Quote:
Originally Posted by Mepaphoros
I think Thor is just a pretty boring character if we're being honest (his comics have never been that popular). The first two Thor movies are considered to be maybe the worst solo movies of all the MCU heroes, and I think they found their niche in Ragnarok. Big Thor fans might not like it, but it was the most successful of the three movies and catapulted him into Infinity War. Wonder Woman has the same problem IMO.
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I have to disagree to an extent on this. For a long time Thor was written pretty poorly and especially in the 90’s. Walt Simonson has one of the most insane fun stories Marvel has ever done and it gets lauded as one of the best by critics and fans alike. Marvel Thor was recently polled as the tournament battle champ (beat Jean Grey) on Twitter and also named as the 7th favorite character (Hulk was 9) on Reddit. Ranker has him as #2.
While Hemsworth has most probably helped those stars it’s specifically noted that these are the comic versions and not MCU
But I’m not here to get into the validity of online polls. Simply to show that the “Thor was never a very popular character” statement some people are heard touting may be based on what span you really started reading him.
What is true about Thor, in my own opinion, and somewhat similar to the point you were trying to make is he is the most dichotomously written character in Marvel history next to Spidey. Some writers flat out hate him because of his power set and some simply don’t know how to write him other than “Fabio with a hammer.” Some only like to use him as a sponge. He can traverse the galaxy at the speed of light but then can’t catch Daredevil in another book. He can give Galactus a black eye in space and on Earth get knocked out by a bullet. Then you have some storytellers like Kirby (No Not Stan in this regard) Simonson and Stryzenski that adore him and can write him to his best potential.
As far as the movies go I think they exist in their own bubble. Good or bad I have read every Thor book Marvel ever threw at its readers and I still love Ragnarok. It was a fun and fast paced film that allowed itself to be enjoyed. I’d say these characters are about on the same levels powerwise as they were in the 60’s. It took 30-50 years of writers trying to out do the previous writer’s runs with outlandish power sets. Give the movies that much time and they’ll probably try to outdo their predecessors as well.
Oh and I completely agree with MCU really screwing over Hulks story line. I think a lot of it had to do with time constraints and the fact that his sacrifice costing him his arm didn’t really do the Jade Giant much justice. But to be honest I also think maybe they were pandering more to the actor than they were the character itself.