Enyalios

While I would love to see Hercules get his own series, he needs to reestablish some credibility first. Put him back in the Avengers (hopefully with his powers back) and have him in a strong support role first. Then have a Hercules-centric story in the Avengers, and then a huge event to push him off on his own series.

In fact if he could go get Ares and bring him back to the world of the living, that would be awesome, even better than Thor and Loki.

So the fact that he is a god, the heir apparent to a divine kingdom filled with other gods, controls the weather, manipulates reality, flies, can lift pretty much anything he wants to, is bullet proof, can come back from the dead basically on a whim and bring others back as well, is thousands of years old and has been reincarnated dozens if not hundreds of times, among a whole host of other things...good so far, totally relatable...but throw in the fact that he is considered attractive and that makes him over he top? Wow...

Eh, Aaron is probably trying to lay an insult, but the other thing he is doing is labeling those that disagree with this direction. He picked probably among the most pathetic of Thor villains, made him a sexist type character and then had him regurgitate a lot of the words coming from who do not like this direction and coupled it with the sexist crap that has been said. By doing so, he minimizes their concerns. These are the sexists talking, who cares about them? Never mind that there is a number of people who think this is great solely because its a female who has taken the hammer. Apparently there is nothing wrong with that.

The problem is they have created a character that, at worst, is doomed to failure, at best will always be the adjunct of Thor. I don't see how someone wanting a strong female hero can ever think this was a good move. No one is ever going to accept this character as anything other than a female version of Thor. The only reason why Carol Danvers managed to come out of the shadow of Mar-Vell is because they kept him dead forever and she never actually took on his role (Quasar did that), even if she did take his title.

When it comes to replacing Thor, Marvel has tried it. It failed. Thor is eventually going to get his hammer back and then, where does that leave this character? The current prevalent thought is that she is human and very likely a non-powered human so what will Marvel do then? Give her a consolation prize of another mystic weapon to give her similar powers? Beta Ray Bill is the most highly regarded Thor stand in ever created and, 32 years after his creation, he still doesn't have his own book. Thunderstrike failed (I won't lie, I liked this character) and Marvel killed him off.

Of course, if Aaron is so confident in this direction, there is an easy way to see if its working. Remove Thor completely from the book. Realistically speaking, from a story standpoint, Thor has fulfilled his role. He has accepted the fact that the hammer is no longer his and given the new character his blessing to carry on in his stead. He can safely exit the book and he leaves nothing unfinished. After a couple of months, restart Journey Into Mystery with Thor at its helm, embarking on a quest of self-discovery and figuring out why he is suddenly unworthy, which realistically speaking is what the character should be doing anyway. If the Thor comic continues to sell well then he has proven his point. If not...oh well...

It would take a lot more than just the name. The whole story is garbage.

Unworthy Thor: At what point has Thor shown that he is unworthy? He is still acting the same. He still has the same overall goals (the protection of Earth and Asgard). He is angry and depressed, but this is because he can't lift Mjolnir and not the other way around. He has gone insane in the past, with the combined forces of Beta Ray Bill, Adam Warlock and Silver Surfer having to be brought against him. He has doubted his place in Asgard and on Earth and imposed an exile upon himself. He killed a human. He accidently killed his grandfather (among the worst crimes you could commit in old Nordic custom). Through all of this, Mjolnir stayed with him. There is nothing Aaron could say, nothing he could show that can explain how Thor suddenly went unworthy. If they would have come up with the idea that something had changed in Mjolnir, that could have been accepted, but the unworthy hammer shows that Thor, despite still being a hero, despite still willing to give everything to fight the good fight, is somehow unworthy, and that is crap. He probably doesn't even know what the whisper is.

Odin unable to lift Mjolnir: Let's face, Odin has never been worthy in the same sense as Thor. He has habitually lied to his family and his people, used guile more often than valor, wanted to wipe out the entirety of earth to prevent his brother's rise (the coward's way of handling the situation), and created proxies for the sole purpose of dying in place of Thor. He was mad at Thor for bringing Loki, his own adopted son, back to life. And through all of this was still able to lift and command the hammer, even able to stop Thor from being able to lift it. Why? Because the enchantment has never applied to him. And now, all of a sudden, he can't? Because of a whisper that he never heard? Again, there is nothing Aaron can say to explain this.

Thor is more curious about who has the Hammer than exactly what it is that is making him unworthy of it: This here is probably the worst of it. He just accepts the hammer, the symbol of his birthright, forged for him, the hammer he gave up the Odin Force to re-forge and after it had shattered (and accepted the fact that should the hammer break again, he himself could die), has chosen someone else over him, and seems to care more about who she is than exactly what moronic plot device has made him unworthy. He spent much of his youth questing to prove himself worthy of Mjolnir and then just accepts its not his after watching it fly from the upstart's hand, apparently of its own volition strike a bunch of people (conveniently forgetting the fact that he made the hammer do that not too long ago).

@seekquaze:

His attempt during the Dark Reign actually illustrates why he would be an effective leader. He took a bunch of unruly misfits and forged them into a highly efficient military unit capable of challenging hordes of undead and mythical creatures. And the reason they died is not because of Ares per se, but rather due to the loyalty he inspired in them which made them come back for him after they had already escaped.

I could see Ares as a combat leader as well as the enforcer and mentor type but they would need someone to act as the face of that team because Ares would not do well in that role.

@sc: I do believe leadership would be a burden on him, as you say. During the Dark Reign arc, his role as leader/Mentor of the Shades, he is not nearly as reckless as he is generally displayed to be and has a genuine concern for them, a concern which ultimate gets him captured when he most likely would not have been had he been alone or not responsible.

No she hasn't, though Modi and Magni have in one form or another. There is a very old comic that supposedly took place in one of the previous incarnations of the Asgardians (I.E. prior to one of the previous Ragnorak cycles) that included them. In the Ultimate Universe, Modi is the son of Thor and Hela, and during the Reigning, Magni is the son of Thor and Amora.

@thunderingthorfan:

Um...yeah, physics prove you wrong. I am not a fan of this direction and therefore am not trying to justify it. That being said, regardless of the man's strength a hammer in his hand is going to strike harder than what he is capable of without it. Likewise, a metallic arm, even if it just has the same strength level as the person its attached to, is still going to have a greater striking power that an arm of flesh and blood. Its denser, and you are not worrying about being careful of your strike surface. Does Thor need it? Well, right now he does since he doesn't have an arm. And if he has it, he may as well make use of it. And the girl is going to have the same strength as Thor. She is not going to be physically weaker. First, Marvel is not going to paint themselves in that corner. Second, when the hammer elects to transform someone, it has traditionally granted them Thor's full strength. Now is not going to be different.

As to why he uses this arm when in the future he has the destroyer's arm, my guess would be that he doesn't have control of the destroyer and therefore can't just dissect it on a whim. Also, I am willing to bet that if we follow that storyline to completion, something happened to the Destroyer because I doubt Thor is going to dismantle a weapon of that magnitude just so he can have an arm.

@ivar17: Eric Masterson to be clear was Odin Work (Masterson was mortally wounded by Mongoose, and is given Thor's form and powers after the original is sealed in Eric's mind, by Odin), that is not what is happening with the female Thor...

That was only initially. When Loki gets Thor banished, Eric is given the full powers of Thor on his own without Thor's consciousness inside him. He still had to change back and forth each time, but it was him regardless.

For this to work the way Marvel wants it to, she has to be as powerful as Thor, otherwise they will receive criticism for not going all out with it from the very same people they are trying to impress. And its not like its without precedent. Eric Masterson gained Thor's strength when he took over the role, as did Dargo. She won't have Thor's combat ability per se, but she will still display some even if whoever assumes the role has none of their own. Eric Masterson beat Ulik on his second confrontation with him when he first assumed the mantle and that was before any combat techniques were taught by either Cap or Hercules (it was pointedly stated that he lacked Thor's actual skill). Considering the intent, don't expect her to inherit Thor's recent jobber status outside his book as well. They'll want to present her as close to flawless as possible.

I'm of two minds on this one. I think this may be a good opportunity for the Thor character, but at the same time whoever this female is will not last as a character.

I am a longtime Thor fan, he is one of my favorite characters who has suffered from poor management by Marvel and the writers it has chosen to take his title. It seemed that with the popularity of his movies and his inclusion in the Avengers things were looking up for him somewhat at least in his own title. However with all that being said, one of the biggest complaints from many people is that he relies on his hammer too much. Most people don't know what powers are his and what powers are actually Mjolnir. There are even those who think that without the hammer he has no powers and is just a normal man. While I have no idea what event could have possibly happened to make Thor unworthy of his own hammer and yet still be worthy of placement on the Avengers, I think this will be an opportunity for him, provided the Marvel staff don't screw it up, to flex his own muscles so to speak. We'll see exactly what it is the God of Thunder can do. Again potentially this aspect of it might be interesting.

The one that is going to suffer is going to be the character that they get to be the female Thor. Visual wise she looks good, but this design could have been used for Valkyrie to update the swimsuit look and to give her a push to even Sif with a few color changes. Introduce Toruun, Thor's daughter into the main continuity with this costume. Instead we get this. Let's face it, it does not matter what she does, she will always only be the female Thor. She will never have her own identity. When Thor regains his hammer, she will be relegated to that limbo that all such characters wind up in. Thunderstrike got an ongoing for a little while and then he died. Thor Girl was a supporting character in minor books and then wound up being a skrull and no one has heard from her since. Even Beta Ray Bill, the most popular of Thor clones is scarcely used in anything major.

This is a lazy attempt at diversity and speaking as a Hispanic male, I can understand wanting to show more 'color' as it were in comics. But this is not the way. This tells me that a female character cannot be intriguing on her own merits, she has to steal the legacy (and hopefully the fan base) of another character in order to be successful. Females should take that as an insult, just like I took Miles Morales as an insult.

So as I said, potentially good for Thor, but this new character has no future.

Is there some update that Herc got his powers back because if not his part in this fight is over pretty quick.