Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site shark.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch
From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: The Uncanny X-Reviews
Message-ID: <1581@shark.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-Oct-85 23:36:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.1581
Posted: Sun Oct 13 23:36:39 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Oct-85 06:57:18 EDT
References: <683@decwrl.UUCP> <29300012@hpfclg.UUCP>
Reply-To: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 41
Summary: 

In article <29300012@hpfclg.UUCP> neutron@hpfcla.UUCP writes:
>decwrl!boyajian says:
>
>>> X-MEN/ALPHA FLIGHT #2	[Marvel, mini-series, $1.50]		B-
>>> 
>>> 	There's also something else of consequence here --- Those Who Live
>>> Above In Shadow. Who are these (as a friend put it) "uber-gods"? Well, not
>>> so much who are they, but where do they fit into the hierarchy of beings in
>>> the Marvel Universe? The last thing we need is yet another level of
>>> near-omnipotent beings.
>
>I agree, the last thing we need is another level of gods.  The Asgardians are
>so darn arrogant (and rightly so!) that they would never worship anything.
>Perhaps another writer will explain away the uber-gods as somebody playing
>a trick on Loki (perhaps the Beyonder?  Mephisto?).
>
>					-Jack Applin

Simonson has been making the Asgardians closer to the traditional Norse
deities.   The Aesir were mortal deities kept young by regularly eating
the Golden Apples of Idunn, goddess of Youth.  Hel, Loki's daughter,
was goddess of non-warrior death.  Tyr, god of war, was also the god
of justice, because (unlike the disgusting mischaracterization in Thor)
he kept his word absolutely.  When the Fenris wolf, another of Loki's
children, became too dangerous, the Trolls forged a chain of finest
gold which was the only thing which could restrain Fenris.  Tyr talked
Fenris into holding still for them to "test" the chain, by offering to
place his right hand in Fenris' mouth while they bound the wolf.
Tyr never said that they would let the wolf go, merely that he would
put his hand as hostage.  The wolf bit off his hand, and Tyr was
thenceforth the god of justice since he knew the price of justice
and paid it.

I digress.
Even in the extremely compressed, truncated accounts in Bullfinch's
the Aesir are mortals with their own gods.  In other accounts I've read,
there wasn't a lot of information about them other than that the Asgardians
did not take on the airs of superiority that the Greek deities were
depicted with, and that they had their own gods.

Hutch