The Old Order Changeth! Cap and Thor - no more!

The comic book world is in upheaval! Everywhere you look, people are screaming in pain! Two of Marvel Comics Group's most steady characters are undergoing massive changes. And not for the first time, in both cases.

Captain America is going to be replaced by Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon. And Thor is going to be a woman, going forward. Details are sketchy at this point (and I haven't done a lot of digging), but the comic book fandom is abuzz about these changes.

It's clear that Marvel is trying to make a statement, but it's unclear what that statement is. My thought is that they are simply trying to goose sales, and controversy sells. There may be other social implication reasons for this, but I'm not overly worried about that.

As I've said many times before, just tell good stories. Don't renumber the titles. Don't cancel the book and restart it a few months later with a brand new team/brand new direction. And don't change the essence of the characters.

Marvel has pretty much done all of these things in the past, and the changes to Thor and Cap indicate that they will continue to make changes like that. And, as long as they tell good stories, I'll keep reading.

The one thing that I will say in dissension to these changes is that I'd rather that they made these changes and left Sigurd and Steve Rogers intact. Not to return to the roles, but to play a part in the new world. I had recently re-read Christopher Priest's "The Crew" and thought that it would have been cool to have had a Josiah X comic book published concurrently with the main title. If one Captain America is good, two must be better, right?

I'd like to see that now. I'd love to see Marvel give male Thor and Steve Rogers Cap their own books, to be telling stories alongside the newbies. There could be crossovers, team-ups, judgments, lessons learned and taught.... The possibilities, are, quite frankly, really interesting to consider.

Of course, I have very little faith in Axel Alonso, Joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis to do anything like this. I suppose we'll just have to watch this play out and wait a year or so before Marvel puts everything back the way it was.

I just hope they tell good stories along the way.