Marvel shocked the comics world a while back by announcing a major change to its God of Thunder. The Asgardian God of Thunder’s role will, in the near future, be filled by a mysterious woman, as the Odinson has found himself suddenly unworthy to lift the hammer. We’ve now got a glimpse of the female Thor in action, as well as a look at just what the Odinson will be doing since he’s not Thor no more.
In classic Marvel fashion, the House of Ideas hasn’t spilled all of the beans with the sneak peek granted to Newsarama this week. We get to see some variant covers of the new Thor in action, and we get a glimpse of a shadowy female picking up Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, but little more. There is one juicy bit that is revealed by the first look at Thor #1, though: we can definitely see the inscription on Mjolnir change to reflect the new status quo.
Once the mysterious new Mjolnir wielder lays hands on the hammer’s haft, its famous inscription changes to read: “Whosoever holds this hammer, if she be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”
And it looks like the new Thor is indeed worthy because the hammer starts crackling with untold energies. Just who “she” is, though, is one of Marvel’s better kept secrets.
When the new female Thor was announced, many jumped to speculate that Angela – a refugee from the Spawn universe – would take up the mantle. Marvel fed these rumors with a few other developments that shed light on Angela’s true origins, but Angela has her own series starting up soon, so the mystery continues.
Others have pointed to Carol Danvers, the current Captain Marvel, as she has the blonde hair to match the female Thor shown off in Marvel’s promo materials. Danvers, though, only recently took up the mantle of Captain Marvel, and is enjoying a good deal of popularity in the role, so it wouldn’t make too much sense for Marvel to just to pop her over into the Thor role.
So who is the new female Thor? Marvel is saying “not even Odin knows,” and we honestly couldn’t tell you at the moment as all of the obvious options look to have been eliminated. All we can guess for now is that she has to be a superhuman. We know this because Thor’s hammer was left on the moon after he proved unworthy of wielding it. The person we see picking up Thor’s hammer in the preview doesn’t appear to be wearing a spacesuit, so that leads us to think it’s not just some admirable astronaut.
We do know, though that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Thor embodied as a woman. Years ago, in the alternate universe series Earth X , Loki’s machinations led to Thor being transformed by Odin into a woman. Like Marvel’s current version, that incarnation kept the name Thor, but unlike the current female Thor, that one was simply the male Thor with a chromosomal switch, not an entirely separate character wielding Mjolnir.
And just what is Thor Odinson doing since he can’t lift his hammer anymore? The Thor #1 preview shows the former Thor still up to his butt-kicking ways, fighting frost giants and crashing through windows while riding his ram. Instead of his hammer Mjolnir, Thor is now wielding a mighty battle axe, and he appears to have abandoned the garb that Thor lovers have come to expect from him. Instead, he sports a tattered red cape and pants, because “shirtless” is apparently synonymous with “unworthy.”
Thor #1 will hit comic store shelves on October 1, and we’re sure that it’s going to answer a bunch of questions while raising even more. Marvel is betting that the new Thor is going to raise some eyebrows and boost sales on the title, but we’ll just have to wait and see.