@mrwednesday: Oh heh heh now I am confused, I am assuming your part asking what is addressing the part where I say I can't do that? Which was me addressing your earlier point about myself applying logic to Aaron's creative decisions? If I am wrong please correct me, and mainly its because we are talking about fiction, that I am not Aaron and I don't know that much about you as a person or your preferences. It would take quite a while for anyone to try and think of creative explanations to creative problems on behalf of another for another to try and help smooth over inconsistencies. At most I can just talk about my own explanations and intuitive thought processes that lead me to have opinions about such things, but many of those things rest on other basis, explanations and attitudes to do with greater fiction. I think its probably just more efficient to understand we just have difference preferences (not that I am not enjoying the conversation, I do quite a bit ^_^)
I actually like Sif almost as much as Thor, so funnily enough I would actually be more annoyed and consider it more of a negative if they wanted Sif to be in this role, because I would dislike her having to have so much about her radically changed just to boost her profile, it wouldn't help sell the book either, since the mystery of the character I think sells better than the idea of Sif being Thor. I would rather Sif get a small mini series with her own name on it, or just increase her profile among the Thor book, now and then have an issue dedicated to her, or maybe relaunch Journey Into Mystery in a few days but have a rotating cast and include Thor and Loki heavily with promotions and in the book but use it to tell stories about Warriors Three, Sif, Balder, Tyr, maybe even Hercules and Ares. Maybe a bigger cast with bigger names would help it sell better.
Its hard for me to talk about the sense of the change if its Roz, since there are still too many unknown variables for me to consider. It requires too much speculation on her motivations, her choices as far as naming, visual inconsistencies like you mention. Maybe if it is Roz, maybe the transformation process involves the individuals ideas and perceptions of how they would appear? Maybe Roz's admiration of Thor means that her hair changes. Maybe its just that she dyes her hair black and so when transformed it reverts back to her original hair color. I really don't know. The same can be said if her attitude, and reaction to things, why she is Thor. Maybe she likes Thor and is frustrated with Thor so has decided in a moment of arrogance she could teach him something by being Thor? This all assumes it is her, and its speculation because again, I do not know and I am okay with not knowing right now. So I just have a wait and see approach.
Oh heh no I do not think you are acting like a fervent atheist, I think you are quite reasonable and intelligent with your criticisms. If I was to speculate as to why we have a few differences, I would think that you would rather know more details about all this than we currently have, and the lack of details explaining all the questions and problems you have may annoy and frustrate you just as much than if the actual answers to all those questions were disappointing. So your expectations were different and that you also prefer more direct storytelling and not stories that try to wring out mystery over months and months, especially in regards to character identity and significant change that isn';t adequately explained. Someone like myself, when I say I am okay so far, I am not saying that everyone else has to stop complaining and must love the story, I myself am quite a critical person, so I tend to criticize stories even the ones I like quite a bit. If this current female Thor ends up being Volstagg for example, and its explained that Volstagg has always wanted to be a sexy, skinny blonde woman and this was his chance and now he is moving to Midgard to be a blond transgender woman who is going to get liposuction if he can't be female Thor anymore… well I would actually laugh at that out of disbelief and how ridiculous that would be, but that would be a stupid story idea and execution, and thats what I would consider Marvel and a writer destroying a character, because Volstagg is a lovable rotund family man, him being large is nice, that he secretly wanted to be a woman would seem way too random and out of the blue, especially a blonde and sexy woman, I think Volstagg is confident and thinks himself quite a bit sexy, look at many children he has! Plus red hair is very nice. It would also break up Warriors Three and just…
Oh and as far as the whisper and Original Sin, well it was a criticism I had, but I suspect the whisper moment served two primary purposes. Aside from setting up a new status quo and direction for Thor it also was a convenient way to take him out of the fight with Fury granting the idea that Thor might have been so surprised that he would not return to battle. Personally thats not something I buy, but then again if Thor had returned to battle they would have needed another way to take him out of the fight because he is just way more powerful than all the other characters there, at least to me, so something similar to what happened to Hulk would have occurred. Which would also have pissed off a lot of Thor fans if he was one shot by some obscure weapon Fury had. I thought Thor did get one great moment, the way it read was that Cap was leaving Thor as the endgame, they tried talking, reasoning but if things needed to end, that out of all the powerful characters assembled there, it was Thor that would do it most definitively - was even emphasized on the next page with the other group of heroes listening in on the fight with one of them saying "Thor's involved. It shouldn't be much longer" I mean that turned out to be inaccurate, but those assumptions and expectations by the heroes there that thats how badass and powerful Thor is, is to me a nice moment. Other characters have to get there nice moments in too though hence why Thor and Hulk got removed from battle, as actually happens quite a lot in big events. I mean thats a problem and there are different solutions, all that have pros/cons. So I understand why it was written that way, even if I am critical of it.
Heh heh thank you. I think if you don't change your mind that is okay as well, I mean we can't change how we feel about things, we can only control how we rationalize our experiences and what we chose to focus on. I personally try to understand things from the creators perspective. As an example, think of the Frost Giants? Classic Thor enemies, classic mythological enemies of Thor, but after decades they have a lost a bit of their luster. So have a few Thor enemies like Ulik. So I know Aaron has read a lot of past Thor stories, and a general part of his stories so far has appeared to be strengthening the roster of Thor's villains. Whilst also giving us the powerful Thor we all love. So whilst I am critical of how Thor lost his arm, I imagine thats more Aaron trying to show that Frost Giant's aren't suppose to be a joke, even though I guess many Thor fans feel that way about them. I mean I read one story a few years ago where Hulk almost effortlessly destroyed Ulik (and one time even further back where Thor demolished Abomination quite easily as well) these villains can lose their credibility so easily by careless writing, introduced as a threat then tossed away. So a writer can either keep introducing only new threats or they can try and reestablish a characters reputation. I think Aaron did a good job at giving Ulik a bit more presence without giving him some random super power boost, because Ulik will never be say - on the level of a serious Thor not holding back, but he should be respectable. So some people will perceive current story as male Thor looking weak, but to some fans like me the Avengers were made to look "weak" as well, or the Frost Giants are suppose to look strong, even hinted to be more powerful than usual (freezing a large part of the Pacific ocean? Thats a badass wicked idea, demonstration of power) and to me there is also zero distinction between male Thor and female Thor in terms of power, anything she does, he could do and better. So as the protagonist she will get to reap the benefits of the Frost Giants looking strong when she beats them to demonstrate not her power but Thor's power. So its a matter of balance and fine tuning, rather than a right or wrong idea about the story. How do you choose to perceive the story. Not saying its wrong to be negative or positive, if I wanted I could make a very large post being critical and negative towards Aaron's entire run, JMS run, Gillen, Simonson, Oeming, or positive, I usually just opt for pressing how I feel and/or trying to understand the creator.
Thank you, I really enjoy reading your views so far and hey I think your application of English language is great. What is your first language? I live in New Zealand, a small country off the side of Australia. My first language was Cook Island Maori *English is my primary language now though) I like that CV has such a large internal offering of users heh heh.
Log in to comment