. So just do not buy it and be like those whom still love the character and just say at this time you will not being buying into the comic. If they want to go back to the character that we want to read about we will read the comic again.

Thor is a character no owned by anybody and if you wished you could just create your own comic and sell it on the web.

Nothing is stopping anybody if you have the talent and skill and imagination feel free to make a Thor online comic book.

You never know.

No writer or story teller likes to read to a empty room of people.

So as the room becomes empty we will see.

Thor Odinson is his name. That's pretty much the whole story.

@t_aesir:

Thanks for using my quote, bro. It's not just how I feel, it's a fact; & excellent writers like Simonson & DeFalco got that.

That's exactly right, short sweet & to the point. How this fact is misinterpreted by Marvel is beyond me.

No, it's his name not a mantle to be assumed by others.

It's maybe not officially a mantle, but if the new Mjolnir-wielder feels like calling herself Thor, I can believe someone would do that.

It used to be if you did something to in somebody Else name and they found out about it. It was grounds for a beat down lol.

Do you think it s worthy to any character call himself with the birth name of another character that still exists in the same Universe?

may as well make Odin a mantel and Loki and Surter and the wolf.Hey look its the somewhat father and not allfather. The only thing that made Thor worth reading was his godhood take away that and you get some lame ass with a hammer.

Yawn.

Put the years that he walked the world and the information and knowledge and battle skills he would possess and many other things and you get Thor. Kick ass god of thunder.

You just cannot give that away or pick up his hammer and get his mojo.

If you do its lame.

You become as creepy as Shazam. and that is pretty creepy.

@v_scarlotte_rose:

It is obvious that Thor is a name and not a mantel. The rational of the Thor superhero is that a Norse god named Thor goes to earth and does heroic deeds he's not some superhero dude who dresses like a Norse god and calls himself Thor, but this is what marvel is trying change it to.

I totally misunderstood the title and clicked "yes" on the poll before reading the rest and seeing what the title actually meant. *sigh* I shall now condemn myself to a little hole in my garden for the next couple of minutes and reflect on my mistake.

Getting back to the thread, I completely agree with this:

In Marvel, sort of. Depends on the application of the term mantle, and some other aspects. Like the Donald Blake factor, with Eric Masterson becoming Thor too. Beta Ray Bill, after all was occasionally referred to as Beta Ray Thor. Its possible for things to be utilized in multiple ways, obviously Thor is the name of a character too, Thor Odinson, but comparisons with characters like Captain America/Steve Rogers aren't necessarily the best, because arguably if Steve Rogers lived for thousands of years and then was influential in a society where Steve wasn't a common name, it wouldn't be that bizarre for a female to take the name Steve as some sort of title. As opposed to taking the Captain America mantle. "Be wary evil villains, I come for your heads, in the name of justice, and apple pie. I am the Steve!"

As another poster implied, its fiction though, if Marvel wants it as a mantle, they can.

Being that other people have become Thor I don't get how it isn't m

@allaric: Don't personalize discussion with other users. If you aren't interested in being civil or extending goodwill to other users, do not address them. Very simple. I get it, this is a topic you feel strongly about, thats fine, but don't accuse other users of lying, because you have problems with Marvel. It will simply earn your warnings, as well as get your posts deleted. First warning.

@dagmar_merrill:

It is this simple , Thor is a proper name not a mantle , it has been that way for 1000's of years in the source Mythology and for over five decades in Marvel comics. Marvel can't change naming conventions that are outside of the norm without shredding every ounce creditability of the character.

So sure marvel can just do it , but it will be so contrived that the character will be unacceptable to readers.

@sc:

None of those examples are the same as what Marvel is doing with the she-Thor. As a moderator here I would expect you would at least point out the differences.

@allaric: But what about all of the other people who were Thor at points in time? I'm not even taking about the Norse mythology which I don't know why is being brought up here.

@sc: said: "Don't personalize discussion with other users. If you aren't interested in being civil or extending goodwill to other users, do not address them. Very simple. I get it, this is a topic you feel strongly about, thats fine, but don't accuse other users of lying, because you have problems with Marvel. It will simply earn your warnings, as well as get your posts deleted. First warning."

As a moderator you should use the personal messaging for comments like this , not the forum threads , by doing this publicly you send a message to other forum posters that they cant disagree with you, which can be interpreted as intimidation and harassment.

I will simply ignore you from now on.

@allaric: Thank you for being more polite. Depends how you apply the terms/concept same and different. I agree, it is different, just like Beta Ray Bill was different from Donald Blake. Just like Dargo Ktor was different from Beta Ray Bill. Just like Throg was different from Dargo Ktor. Just like the new female Thor will be different too. I don't think I actually have to point that out, things generally tend to be a mix of differences and similarities rather than absolutes of being completely different or completely the exact same.

My status as a moderator doesn't mean having to post my opinions on threads any different than any other user, nor are there such expectations. All I have to do as a moderator is make sure users treat each other with some basic decency and politeness and occasionally clean up some spam heh heh.

@allaric said:

As a moderator I know whats appropriate or not. If users think they can't disagree with me, because they break the rules and then try to use excuses, when explained they can't behave that way, there is nothing I can do to avoid that. What any user says could be interpreted as something its not. Users are allowed to seek clarification, what they can't do is make personal accusations of other users. This will be the last I speak of this in this thread though, if you have more questions that aren't on topic, feel free to send a PM, either to myself or another moderator who will be happy to clarify for you.

Exactly , and the Thorlene comic will fail because it such a poorly conceived and ill contrived idea.

I'll just quote the OP quote ...

"

@winter_kills Quote

"Beta Ray Bill was worthy & wielded Mjolnir, but never said he was Thor. Eric Masterson wielded Mjolnir, & yes, he was called Thor in generalization, but he never called himself Thor- he always stressed that he was just a substitute & that he wouldn't stop searching for the REAL Thor.

Thor isn't a title, like Captain America or Iron Man. It's his NAME. There's only ONE TRUE Thor & there always will be. The inscription on the hammer says "Whosoever Holds This Hammer, If He Be Worthy, Shall Possess The Power of Thor." Not "Whosoever Holds This Hammer, If He Be Worthy, Shall BECOME Thor." I think there's definitely some confusion there. Only one person used the hammer to BECOME Thor, & that was Donald Blake- because he WAS Thor. You can be worthy, like Bill & Eric, & be turned into a super-powered Thor-like form, because you received the power of Mjolnir- but that doesn't mean you become Thor. You are someone worthy of having his power- that doesn't mean you become him or take his name. Because that, my dear children, would be identity theft, & is frowned upon in most cultures".

Most of the other people that post in threads like this one , other than the above post by winter which I quoted , that make references to characters that have been Thor-like haven't read those Thor comics because if they had read them they would know that those references/comparisons are misleading because they are not the same. Anyway the answer in brief is in the OP , for more just read those comics with those other Thor-like characters and you will understand.

P.S.

One of the more outrageous comparisons was when a forum member compared it to comic in which Jane Foster was Thor-like . It was a bad comparisons mostly because it WASNT in a Thor comic it was in the " What IF" comic that by itself makes it a failed comparison , then if you read comic the comparison is even worse. I'm seeing a lot of angry and frustrated feminist trying to sell this idea and its only showing more and more how bad of an idea it is and I think this Thorlene idea is looking like an ugly baby situation.

Why to call her Thor??? it's a male name... And 2 Thor's in the same universe at the same time in the same book!!!

Women that construct their life and careers by themselves, they live their own life, don't need men for anything...

Why she needs his name just pick the hammer and be herself with her female name...

@allaric: Did the original Thor comic fail because of this?

I'm going to be that guy and bring up The Codex of Alera novels by one Jim Butcher. Now the reason I bring up these books is because of your statement about poorly conceived ideas being doomed to fail and well it seems pertinent to the discussion that a writer actually decided to start a novel series based on two terrible ideas in response to a bet.

As for the series itself, well Butcher made his point that ideas themselves matter a lot less than the writing put into them. A good writer can sell you people sitting around at a bus stop and make it a literary classic.

@dagmar_merrill: Norse mythology is being brought up because Thor is a Norse god. Thor isn't a mantle. Its just what Odin decided to name him. Sure others can call themselves whatever they want but Thor is always Thor, and they are always whatever their own birth name is. Batman is a mantle. There will always be a batman. Flash is a mantle. Anyone can be a green lantern. Those are superhero titles. Thor isnt. It would be like Dick Grayson going by Bruce when he was batman.

@darkday said:

@allaric: Did the original Thor comic fail because of this?

I'm going to be that guy and bring up The Codex of Alera novels by one Jim Butcher. Now the reason I bring up these books is because of your statement about poorly conceived ideas being doomed to fail and well it seems pertinent to the discussion that a writer actually decided to start a novel series based on two terrible ideas in response to a bet.

As for the series itself, well Butcher made his point that ideas themselves matter a lot less than the writing put into them. A good writer can sell you people sitting around at a bus stop and make it a literary classic.

LOL, one of LONGEST successful ongoing comic stories , a 52 year history , and you call that failure ? Its not a failure its a great success that has lead to one of the most popular movie franchises in American pop-culture. You will need to explain.

P.S.

Your example has two ideas , the Thorlene I would only qualify as one idea , unless we put her in another universe , now that would work for me , lol

Also I'm going to disagree with your example because your starting off point is with the male Norse god Thor , that even in the Marvel universe Thor is a male Norse god.

@allaric: That was my point. I didn't call it a failure, asked you if that made it a failure...see the question mark at the end.

My example had two ideas because when Butcher took the bet, he was so confident that he said...you know what...give me another one. So not one terrible idea, but two. And that hardly somehow debunks to point of my bringing it up. The point being made and if you don't understand, I apologize for not making it more clearly, was that ideas mean next to nothing against the talent and imagination put into the final work.

@jayc1324 : None of that has anything to do with Marvel's Thor. Marvel's Thor is derived from its source material this is true, but your statement just now about Thor's name...think about that for a second. When has it been said within the pages of Thor that Odin named Thor? Within Marvel it is just as likely that Gaea named him Thor and even then the canon is completely and utterly up to the writers. The mythology nor the fans have any influence over what Marvel considers canon, no more so than historical Europe or Norse myth has in most Tolkienesque fantasy settings.

You can also write a great story, but if no one is interested in it , it will still just sit on the shelf . Also I think Butchers challenge was more clever than you realize.

@allaric: Indeed. Which is why time will tell the tale no matter what.

Thor's a name and not a title/mantle. Did they ever even confirm that the woman who'll be worthy of Mjolnir will call herself Thor?

nobody else ever was Thor , the frog was Thor , Eric had some of his powers and used his hammer but even he said I am not Thor. Ray held the hammer for a short time very short but you know what all the rest pretty much picked the hammer up and that was about that. Nobody suddenly had a craving for ale and said they were Thor. Not one. Only one and that was Thor himself and the story line showed that. So to say oh lets ignore all this history. Then give me back my money for all my old comics where it says Thor picked up the hammer , Thor raised by Odin and Thor was not a title you put on. He was raised a grew up like all gods had his own set of powers long before the hammer and that is what made him who he was. The Thunder god. If not you would not receive the power of Thor you would receive the power of the Mjolnir and surely that is not Thor.

@darkday: If i m not wrong even in comics He was Born in a cave in Norway Why, Is there a connection to Scandinavia mythology or just coincidence?

Marvel just could call her a female name, it was one more female lead and proceeding this way, Thor fans will not have so many problems with it, and accept her to a future spin off, that's what i really want, everyone knows that this will not last more than one year...

This and whatever @winter_kills says on the subject sums up my views on this topic. Though I wish it wasn't a topic we had to talk about in the first place.

Marvel has a new tradition of replacing Thor with a temporary substitute every thirty or so years. Very original.

@fresh_prince said:

Nope, people are just running with what was said in an interview and here we are down the rabbit hole. Never mind that fact that Donald Blake wasn't originally Thor and that at the time of its inception the character was someone else becoming the mythological god in a literal sense.

@a_a_a: I honestly can't say one way or another. I think Marvel likes to reference mythology when they can, but I know for a fact that they couldn't care less if it conflicts with the story they want to tell. If we need an example of this, look no farther than Ragnarok as a concept. It became too inconvenient and now it is gone.

As for Thor fans having a problem with it..I'm a Thor fan. I don't care what she calls herself, I care if the stories are good and I care what happens to Thor in general and I care that people aren't making the fandom look bad by freaking out unprovoked and spouting off misogyny as if that is somehow justified by the situation. I'm not aiming that last at anyone, but it is definitely something I don't want to see. I've said it once, I'll say it again, time will tell the tale as far as this goes and I'd argue that no one knows anything and that is sort of why this all is pretty depressing because of how uninformed we all are.

@darkday: You have a good argument, and i m new in the site but i think you are in minority, and call her it's own name would reduce so much the controversy, and i hate call her a male name...

I don't know much about Thor but if you keep out the mythology aspect, much of is world does not make any sense, like Aagard, Ragnarok, the the Bifrost, Sif, Odin, Loki, 9 r., Yggdrasil etc...

Marvel.com

http://marvel.com/universe/Thor_(Thor_Odinson)

@darkday: My problem is far from spouting off so called misogony at there being a female Thor. Believe me, I'd like there to be more stand out female characters. But this isn't the way to do it. By putting this female character in the role of a definitive male superhero, all Marvel are doing is ensuring that this female hero is defined as an opposite gender version of Thor. They've all but admitted as such in their facades of press releases and official statements. If you actually read the statement by WinterKills in the OP, you'd see that most of the fans' problems isn't that a woman is taking over, it's that Marvel have the gall to call her Thor when that's who Thor's identity and name is. Not a superhero mantle that can be passed around. This is already a bad idea laid on poor foundations that I want no part in.

@a_a_a: Ah. The cave in Norway thing makes more sense when I see it that way.

They are referring not to Thor's actual mythological birth but of the original Thor story which starts :

Donald black was Thor he was changed by Odin. Do you read the comics at all. He was being unrully and Odin changed him and took away his memory.

Wow and you want to call people uninformed. Thor has always been Thor nobody else.

Whoa... no no no , you can't compare the relationship between Marvels Thor and Norse mythology with that of Tolkien's and Norse mythology are you kidding. Marvel uses the entire Norse pantheon and mythos , Tolkien doesn't even come close to doing that. Tolkien created all his own original mythos, characters, languages, etc., etc.. Marvel on the other hand has high-jacked Norse mytholgy, the entire pantheon of norse gods , all the mythology , Odin , Sif , Loki , Heimdal , etc., etc., the World Tree , the Nine Worlds , Bifrost , Midgard , Asgard , etc., etc. , Frost giants , the Midgard Serpent , Ragnarok. Marvel comics does represent their Thor as the Thor from Norse mythology.

@darkday: Ok but why Norway it must mean something... They could go with US as always...

Thanks for the pic and information...

@lvenger: As I said in my post, I'm not saying you are being misogynistic, but I've discussed this enough to have seen a good amount of it, in fact I point out in the same post there that I wasn't going to aim that at anyone and I'm not. That however doesn't stop it from having happened. Here is the thing...I don't care about outstanding female characters, I don't care about outstanding minority characters, and at my core I don't care a whole lot for people in general. By in large I'm pretty anti-social, but like Abridged Alucard before me...I feel that I hate all peoples equally. So with that said I'm going to point out that I don't really care what Marvel's ulterior motives are with the female Thor. I do not care. Business practices while affecting the comics, don't really have a place when discussing if comics or the characters within them are going to be good or interesting. What I do care about are if said characters are going to be good or interesting and I don't really need time travelers telling me how long this or that story development is going to last.

So far the argument has been a matter of semantics. I'm sorry Lvenger, you and anyone else have the right to feel exactly as you'd like about this and how things are going, but again we have no idea if the character is actually going to refer to themselves as Thor and more than that if she does, there is a precedent in the comics of Thor's mantle being taken up by other characters. People are free to feel how they like, but this just keeps coming back to people being upset for the sake of being upset with no idea about what is going to happen within the story in particular and the canon at large. Marvel isn't beholden to anything except maybe their investors and the rest of us are more than capable of voting with our wallets for what we do or do not want.

@arthurkerr: That was the later retcon. So yeah, I read the comics. Oh and lets not forget that it is later quasi-retocnned again as Blake exists after the deaths of the Asgardians and it was him that brought Thor back from death for us to actually have the Ragnarok cycle broken series going on now. Also Donald Blake current being a head lulled eternally by nightmare creatures sort of again points to him not being Thor transformed by Odin.

Edit:

You can totally make that comparison. Because while Tolkien created his own mythos, that mythos still draws heavily both from Norse myth, European mythology, and European history. His characters are unique, their circumstances and cultures not necessarily so. I for one get tired of the Joseph Campbell style examination of archetypes and themes but just because it has become tiresome that doesn't in turn change the truth of it. Also I didn't say Tolkien personally but rather I said Tolkinesque which covers a variety of modern fantasy works that borrow both from his works (and by default their inspirations as well). Let me just say, at the end of the day the writer only owes the source material as much respect as they are willing to give it against the needs of the story or the rules on the established world.

Marvel for the most part uses the outline of Norse Mythology, the cliff notes as it were. If you know Norse myth, then you know we haven't seen anything close to the entire pantheon in the pages of Thor and honestly at anytime they are more than okay with just making up a god or goddess on the fly. Marvel within the Marvel Universe does indeed considered their Thor to be the god of myth but that has nothing to do with the mythology beyond that being the setting. All the time in Thor characters fail to match up with their mythological counterparts and the in universe answer is always, this is the truth that was just legend or if not that exact explanation, then something to that extent anyway.

I thinks its in Norway because it's in the cave where Blake/Thor finds the cane that is actually Mjolnir. The writers probably thought since they were creating a story based on Norse mythology they should start it in the lands of it origins. Odin placed the cane/Mjolnir there if I remember correctly.

Makes Sense... Thanks for your thought...

Have you ever been at one of those Fairs that have the freak side shows, and there's that one side show where a women is supposed to transform into a gorilla. Did you pay to go in and watch it ? I have never even considered paying to watch it because I know no matter what it's just to ridiculous to waste any money on , and this is why....

"Suspension of disbelief" or willing suspension of disbelief is a term that suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the narrative. Suspension of disbelief often applies to fictional works of the action, comedy, fantasy, and horror genres.

The "suspension of disbelief" is used to imply that the burden is on the reader, rather than the writer, to achieve it. This might be used to refer to the willingness of the audience to overlook the limitations of a medium, so that these do not interfere with the acceptance of those premises.

Suspension of disbelief is often an essential element for a magic act or a circus sideshow act. For example, an audience is not expected to actually believe that a woman is cut in half or transforms into a gorilla in order to enjoy the performance.

This I think is what most people are arguing over, and why they are arguing before the first issue has even been sold. People have different levels "suspension". For some it is Thor becoming "un-worthy" , for others it is Thor's as a "goddess" for others it is Thor's proper name being passed like a "mantle". It can vary from one individual to the next it can be one or two or all three events. To completely accept a new goddess named "Thor", wielding Mjolnir while ex-Thor rides off one would need a high level of "suspension of disbelief".