Marvel's Female Thor: Celebrating Diversity in Comic Books

Marvel have announced that from this October, Thor will be changing in a big way. A new Thor series is soon to be released, written by Jason Aaron (Wolverine, Ghostrider) with accompanying art from Russel Dauterman. According to Marvel, Thor will be changing as a new female hero is set to take up the mighty hammer. Editor Wil Moss saw this as a continuation of Marvel's ever-growing list of superheroes as she joins the ranks of Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Storm and many other amazing female characters that Marvel have brought to life. He also explained that the new Thor is no temporary substitute; “she's now the one and only Thor, and she is worthy!” 

October is shaping up to be a great month for female superheroes as Thor will also be accompanied by a shiny new reboot of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl from DC who released ideas as to what her new costume will look like. Illustrator, Babs Tarr and writer, Brenden Fletcher are opting for a much more modern and less stereotypically skimpy outfit, focusing primarily on practicality and utility rather than perpetuating the age-old semi-naked outfits that so many female superheroes have adorned before. They have even clearly indicated that Barbara's costume will feature NO SPANDEX.

Despite the reaction from some Marvel fans being heavily against the company's move towards endorsing non-white/non-male super hero, Ms. Marvel, the reactions for a female Thor hasn't been all too negative. Both the industry and fans seem more than in favour to support Thor's reincarnation. Even going as far to begin deciding who would suitably play her in her hypothetical film début.

One reason as to why this was such a great move on Marvel's part is because Thor is so stereotypically male; he is all brute force with his rippling Norse muscles and humongous phallic hammer. He is undeniably the pinnacle of masculinity in a traditional, stereotypical sense. It's so obvious that it's almost boring and that's pretty much always been my problem with Thor. I think he's out dated and completely one dimensional. 

Representing Women is "Too Much Effort"

Ubisoft have axed their playable female avatar for Assassin's Creed Unity, which is to be released in October, because it would "double the work" and they wanted "the best experience for the character". While still deciding to release 4 different special edition box sets of the game, they are unable to 'find the time' to create a character which represents 53% of the population. As a women who plays games, and really appreciates the "novelty" of being able to play as a character who represents me, I am completely upset. I always indulge in being able to play as a women, because I am a women and it upsets me that men, as always, take premise over women in gaming.

Alex Amancio told Polygon that the inclusion of the now long forgotten female protagonist would mean "double the animations, double the voices, double the visual assets." As well as level designer Bruno St-Andre's estimating that more than 8000 animations would have to be recreated on a different skeleton for her to be a functioning avatar. However, these claims were later completely debunked after Jonathan Cooper, the animation director of Assassin's Creed 3 took to twitter to tear Ubisoft apart. He explained that in his educated opinion, to create a new skeleton would take one or two days rather than replacing 8000 animations that Amancio predicted. He also went onto explain that game animators are aware not to create unique animations for every single character, comparing it to Mass Effects' character design, where playing with a female avatar was an option; "It's the same on the [Assassin's Creed 3] build... They share animations. I think the assassin shares lots of animations with NPCs as well. For Connor, I know we gave him some of his own unique jumps and kind of things to give him a lot of character."

Fun fact #2: Aveline de Grandpré shares more of Connor Kenway's animations than Edward Kenway does. pic.twitter.com/lFHHnBfLht
— Jonathan Cooper (@GameAnim) June 11, 2014 

My argument to Ubisoft is that you have the ability to render the French Revolution with intricate beauty, yet you lack the supposed time and man power to create a playable female character. Despite director, James Therien, telling VideoGames.com that “[they] have huge teams, nine studios working on this game” and their previous creation of Aveline de Grandpre, are they still really unable to harness previously used animations? Especially after being criticised by their own previous employees they still stand by their choice not to incorporate a female avatar.