Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Thor of Ancient Egypt

The other day, a comic caught my eye as I was browsing a magazine rack. It was Thor #1. I guess they are relaunching the series, which is something comic book companies do every couple of years to drive up sales.

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Thor, a god of Norse mythology, is in an Egyptian tomb. It looked interesting enough. And in the very least, I thought we might get the backstory on why Thor has the Egyptian symbol for Ka on his belt. (The Mercury Helmet is for another story).

The story starts out with two archaeologists in modern day Egypt discussing the riddle of the Spinx.
The Spinx is believed to be about 5000 years old, but water erosion on the Spinx makes this impossible.

So, if the erosion was caused by water, the Sphinx must have been carved before Egypt was under water i.e. more than 12,000 years ago. This, in turn, is too radical for scholars to swallow, as they prefer not to change their theory that Khafra (Chephren) built the Sphinx. As a result, those unfamiliar with scientific principles, suggested that the ground water, and not direct flooding, caused such erosion.


Twelve thousand years old! this would make the Spinx the only major surviving artifact from the last age. Ok, now back to the Comic.

Thor and his band of warriors are fighting Nedra, queen of the frost giants. After her defeat and capture, they discover a stargate to Earth, which the clumsy "god" Volstaag falls through. Thor and his friends enter the portal to retrieve him, and arrive in ancient Egypt. Even though they are "gods", they don't understand the language of the natives.

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The Norse gods "recognize' the Egyptian gods. This makes me wonder how? Do they have god conventions or something? "Hey look! There's Zeus talking to Osiris by the punchbowl! I'm going to go over and say hi."

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Here we see the Spinx was originally a Griffin. It turns out the griffin is the pet of the evil Pharaoh. Thor defeats the Pharaoh and his griffin, and then brings rain to the desert land of Egypt, causing the statue of the Spinx to be damaged by water erosion, and thus the mystery is solved. LOL!

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Erosion on stone is a process that takes thousands of years. I guess the thunder god's storm was so powerful, it caused it in one day. Also, Thor talks about the Heliopolitan gods leaving, but where did they go? Probably to the convention. That would explain why there is a minotaur on the back cover.

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Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

2 comments:

Michael Skaggs said...

That was great Ed!

So THATS what happened to the Sphinx! *smacks head* Of course!

This is a great sync by the way because a co worker was telling me about a J.L.A./Avengers cross over where there was a comic cover of Superman with Captain Americas Shield and he had Thor's Hammer in the other hand. Great sync!

Enjoy your holiday!

Ed said...

Thanks Michael.

In the late nineties DC/Marvel did a whole line of crossover comics calle "Amalgam". They fused many of their characters like "Spiderboy" a cross between Superboy and Spiderman, and "Dark Claw", which was a cross between Wolverine and Batman.

Happy Thanksgiving. :)