Last week I had showed you delightful readers Alex Ross’ version of a female Thor from the late 1990s. As it turns out, a few years before that another woman wielded Mjolnir!
And who was that lady with the impossibly hyper-extended fingers that would put Bela Lugosi to shame? (I tried to put my fingers in the same position to see if it was possible and got a tremendous charley-horse in my palm!)
It was Wonder Woman! Wait…what?!
Thor is Marvel and Wonder Woman is DC! What gives?
This was part of what was supposed to be a historic crossover event between the two major comic book publishers and the answer to a fanboy’s dreams. Could Superman beat the Hulk? Is Captain America tougher than Batman? Crap like that. Extra dimensional, god-like beings do the whole “who is more worthy” routine that was beaten to death in episodes of Star Trek and get the universes together to play a cosmic version of Mortal Combat. I had liked the other Marvel/DC cross-overs particularly the first one back in the ’70s where Superman meets up with Spider-Man so I went along for the ride. Sadly, this wasn’t in the same league. It felt rushed and there were a lot of missed opportunities never explored.
But Wonder Woman becoming Thor was an intriguing notion. In the story, Thor drops his hammer (I hate when that happens) and Wonder Woman being a warrior princess is worthy and is able to lift the Mighty Mjolnir. In doing so, she becomes Thor. Cool idea. It doesn’t last.
She decides that it wouldn’t be fair to kick the crap out of the tedious Storm with the hammer so she drops it. Why not? She turns back to regular Wonder Woman and somehow gets beaten by the X-Man.
The change was never going to be permanent, but it would have been neat if she was this amalgam Wonder Thor for the rest of the brief run. It was one of the few clever ideas in this lackluster series.
As I said, it was a brief series. I think it could have gone on longer and been better thought out. There was missed opportunities. Hulk had Banner’s intelligence at that time and probably would have out-thought Superman. Thor fighting Captain Marvel was interesting due to the lightning theme, but he should have fought Superman or Wonder Woman. It’s been a while and I forget who fought who. I may have to reread this one.
Missed that one (long out of comic books by then)…
You didn’t miss much. If I had to recommend comics to somebody who hasn’t read any since childhood, there may be a handful I could suggest. I think the very nature of comics — the monthly do-or-die publishing schedule — tends to water down and dilute great characters and great ideas. Even if Sherlock Holmes or James Bond were being published on a monthly schedule for decades they would have suffered greatly at the hands of hacks and schedules.