Quarter Bin 100 "True Believers: Thor #1"

True Believers: Thor #1 (Marvel)
From November 2015/December 2014

writer: Jason Aaron

artist: Russell Dauterman

A total of twelve comics across four value packs, and I'm left with a decidedly familiar impression of Marvel: these guys just aren't for me.

I mean, I can read the odd Marvel and enjoy it quite a bit, but it just seems as a rule that I just don't get this company.  Case in point: this comic.

Like True Believers: Black Widow #1, it was a reprint of a comic that was older than I thought it was.  Unlike True Believers: Black Widow, however, True Believers: Thor #1 is the start of a bold new story, in which, in keeping with what Marvel has been doing across its line for a few years now (cue semi-appropriate comparisons to DC's Silver Age, or post-Infinite Crisis), changing identities, ethnicities, and sexes for a large portion of its heroes.  Basically, keeping the names and changing everything else.

How can you possibly do this with Thor?  A very-well-established Norse god?  Whose name is Thor, and whose secret identity is Thor?  Good question.  Jason Aaron still doesn't have an answer, by the way.

I used to be a huge fan of Jason Aaron.  Scalped was a work of genius.  I even liked his work when he started dabbling in Marvel comics.  But it just seems as if he's been totally overwhelmed in the years since, and will try anything, and take any suggestion from his bosses.  Such as turn Jane Foster into Thor.

I mean, if ye so lift the hammer Mjolnir, thy arst granted the power of Thor.  But become Thor?  Really?  This one just don't make no sense.

This issue doesn't even pretend to make sense of it.  It opens with some fairly generic action.  Then we spend some time with Thor absolutely not explaining what's going on, which sets the tone for the next several years' worth of stories.  And then a woman lifts the hammer.  Later, we find out it's Jane Foster (y'know, Natalie Portman), but this big concept debut issue just kind of has her wander in unannounced, at the end of the issue, and lift the hammer, and be transformed.

Jason Aaron supporters say it fits in perfectly with what he'd previously been doing.  Anyone else will be able to tell that he was merely fulfilling a Marvel mandate to make Thor a woman, for diversity's sake.  We've all seen superheroes undergo gimmick changes.  There's nothing inherently wrong with gimmick changes.  But Thor is Thor.  The hammer doesn't make the man.  Er, woman.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with diversity.  But there are female mythological characters you could introduce, Marvel.  Have a look around! 

It's a special kind of logic that in this form is twisted so badly, you really need to be drinking the kool-aid to appreciate it.  I'm a DC guy.  I've seen a lot of weird stuff.  But this is bad storytelling and publisher mandate taken to a whole new level.

So no, I'm not a Marvel guy.  I'm a DC guy.  And twelve random issues did absolutely nothing to change that.  More often than not, this DC guy just felt like he was being insulted as a reader.

For those wishing to keep score:

• True Believers: Black Widow #1 - fail
• Captain America: White #1 - pass
• Captain America: Sam Wilson #1 - fail
• Hail Hydra #1 - pass
• Hawkeye #2 - pass
• Howling Commandos of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 -pass/fail
• Karnak #1 - fail
• Nova #1 - fail
• Star Wars: Obi-Wan & Anakin #1 - pass
• Star Wars: Shattered Empire #2 - pass/fail
• Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde #1 - pass
• True Believers: Thor #1 - fail

That's 5 fails, 5 passes, and 2 that are somewhere in-between.  You'd think that would equate a fairly mixed bag, but batting .500 in this instance is not good.  The fails are epic.  The passes in large part exemplify what it is to be Marvel, indicating the very kind of insular reasoning Marvel fans are always accusing DC of implementing.  I don't know.  Maybe it's confirmation bias.  Maybe twelve random comics was too large a sampling.  Maybe I just take this stuff too seriously.  Maybe I'm too close to DC to judge it the same way.  I mean, I tend to read what I like (which any sane person would do), and if that seems like a much larger percentage at DC than Marvel, again, that just goes to prove that I read DC more than I read Marvel.  These were twelve random comics.  I was pleasantly surprised a few times.  That's a good thing, right?  And again, I've deliberately sought out and enjoyed plenty of Marvel over the years, some of which is reflected in this very sampling. 

The object lesson here is, I should quit trying to make this so hard.  I like comics.  All comics follow peculiar logic.  All stories do.  I'm not going to like all of it.  That's it.  The end.  Nod, nod.  Wink, wink.  Say no more...