Asgardian discrepancies

2. Do Marvel's Asgardians differ because Marvel couldn't get copyrights on exact representations of Norse myths, or was it just something Stan & Jack didn't bother to research extensively?

 

2) Neither. Stan and Jack were creating their own characters based on Norse Myths. They chose to put their own spin on the ideas and not just transplant carbon copies into the Marvel Universe.

 

In 616, the Asgardians, like the Olympian and Egyptian Gods, etc, were originally formed out of the dispersed God energy from the Elder Gods who, after devolving into Demons, were consumed by Demogorge and their essence cast back into the living biosphere of Earth, the Demiurge. Origin inconsistencies for the Asgardians are due to the involvement of They Who Sit Above in Shadow, who forced the Asgardians through Ragnarok and multiple cycles of death and rebirth, each of which recreated the Asgardian mythology in a different format...like Marvel and Ultimate Marvel.

 

-The myths are what they always were...myths. In that particular case, however, the story of Sif's hair being changed from golden to black was adopted by Marvel continuity, so it's true regardless.

 

-It was the disappearance of the Asgardians during the Heroic Age that led to them being worshipped. Much like Jesus Christ, the idea was that the people never knew what they had until they were gone. That said, there was a ridiculously long story arc in Thor (2nd series) #50-79 called The Reigning where modern people really did start worshipping the Asgardians anew.

 

You'd think that the existence of the Asgardian, Olympian and other gods would be the biggest challenge to established religions in the Marvel universe. well, that or the irrefutable proof of extra terrestrial civilisations far more advanced than our own.  Of time travelling visitors (and indeed conquerers) turning up from tens of thousands of years in the future.

 

But religious types seem to be able to ignore all that and carry on regardless. The only thing anyone's ever got seriously worked up about is mutants demonstrating ongoing human evolution.

 

I like the conceit that the Earth of the Marvel universe is, despite all these things, essentially the same of their own. But it doesn't half require a massive suspension of disbelief when it comes to things like this.

 

...then the next writer thought that was crap, and retconned it so that Jesus was actually Satan in disguise, playing head games with Johnny.