Thematics
Thor's characterisation has changed over the years. Although writers such as Stan Lee and especially Tom DeFalco portrayed him as extremely noble, brave, responsible, heroic, and compassionate, several later writers have gradually distorted Thor's character to turn him increasingly unsympathetic, perhaps starting with Ron Marz's "Blood and Thunder" storyline (the same writer who turned
Hal Jordan into a megalomaniacal serial-killer), and much later culminating in Nick Spencer inexplicably making Thor a follower to the Hydra duplicate of Captain America, and Donny Cates portraying him as a mirthless, callous, and hollow irresponsible power fantasy, and this is worsened by that the most extremely rightwing part of Thor's audience seems to largely enthusiastically prefer Cates' type of portrayal.
Writers such as J. Michael Straczynski and Al Ewing have attempted to at least partially return Thor to his much more sympathetic and thoughtful characterisation roots, more positive and humane narrative, and very well-written storyarcs,
but it remains to be seen if Marvel Comics editorial department as a whole consider Thor to have a too damaged history of decades of horribly mismatched characterisation (due to writers who either hate the character or love him for unsympathetic reasons), combined with potentially problematic real world implications of Norse mythology, to not be replaced in thematic function and power level stature by other superhero characters such as Storm, Phoenix, Captain Marvel, Blue Marvel, Spectrum, and the Scarlet Witch, as Al Ewing's current (as of February 2025) storyline has declared that Thor's final death is approaching, and Thor is barely appearing in any stories outside of his own comic book anymore, and the times he has appeared in recent years, such as in Kieron Gillen's "Judgment Day" storyline, it has recurrently been as a one-dimensional punchline to be depowered and humiliated.