#Thor: Man Or Woman?

Marvel Comics fans went a little cray cray this morning when they heard that an upcoming Marvel Comics project.

The comic giant announced on “The View” that a certain someone else will take up Thor’s hammer and when unveiled the photo, it looked like the foreseeable future of “Thor” will include long, blonde locks waving under Thor’s Norse helmet, obviously belonging to a lady.

While on “The View” host referred to her as “Thorette”, Whoopi Goldberg corrected her, saying this IS Thor. That statement alone confused legions of Marvel Comics and Thor fans.

Just to clear the confusion: Jenny McCarthy further stated that the new Thor is a character who was saved by her predecessor, the male Thor, at one point and has somehow remade herself, taking over his heroic role. So don’t worry, the Thor we’ve always known wasn’t secretly a woman all along. Neither did he suddenly decide to get a sex change.

This move comes during the uprising trend of support for female superheroes. As it is, Wonder Woman will finally be getting her big screen debut. Rumour has it that somewhere down the road, she might also be getting her own movie. Plus, fangirls, it turns out, are the great untapped resource of the comic book world, and they want to see more characters that look like them: 47% of comic fans are female, and women made up 62% of the Facebook fans of female comic characters (including Black Widow, Elektra and She-Hulk).

But Marvel’s Thor move isn’t just some gimmick to attract girls, as demonstrated by Marvel executive director Ryan Penagos’ perfect response to fanboy outrage: