The Marvel Comics superhero Thor, newly reincarnated as a woman, has given a definitive answer to those critics who attacked her new identity, breaking the jaw of the villain who tells her that “damn feminists are ruining everything”.

Marvel caused waves last summer when it announced that the hammer-wielding Norse god would be recast as a woman. Now writer Jason Aaron has addressed charges of “political correctness” head on in the latest issue of the comic, as his character faces off against the villain the Absorbing Man.

“Thor? Are you kidding me? I’m supposed to call you Thor? Damn feminists are ruining everything,” he says. “You wanna be a chick superhero? Fine. Who the hell cares? But get your own identity. Thor’s a dude. One of the last manly dudes still left. What’d you do, send him to sensitivity training so he’d stop calling Earth girls ‘wenches’?”

He goes on to ask: “What the hell kind of Thor are you?”, before the goddess breaks his jaw. “That’s for saying ‘feminist’ like it’s a four-letter word, creep,” she thinks to herself.

Going meta … issue five of Thor. Photograph: Marvel Comics

“It’s a pretty great moment, one that’s cartoonishly on the nose when taken out of context, but hilarious when you’re aware of the criticism the Thor creative team has been getting over the story,” wrote Joshua Rivera in Entertainment Weekly of the new issue.

The news came as rival comics publisher DC Comics responded to a letter from an 11-year-old girl in which she wrote of how she was “upset because there aren’t very many girl superheroes … from DC”. Rowan Hansen from Illinois wrote: “I love your comics, but I would love them a whole lot more if there were more girls. Please do something about this. Girls read comics too, and they care.”

The letter was retweeted thousands of times on Twitter. DC initially responded by telling Hansen: “We agree, we’re working hard to create more superhero fun for girls.” It has now created a sketch of the 11-year-old as a superhero herself, flying above a field of dandelions.