I love it when comic book storylines somehow become mainstream news. I love watching reporters or celebrities or whoever try to interpret something that probably doesn’t make any sense to them, but they’re being paid to promote it nonetheless. Like when Fox News freaked out about the death of Ultimate Spider-Man. Or when Fox News freaked out about the introduction of a half black, half Latino Spider-Man.

Today’s comic book news is that Marvel is going to tell a story about a female Thor. This was announced on The View, of all places, and it’s all over the Internet. Lady Thor is even trending on Facebook!

Still blonde

First of all, why the heck is Marvel using The View to announce anything? Is there really a big crossover audience? I think they’ve done it before, and while it may be a female-centric show, is that the only place they could think of to announce news about a female character? Why not package the announcement during Sex and the City reruns? There has to be a better way to reach women.

Second of all, who cares?! It’s a comic book storyline! It may be getting a new #1 issue, but it’s still just a single storyline that Marvel feels like doing. Why does this warrant mainstream news coverage?

Why the metal face mask?

I’ve felt pretty cynical about the world for a few years now. This sort of thing falls squarely in the whole ‘the mainstream news is distraction’ sort of conspiracy theory. Why bother reporting on important things when the news can talk about a comic book storyline? Or the search for a crashed airplane? Does any of this coverage talk about how awesome Jason Aaron’s Thor: God of Thunder has been? Did Whoopi Goldberg on The View tell people where, how and why they should start reading this Lady Thor comic? Or is this just an announcement for announcement’s sake?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely going to read the comic, because Jason Aaron’s Thor has been pretty amazing. But how weird is it that it’s getting this much attention? I wish the universe cared this much about comic books for real. But why not have reporters who actually understand comics talk about real comic book news instead of paying Whoopi Goldberg to read a press release?

Maybe then they could make jokes about Frog Thor or Horse Thor.

Or Valkyrie, who already is a blonde, female Thor.