On Weezie and Fabe: Creators of Cable and Deadpool

Rob Liefeld is easy to make fun of. The dude is known for lazy artwork, omitting details such as feet and more than a couple of facial expressions. But there's a reason he sticks to the style that he's had since 1990, and that reason is that back then, that style brought him money. With an established fan base, there's little incentive for him to improve because of critics' preferences. He's also a co-creator of Cable and Deadpool, making him one of the single most successful creators of all time. Seriously, can you name five people post-1970 who created not one, but two successful characters that have an established fan following, and be recognized for it?

But he didn't do it alone. Let's make sure we recognize Louise "Weezie" Simonson and Fabian Nicieza.

Louise Simonson and Fabian Nicieza: Credit Where It's Due

by Duy

Let's start with Deadpool, who debuted in The New Mutants #88, February 1991. This is a character that Rob Liefeld designed. Deadpool looks like this.

He gave this design to Fabian Nicieza, who reacted just like anyone who read comics in the 1980s would. One of the biggest comics of the previous decade was Marv Wolfman and George Perez's The New Teen Titans, a title that will forever be connected to the X-Men, and their biggest enemy was Deathstroke the Terminator. Who looks like this.

So Fabian basically told Rob, "This is Deathstroke from the Teen Titans," and then gave the new character the real name of Wade Wilson, as an inside joke referring to Deathstroke's real name being Slade Wilson. Nicieza then gave Deadpool the exact opposite personality as Deathstroke, making him a bantering loudmouth who loved puns (the logical extension of Spider-Man) as opposed to a superserious mercenary with a lot of pathos.

Deadpool is probably the biggest superhero character created after 1990 (the competition: Spawn, Harley Quinn [who wasn't created in comics], and... that's it. No, really.) and Rob Liefeld gets most of the credit for creating him. But what makes Deadpool special is his personality, and for that you should thank Fabian Nicieza. I've actually made the joke that Deadpool was really created by Fabian Nicieza and George Perez. It's really only a half-joke.

This post isn't meant to disparage Rob, however; he still brought these characters to life. In the case of Cable, who debuted 11 issues and 11 months earlier, Rob said in a 2009 interview:

I was given a directive to create a new leader for the New Mutants. There was no name, no description besides a 'man of action', the opposite of Xavier. I created the look, the name, much of the history of the character. After I named him Cable, Bob suggested Quinn and Louise had Commander X.

Walt Simonson gave a comprehensive recounting of it back in 1991 for and reposted it on his Facebook group here. You can read it in its entirety, but the whole point is that Cable was a collaborative creation, borne out of Bob Harras's desire to create a new leader for the New Mutants, Weezie's desire to have that new leader be "a kick-ass, take charge kind of guy who would treat the team as a squad of soldiers," and Rob Liefeld's designs for Stryfe. Stryfe was a villain whose design, Harras thought, would do well for a good guy.

The working title, as Rob pointed out above, was Commander X, but the name was never going to be final. Rob suggested "Cable" and Weezie, who has a reputation for making artists happy, agreed.

Cable was a mystery man and there wasn't much known about him. Later creators added more layers to him, and in the 1993 Cable ongoing series, in which neither Weezie nor Rob were involved, they decided to make him the time-traveling older version of Nathan Summers, Scott "Cyclops" Summers' son from his first marriage to Jean Grey–lookalike Madelyne Pryor, who was given up in 1991, because the X-Men are complicated and they hate me. Point is, that's a defining and vital aspect of Cable's character, and none of his creators had anything to do with it.

Rob Liefeld gets most of the credit for these two characters, and a part of that is just because Rob Liefeld is the most famous person in this whole equation. But if you love these characters, be sure to thank Fabian Nicieza and Louise Simonson. Besides bringing them to life and making sure they had personalities beyond your standard 90s badass, they're both very excellent — and very underrated — writers.

Friendly reminder that Fabian Nicieza also co-created Gambit and the New Warriors, and Weezie Simonson also co-created Apocalypse and Steel.

Ranking the Wednesday Comics

So a while back, my girlfriend gave me this for a special occasion.




Originally published in 2010, Wednesday Comics was a true DC Comics art project and was the brainchild of Mark Chiarello. Attempting to recapture the magic of early 20th century newspaper comics such as Little Nemo in Slumberland and Krazy Kat, it was published in newspaper format and came out weekly. This hardcover edition is oversized and on glossy paper, and is gorgeous.

There are 14 features in Wednesday Comics, and while many reviews of the material have come out since, I haven't really run into any reviews that have ranked these 14 features. So you know what? Let's spend the next few minutes...

Ranking the Wednesday Comics

by Duy

There are only 12 pages in each Wednesday Comics feature, and thus not a lot of room for exploration in terms of plot or story. There's a lot to be done in terms of characterization though. But at the end of the day, this is still a book that celebrates the art of comics, and so my judgments will by its very nature be based on how much each story maximizes the artistic potential of these oversized pages.

15. Teen Titans by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway

Even if Galloway's art worked for me without the usual black outlines, Teen Titans would be dead last because Eddie Berganza is Eddie Berganza and he shouldn't make any list.

But props to Galloway, who worked on Spectacular Spider-Man, still the best version of Spider-Man outside of the comics.

14. Batman by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso

This mystery by the 100 Bullets team never really comes together, especially when you consider that Batman's probably unethical attraction to dangerous women is played upon and never addressed head on. Still, good mood-setting stuff from Risso.


13. Demon/Catwoman by Walt Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze

This should really be called "The Demon, featuring Catwoman," since Selina Kyle spends most of the story under the spell of Morgaine Le Fay. Etrigan the Demon is really the hero here, but what I find most fun about it is that the entire story starts off with Selina going on a date with his alter ego Jason Blood, just to case his house for possible things to steal.

12. Green Lantern by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones

Serviceable story with fun art. Nothing to really write home about, I think, but it's pretty much the benchmark of what these things should be like, at the least.

11. Superman by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo

The Superman arc is a fun one where Superman is forced to doubt himself and he has to go to Smallville to find his motivation again.

Points off for this, and I know it's personal preference, because Lee Bermejo's art just isn't the kind I think of when I think of these big newspaper-style comics. There's room for experimentation, of course, but something about it just didn't seem to fit.

10. Wonder Woman by Ben Caldwell

Talk about experimentation in Wednesday Comics, and this is it. Caldwell goes the exact opposite route of most everyone else and packs as many panels as possible in his strip, instead of going for money shots. Unfortunately, this led to some confusing panel flow and made it tough to read at points.

9. Supergirl by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner

With Streaky the Supercat and Krypto the Superdog going frantic and wreaking havoc on the city, Supergirl has to find out what's going on. With a twist ending that will put a smile on your face, it's easily the most fun of the strips.

8. Deadman by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck

Deadman wants to help out a beautiful woman, and then gets sucked into Hell! Dave Bullock's art is a visual treat.

7. The Flash by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher

Kerschl and Fletcher really play with the form here and for the most part cut each installment into two strips: The Flash and someone else, like Iris West. Narratives intertwine, and the story involves time travel and therefore multiple versions of The Flash. It can get confusing, but the playfulness is worth it.

6. Sgt. Rock by Adam Kubert and Joe Kubert

This Sgt. Rock story isn't as good as Joe Kubert's in DC Legacies, but it's Adam's first turn scripting, so we'll let that part off the hook. This is one of Joe's last works, and it's as good as ever. The scratchiness and the mood are perfect for wartime-era comics. Just like Kubert's art always was.

5. Metal Men by Dan Didio and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

My favorite artist in the entire book is Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, so this was always gonna rank fairly high. The story is nothing really to write home about, with its most ostensibly impactful moments lacking much oomph. But the art has Garcia-Lopez at his draftsman's best, with his big trick of characters breaking out of panels to emphasize power and momentum being used multiple times. I actually thought he was holding back. I'd like to have seen more.

4. Metamorpho by Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred

This type of fun sci-fi stuff isn't the kind of thing Gaiman is known for, but it's one of the most experimental comics in the entire collection. Metamorpho the Element Man has to go to The Antarctic to dig up some treasure. Allred's art is drop-dead gorgeous, and the two of them take risks with the form. There are two pairs of installments that form a polyptych, or a continuing picture, which is something I'm surprised I've never seen actual newspaper artists do. There's also a sequence where Metamorpho and Element Woman go through each element in the Periodic Table, which doesn't sound like it should be a fun read, but it is.

3. Strange Adventures, Featuring Adam Strange, by Paul Pope and Jose Villarubia

Not counting Jonni Future, a genderbent analogue of Adam Strange, this is my favorite version of DC's premiere spaceman. Paul Pope's art really shouldn't grab me as it goes against so many of my usual tastes, but I love it. He has so much quirkiness and so much momentum that it's a pleasure to look at.

His reinvention of Adam Strange is also something of interest. Traditionally, Adam Strange is an Earthman who gets taken to the scientifically advanced planet Rann via a Zeta Beam, where he becomes their superhero and falls in love with Princess Alanna. Pope turns Rann, into a wartorn planet, and Alanna into a Dejah Thoris–type warrior woman. But the biggest change he makes is the idea that the Zeta Beam translates you from your Earth self into your Rann self. So whereas in the regular DC Universe, Adam Strange is a superhero on Rann but normal on Earth only because he's surrounded by other superheroes on Earth, in the Popeverse, he's a superhero on Rann and a tired old man on Earth. This twist leads to the resolution of the conflict, but also raises questions. What would Alanna be like on Earth? And if they were on Earth, would they still be in love?

It's a really interesting take on the character that may not be sustainable in the regular DC Universe, but I'd love to see it explored more.

2. Hawkman by Kyle Baker

Kyle Baker is more known for being a humor cartoonist, so seeing him draw this way was a revelation. I've always liked the look and visual of Hawkman, so this was perfect. I really would like a more substantial Hawkman run from Baker or an artist with a similar tone. Plus, he really won me over with that dinosaur.

1. Kamandi by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook

Pretty much all of the Wednesday Comics are well drawn, but Ryan Sook's rendition of the Last Boy on Earth is evocative of a specific classic newspaper strip: Hal Foster's Prince Valiant. The prose style also allows him and Gibbons to develop the story more than the other strips did. It even includes a romance, as we're introduced to Orora, possibly The Last Girl on Earth. With the beautiful art, the callback to a classic strip, and more development than the other strips, it's hard not to make Kamandi the top Wednesday Comic.

Did Mars Ravelo Really Read Captain Marvel?

I've made many comments over the years about how Mars Ravelo must have based Darna, the Philippines' #1 superhero, on Captain Marvel, he who says "Shazam!" Since Darna's alter-ego is a young girl who says a magic word to turn into Darna, she's more like Captain Marvel than she is like Wonder Woman, who she looks more like. But recently I was asked...

Did Mars Ravelo Really Read Captain Marvel?

by Duy

Well, honestly, although I do vaguely remember reading somewhere that he definitely read Captain Marvel, I can't find it now. What I do find are some unsubstantiated claims and references to Superman, specifically this, pertaining to Varga, his pre-Darna creation:

Alam mo naisip kong gawin yung Varga para itapat kay Superman. Lalake yung sa mga Amerikano, babae yung sa atin. Di ba ayos?
(You know, I thought of doing Varga to put up against Superman. The Americans have a guy, we have a girl. Wouldn't that be cool?)

However, I would find it really difficult to believe that he didn't base Darna on Captain Marvel. Let's just look at some facts.

1. Mars Ravelo created Varga in 1939

Varga was the original Darna, and was created to be a counterpart of Superman. There isn't much more to her beyond that and the fact that her costume is based on the Philippine flag:

That's because Varga wasn't actually published until 1947. So although her creation precedes the release date of Captain Marvel (1940), there are no details about how her secret identity would have worked in 1939. When Varga was released in 1947, rights disputes forced Ravelo to give her up and then create Darna with the legendary Nestor Redondo. (Side note: Isn't this basically what happened with Walt Disney and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, leading to the creation of Mickey Mouse with the legendary Ub Iwerks?)

2. By the time Varga/Darna was released in full, Captain Marvel was the most popular superhero in the world. 

Superman was created to be a two-fisted champion of the oppressed. He was a grounded hero who just happened to have a crapload of superpowers. By 1950, he was participating in fantastical sci-fi adventures, and that's because Captain Marvel was outselling him, and everyone else.

As Michael Uslan put it:

If you go back and look at when Captain Marvel first started outselling Superman, this was a huge, huge turning point in the Golden Age of comics. And the way DC responded was by ordering a more comical, silly direction for Superman. 

All of a sudden, you started to see one-after-another covers of Lois dropping the pie she’d made on Superman’s toe, or Lois cutting Superman’s hair in a barbershop. They started to switch it over, since Captain Marvel had the lighter tone and was outselling Superman.

So Varga may have been created before Captain Marvel, but by the time she was published and had a secret identity, Captain Marvel had already been firmly established as a young boy named Billy Batson who said one magic word and then turned into a superhero. That's a bit too much of a coincidence.

3. During World War II, American soldiers got comics in care packages

Many soldiers who had read comics overseas found them to be a comfort item on their return. Maybe it was escapism, maybe it was a habit, but either way they were a solace to many of the soldiers who would later introduce the comics to their children.  -From History Rat

And a huge portion of American soldiers were stationed here in the Philippines. If Captain Marvel was the biggest comic book of the time, and American soldiers got comics in care packages, it's incredibly unlikely that Captain Marvel didn't make it to the Philippines. I mean, Plastic Man did:

Larry Alcala's Siopawman, playing off the three
most famous heroes whose names end with "man."

And we know Ravelo based a superhero on him:

The not-so-imaginatively-named Lastikman,
on a much more imaginative cover for Aliwan

4. Mars Ravelo created Captain Barbell, for crying out loud.

After her release in komiks, Darna had two movies in the 1950s, and Ravelo was a legend. He created more in the 1960s, most very probably because the superhero genre was getting revitalized in America. And next to Darna, his most famous creation was a young scrawny asthmatic boy named Tenteng, who'd lift magic barbells to become Captain Barbell.

C'mon. That's pretty obvious. The names even rhyme!

So Therefore...

It's possible that Mars Ravelo never had Captain Marvel on the brain when creating Darna. It is. It's also possible that the name of your favorite search engine has nothing to do with Barney Google. Meaning it could have happened that way.

But it would have been extremely unlikely. And I really, really wouldn't believe it.

Thor's Replacements, and Going Back to Basics

Thor's got a movie coming up soon (and it's gonna be the best superhero movie of the year, natch), and with that, Thor Odinson is gonna get his hammer back, taking over from Jane Foster, who's held the hammer for the better part of four years. Thor's always getting his hammer taken from him though, ever since 1978, and it's only going to be matter of time before he loses it again.

Thor's Replacements and Going Back to Basics

by Duy

As far as I'm concerned, Jane Foster is the best replacement Thor. That's not even close for me — she's far and away the best one, not just as a character, but also because of what she does for Thor Odinson himself.

In Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's run on the character, which I will maintain forever is better than their more-lauded run on The Fantastic Four, Mjolnir has a very specific enchantment: "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor." That's established in Journey Into Mystery #83, the first appearance of Dr. Don Blake, who holds the hammer and gets the powers of Thor. That he was always the real Thor to begin with isn't revealed until the 159th issue, six years later. That's kinda nuts.



The first replacement Thor was a human cameraman named Red Norvell, created to resemble the Thor of myth with his red hair, beard, and barbarian-like stance. There's a bit of a "cheat" in this one, as the story specified that Odin was specifically trying to create a substitute Thor to die in Ragnarok, rather than his own son. In this story, Red wasn't "worthy," but rather needed to wear a bunch of Asgardian paraphernalia to lift Mjolnir. He was later rewarded a hammer of his own, called a "War-Hammer." There isn't really much to Red, other than being a dude with the powers of Thor.

The second replacement Thor is Beta Ray Bill, introduced during Walter Simonson's incredible run on the character. Bill is, in fact, introduced in the very first issue as an antagonist, and I can only imagine that if you were there at the time, the moment is very powerful, seeing this horse-faced monster beating the hell out of Thor, and then lifting Mjolnir. Bill never actually "replaced" Thor, unless you count the fact that during Simonson's run, he had adventures on Earth, while Thor had adventures in Asgard.

Bill was eventually rewarded his own hammer, called Stormbreaker, and has been a fixture in the Marvel Universe since. This is also where Odin removed the enchantment that could change Thor to Don Blake and gave it to Bill, in effect ending Don Blake's existence.

Despite his vocal fans though, he's managed to co-star in a couple of team books and a few miniseries, never really holding down a title of his own. This strikes me as strange, and I always wonder how he got such a loyal following since even his appearances under Simonson were limited. (It might also be a numbers thing. Beta Ray Bill fans tend to be the hardcore Walt Simonson fans, and there are currently just under 7,000 members of The Walt Simonson Appreciation Society, if that's anything to go by.) In the end, I think a lot of it is the fact that Simonson really showed us how awesome Bill was, making us want more, but no one since has really taken that ball and run with it.

Instead, once Simonson was off the book, Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz did a one-off story introducing Dargo Ktor, a punk kid from the 26th Century who finds Mjolnir when Thor is missing.

How does one take an iconic costume and ruin it?
You become Dargo, that's how.

I actually really hate Dargo, as he's so late 80s/early 90s while talking in pseudofuturistic speak. But Bill broke the wall down, is the thing. At this point, anyone can tell a story about someone worthy holding Mjolnir. The difference? With Bill, it was legitimately new.

DeFalco and Frenz later would remove Thor Odinson from the book altogether for two years, giving the hammer to New York architect Eric Masterson, who, like Don Blake, was lame. By lame, I mean they needed canes to walk. But in the case of Eric Masterson, I mean the other, more colloquial meaning of lame. He was a generic everyman who doubted himself, and it frustrated me to no end, even as a kid, that he wasn't the real Thor during the Infinity Gauntlet and the Infinity War.

Such... bad... dialogue

I should make it clear that I actually love the DeFalco and Frenz run in the middle of these two stories. I just can't sit through these two stories.

Masterson would eventually get his own hammer (see a pattern here?), called the Thunderstrike. His name was... also Thunderstrike. And his costume was a vest and a ponytail, because that's just how the 90s rolled, baby.

The mass destruction known as Onslaught, which removed the Avengers and the Fantastic Four from the Marvel Universe for a year, came soon after, and in Thor's final issue at the time, Jane Foster, who had not been a regular in decades, showed up to say goodbye.

This was also a good time to remind us that Thor was once a doctor.

Upon his return, the changes in Thor's world after that came not in the form of people replacing him or lifting the hammer, but in the changes of his alter egos and his roles. Dan Jurgens and John Romita, Jr. brought back the Don Blake dynamic, this time merging him with a paramedic named Jake Olson.

It's also in this run that Jane Foster is brought back as a supporting character, and where we learn that she'd become a doctor. I think this is where the most character development for Jane Foster came prior to the current series.

Also, can we just take a minute here to appreciate how perfect JRJR was for Thor?

Olson started out as a decent idea, bringing the character back to basics, but then got unbelievably convoluted. Y'see, he was really a drug dealer who was pretending to be a paramedic cop and his partner was trying to get the goods on him and somehow Loki was involved and there may or may not have been a twin brother...

Soon after that, Thor took over as King of Asgard, and then Ragnarok happened and Marvel shuffled the Asgardians away for a while. Then they got brought back by a writer who somehow overlooked the fact that what made landmark Thor runs great were momentum and nonstop action, and made the title the slowest and talkiest it's ever been, so let's just skip over that.

And then Jason Aaron got on the book.

Look, the greatest Thor run of all time is up for debate. It's either Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's run, which introduced Thor to the Marvel Universe, or it's Walt Simonson's run, which broke all the rules and infused the title with a level of high fantasy that had never been reached. It all depends on what you're looking for. I could go either way on that debate.

What I'm not going either way on? Jason Aaron is number 3.  With Esad Ribic providing gorgeous painted art that looks positively mythical, Aaron worked with the concept of Thor being a god that doubts. Fighting Gorr the God Butcher, who goes through time killing gods, it takes three Thors to win. These are Thor the Avenger of the present-day; young Thor, back when he was still unworthy of Mjolnir and held on to the axe named Jarnbjorn; and King Thor, far off in the future when the Earth is dead, the last god of Asgard. This gives current-day Thor cause to doubt everything, including the place of gods in the universe.

Can I just say I love this so much?
"Then struck Thor.
With the fury of a billion storms."

And that's what causes him to lose Mjolnir. Being told that Gorr was right, Thor immediately becomes unworthy. The person who ends up picking the hammer is Jane Foster.

The first time we see Jane Foster in Aaron's run is in the excellent 12th issue, which shows a day in the life of Thor. We learn that Jane has been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing treatment, so Thor, attempting to make her feel better, takes her to the moon.

I've talked before about how I think it makes sense that Jane was worthy, but I'll just do a quick recap: this is a woman who's been through Thor's side and devoted her life to saving people. She's brave, she's caring, and she's hung with the gods. She's worthier, and certainly more interesting, at least, than Eric freaking Masterson, and we've been through more with her than we have with Beta Ray Bill. And Dargo is better left unmentioned. Let's never mention Dargo again.

What makes Jane more interesting for me than Eric Masterson, which, really, is the only one we can compare her to, is the overall package. She's a doctor, which kind of brings us back, full circle, to Don Blake, but she's also a cancer patient, and becoming Thor reverses the treatment of her chemotherapy every time. It's an interesting twist and underscores her bravery, in that she would pick becoming Thor and saving people rather than saving herself. And there's the fact that Odin has always hated her as Jane, and hates her even more as Thor. Compare this to Masterson's generic New York everyman persona, and it's easy to see Jane win out.

Aaron and Jane's artist, Russell Dauterman, have also introduced a new aspect of Mjolnir: the Mother Storm, which is a retcon to explain how the hammer can control the thunder to begin with, and how, in this run, the hammer is able to defy the wishes of Odin. It's always weird to introduce retcons, but remember, Thor always being Thor and Don Blake not being real was a retcon they did as early as 1968. There's no Marvel hero, and very few characters, that I find lend themselves to retconning as much as Thor. I actually think the contradictions give the tales an air of myth. The visuals of the new dynamic with Mjolnir are beautiful.

I think it's pretty awesome that Thor Odinson is still around, holding Jarnbjorn, being a badass, doubting himself and working himself out of that doubt. Seriously, read The Unworthy Thor. You'll know that Thor Odinson doesn't need the hammer to be a positive role model.

And yes, I think it's pretty awesome that a woman is holding Mjolnir, because I think it's a great visual and I think it's empowering. My niece's favorite Marvel hero is Thor, and although I have not given her these books to read, I look forward to doing so when the run is over. Whether or not she processes it consciously, she'll know that a woman can be Thor as well.

And yet...

It's disconcerting to me how many people in the Thor fandom seem to have an issue with that last part. There's a frequent commenter in several Thor groups, whose first name on Facebook is meant to sound like the primary male hormone, who continually says that women shouldn't hold Mjolnir because women weren't warriors and women aren't Thor, says that Odin doesn't like Jane and therefore she isn't worthy since Odin has to approve, and complains that Thor has been shuffled off the stage and is going through too much hardship. This person also takes issue with the Mother Storm retcon, which, since it was revealed around two years into Jane's run, makes me wonder why this guy stuck with a book he had already decided he didn't like. When I brought up the fact that he was a fan of Beta Ray Bill, he dismissed it by saying that Bill is a warrior and therefore was worthy. When I brought up the fact that Dargo and Masterson weren't warriors, he brought up that they were worthy — Mjolnir said so. Plus, they were going through hardships that proved they were worthy.

This person is an extreme example, of course, but those sentiments in general seem to permeate an undercurrent of fandom. Let's look at those sentiments one by one.

1. Thor isn't a woman. Well, the mythical Thor isn't a woman, no. But if you count alternate realities, Thor's been a woman in at least two of them, and here's one. But more importantly, Thor isn't supposed to be a crippled doctor, a lame architect, a horse-faced alien, a cameraman, and a punk kid from 2588 either. If we're complaining about Thor being a woman because of what Thor isn't, we should be prepared to complain about those too.  If we're not, then there's really only one thing that separates Jane from the others, and I don't have to tell you what that is, and I don't have to tell you what it looks like to complain primarily about her if the complaints apply to the others just as much.
2. Women weren't warriors in the Viking era. Well, archaeologists are continually finding exceptions. But even without that, this is a genre that's supposed to stick up for the underdog. The hammer is meant to turn you into Thor if you're worthy. Are we going to say all women aren't worthy? How does that sound?
3. Odin doesn't like Jane and therefore Jane shouldn't be worthy because Odin is in charge of the enchantment. This is addressed within the story, making Odin himself unable to lift the hammer, because of the Mother Storm retcon.
4. Thor Odinson is off the stage. Thor Odinson is still around, making appearances here and there, recently headlining his own miniseries and returning to the pages of Thor. Back when Eric Masterson was Thor, Thor Odinson was gone for two years. You know where he was? In a bag.
   
   No, literally, he was in a bag.
   
   

   

   Spoiler alert: he's not really in the bag. They just teased it for two years.

   
   Don't complain to me about Thor being gone because of Jane if you were okay with Thor being in a bag for two years.
5. Jane has been established as not a warrior. Of all the replacement Thors, exactly one was a warrior: Beta Ray Bill. But being a warrior was never specified in the worthiness clause. That's kinda the thing with magic; it's all subjective based on how you interpret the text. It's like in Gargoyles, when they say that the Gargoyles will remain stone until the castle reaches the clouds, so Xanatos just literally lifts the castle and rebuilds it on top of his tower so it touches the clouds. Or on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where it says no weapon known can kill the Judge, and Buffy realizes that was written centuries ago and fires a rocket launcher at him. Jane Foster saved lives. Jane Foster fought for her life. Jane Foster has been with gods and stood up to gods. Jane Foster is worthy. The Mother Storm said so.
6. The Mother Storm. Granted, there's always going to be resistance to a retcon, and you either ride with it or you don't. Me, I ride with this one because when they introduced it, I'd been entertained up to that point.

The Mother Storm also gives us an easy loophole, one that I hope is used. The Warhammer, Stormbreaker, and Thunderstrike exist. I want Thor Odinson back as Thor as much as anyone. But I also want Jane to stay. Isolating the Mother Storm and creating a hammer out of it? That'd be fun. It'd be a lot of fun.

Jason Aaron has written the third best Thor run of all time, and at this point more than half of it has starred Jane Foster. I can't wait for him to resolve the Thor-doubts-himself angle and bring him back, but he's made me love Jane as Thor so much, that I hope he keeps her on board.

Let's close this column off with the greatest line in Thor history:

"Today my hammer comes for your face!"