Spent allot of time on this entry, feel free to love or hate Comic Vine's new definition of the SSS.
 
 http://www.comicvine.com/super-soldier-serum/18-55976/
 
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I'm mighty proud of this one folks.
 

 I’ve discussed this topic elsewhere and with my firend and fellow Comicviner HrdwrkngXsoldier quite a bit, but I thought maybe I’d revisit the topic here in this blog and see what kind of a response it gets.

In Incredible Hercules 138, during the Assault on New Olympus story arc, something US Agent said caught my eye. At first it just made me chuckle and give a little fist pump but after reading it over again later it really got my mind rolling on the subject.
The exact quote was:

“I don’t see how you (Hercules), the chick in the breast plate (Athena), or the kid in the cape (Zeus) are different than any other super human.

“I don’t believe you’re Gods any more than I believe Pym is the god of shrinking or Spidey is the god of wisecracks.

“Maybe Greeks did worship you in old-timey times, but that was a tragic mistake. There’s only one God, and he ain’t any of you – or Hera and her band of jokers for that matter.”

Pretty deep stuff coming from US Agent.

It was actually Athena’s response to him that really got the ball rolling for me and how I looked at Marvel Super Humans:

“Many in fact contend you “Marvels” have usurped the primary function of Myth… The latest manifestations of Eternal Cycles of Belief.”

Athena goes on to compare current heroes to gods of other Pantheons. She compares Spider-Woman to the Hindu God Kali, a hunter of shape shifting demons, alluding to her quest to find and kill the Skrull infiltrators for what they did to her prior to the events of Secret Invasion. She compares Spider-Man to the African/Carribean God Anansi, a trickster story teller spider god, alluding to Spidey’s connection to Anansi via the Totem storyline, which was unmade by One More Day, but is still considered canon. Finally she compares Wolverine to Cernunnos, a feral three clawed Celtic God, although Wolverine is decidedly lacking in antlers which Cernunnos posessed.

As my mind began to start down the path those two pages laid out I started to consider the nature of Gods, both in the MU and in Myth.

In myth Gods normally have a substance they consume or an object which grants them their powers and immortality. Routinely a mortal is able to kill a god or a god is tricked into giving up their immortality or powers. For example, in both myth and the MU Thor’s powers are gained from mythological items, his power over lightning and flight from Mjollnir and his immortality from the Golden Apples of the Tree of Life, the latter he must consume periodicly to maintain his immortality as do all of the gods of the Norse Pantheon. Although the myths differ from the MU version of Thor in that his immense strength comes from an enchanted belt, which does show up in the MU but differs in that in the myths Thor must wear it and a pair of Iron Gloves to even be capable of weilding Mjollnir where as MU Thor already posesses the great strength that makes it possible and does not require gloves, only that the wielder must be found worthy of the feat.

The same idea pops up in Greek and Roman Mythology, the Gods must routinely consume Ambrosia to maintain their immortality and mythological objects grant the gods their extra ordinary powers, i.e. Hermes’ winged sandles granting him his flight and incredible speed.

So, keeping that in mind, how does that make them different than allot of modern Marvels?

Is it their immortality? Mr. Immortal is evolved beyond death and has been shown alive at the end of time. Deadpool was cursed by Thanos to never die. That's a bit more than the Gods can claim as we've seen a whole heck of allot of recently. Selene and Apocolypse are both immortal mutants, who if left unchecked would live forever.

The latter two have in fact been worshiped as gods throughout history even though they’re both considered merely mutants in current continuity.  So why consider Gods Gods?  Why wouldn't we consider them merely Super Beings?

Is it their great powers? Take away MU Thor’s hammer and does he not just revert into a man, well he used to, we don't know if that weakness still applies in his new incarnation? How about Sentry. He was a junkie that was looking for a fix and stumbled upon the solution that granted him his “God Like Powers”. When faced with a “God”, in the form of Ares, he shreded him like he was made of paper mache. Wouldn’t Sentry qualify as a “God” if power was a prerequisite?
Another example of a being with God like powers manipulating the gods of the MU would be the Beyonder. He was able to snag Thor and Enchantress and manipulate them to his own ends and displayed power far beyond what they posess.

The more I thought about the subject the more I started to grasp what Pak and Van Lente were hinting at. US Agent was right. The “Gods” in the Marvel Universe are merely extremely long lived Super Beings, what made them Gods was the power of belief. Their followers both in history and in current continuity are all that makes them gods. Yes they posess vast powers, yes they’re immortal after a fasion, but they do not control the Universe. They may have infact helped create the world as the myths say, but the Universe/Existance is entirely another matter.

For all we know the Gods of the MU could be the result of tinkering by the Celestials who just did it out of profound boredome and wanted to see what the human reaction/evolution would be to beings of such immense power.

No, it was the belief by their followers that elevated them to that level. Humanity once believed that the beings I’m discussing in this blog were real. They worshiped and did what they thought was these gods’ will. They slaughtered other cultures in the Gods names. They sacrificed their loved ones in order to gain their favor. It was that belief that made them Gods. Whether they were real or not, it was that conviction that gave them power over their followers. The only difference is that in the Marvel Universe those beings were and continue to be real. And they continue to call themselves gods despite being worshiped by very few followers in the current MU. If you take away their followers in the MU they continue to exist as very powerful beings, but the lack of belief that they are gods eliminates that title like it did to Apocolypse?

A prime example of the power of belief in the Marvel Universe is Adam Warlock/the Magus and his relationship with the Universal Church of Truth.  All the followers have to do is believe that Adam Warlock is their Messiah and they feed the Church nearly limitless power to manipulate the Universe.  Even their mightiest warriors have only to believe that their cause is just and right in the name of the Church and they become beings of incredible power.

As far as the actual one god of the MU that US Agent is refering to only one being fits the traditional description of God, all seeing, all knowing, all powerful. That would be One-Above-All. I’ve heard people that make arguments towards Eternity, but he was shown suseptible to the powers of the Infinity Gauntlet when wielded by Thanos. The Living Tribunal while immune to the Gauntlet’s power and demonstating power beyond it is self-admittedly only an agent of One-Above-All.  The only real issue with One-Above-All being God is that very few individuals are actually aware of his presence.

By most accounts a different One Above All, the mightiest of the Celestials, is in fact what most monotheaistic religions consider God due to his direct hand in the history of man kind.

So Comicvine, what do you think about the question I've laid before you?  Is Divinity really Divine?  Or is it merely that the residents of the Marvel Universe give those beings power over them merely by believing that they are what they claim to be?

By what I've seen in the last couple of years the question of the nature of gods is very much up in the air.