I apologize, I really do

I didn’t want to spend more time on John C. Wright so soon, but I really hate it when people spew nonsense about comic books.

As you may have heard, Marvel has announced a new Thor, who will be a woman. Which as the John Buscema cover above shows (all rights with current holder) has been done (albeit in a parallel world setting). And it’s long-established that anyone who holds the hammer, if they’re worthy, can take on the Thunder God’s mantle (starting in the 1980s, we’ve had Beta Ray Bill, Eric Masterson, and Darrgo, a Thor of the future). So I don’t find it that surprising.
Wright, whose views on women are … old-fashioned … is outraged. And so he explains this is just the kind of political correctness that has led to once-mighty Marvel becoming a failure: “Name a major character invented by Marvel in say, forty years, since 1974? Do you buy his title?”
Well I don’t buy anything from Marvel but that has more to do with my budget than quality. And for years I did buy characters created post-1974, like that one book with Storm, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler in it … oh, nobody’s ever heard of it, why do I even mention it. They’ve also had success with Guardians of the Galaxy, Elektra, the Thunderbolts, She-Hulk, Ms. (now Captain) Marvel. So I don’t think PC broke the back.
Wright goes on to argue that “Marvel says the way to attract the female fans is not to have more romance, or more love stories, or more Loki, but instead to have beefy females who look like Soviet-era lady weightlifters smashing trolls in the tusks with a honking big hammer. Really? I thought girls LIKED Loki? I am not sure why. Just because he is a Bad Boy and rebel who plays by his own rules but is tormented by inner demons and has dreamboat eyes blue as laser beams shot through sapphires? Girls! Who can figure out what they like?”
Obviously not Wright. Yes, a lot of women fans like Loki. That doesn’t mean they can’t like big, hammer-wielding female Thor smashing things with brute force (if that is how her adventures go). Just like I can enjoy Robert E. Howard and Jane Austen, or HP Lovecraft and PG Wodehouse.
This may turn out to be a horrible idea, or a good idea horribly executed. And the endless switching out of established heroes for short-lived substitutes is a trick I’m pretty tired of (there was a time legacy heroes actually replaced the originals. Now we know the originals always come back). But that would be true no matter who they put in the suit.