| Thena | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | As Minerva: Red Raven Comics #1 (August 1940) As Thena: The Eternals #5 (November 1976) As Corona: New Eternals: Apocalypse Now #1 (February 2000) |
| Created by | Martin A. Bursten Jack Kirby |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Azura |
| Species | Eternal |
| Team affiliations | Eternals Heroes for Hire Stark International |
| Notable aliases | Thena Eliot Athena Zura Betty Sue Bialovsky Prime Eternal |
| Abilities |
|
Thena (bornAzura) is a character appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics. Created by Martin A. Bursten andJack Kirby, the character first appeared asMinerva inRed Raven Comics #1 (August 1940), but was later reintroduced as Thena inThe Eternals #5 (November 1976).[1][2] She is a member of theEternals, a race ofsuperhumans in theMarvel Universe. She was also a member ofHeroes for Hire.
Angelina Jolie portrays Thena in the 2021Marvel Cinematic Universe filmEternals.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(July 2019) |
Thena first appeared inJack Kirby'sThe Eternals #5 (November 1976).[3] Marvel Comics continuity was laterretconned so that the character presented as themythologicalgodMinerva, introduced inRed Raven Comics #1 ("Mercury in the 20th Century" by artist Kirby and writer Martin A. Bursten; August 1940), was actually Thena.[1][2]
The character appeared in the ongoing seriesThe Eternals, written by Jack Kirby and later in aThor storyline that ran fromThor #291–301.[4]
She become one of the main characters of theEternals (vol. 2) in 1985 written byPeter B. Gillis and pencilerSal Buscema,[5] and in the one-shot comic calledThe Eternals: The Herod Factor #1 in 1991.
Thena was born in the city ofOlympia in ancient Greece, and is thus one of the Eternals of Olympia. Originally named Azura, but her fatherZuras had her name changed by royal decree to resemble that ofZeus' daughterAthena (Roman name Minerva) to seal the treaty between the Olympian gods and the Eternals, in which the Eternals would act as the gods representatives on Earth, with Thena serving as Athena's personal representative. Due to this, she has often been mistaken for Athena and Minerva. The city ofAthens was apparently built for her, not the goddess, although Thena later allowed it to be conquered by theSpartans in 404 BC.
Thena became a scholar and a warrior as she grew. She encounteredKro inBabylon 2,500 years ago. He had a chance to slay her, but did not; as the years passed, the two of them grew closer together. Thena and Kro made love during theVietnam War, resulting in Thena becoming pregnant with twins. She placed them inside of Ms. Ritter, an infertile woman, who raised them as her own twin children,Donald and Deborah.[6]
In recent times, the eternals and deviants revealed themselves to the human world. When Warlord Kro led his armies in an attack onNew York City, Thena opposed him to help rescueSersi. Thena was reunited with Kro, and publicly declared herself to be an Eternal.[7] After Kro called a truce, he brought her to the Deviant city of Lemuria to try to resume his relationship with her. However Thena was horrified with the Deviants' customs including the mass killing ofundesirables. Thena meet Brother Tode, the leader of the deviants and watched a gladiator match between Deviant champions.[8] She watched thatRansak the Reject, a genetically stableDeviant was fighting the horribly mutated but well-manneredKarkas. Thena was convinced by Karkas to grant both of them sanctuary and take them under her protection, running away from Lemuria with them. She then participated in theUni-Mind with other Eternals to decide what to do with the Celestial crisis.[9] With Karkas and the Reject, she battled Zakka andTutinax.[10] She met and became an ally ofThor,[11] and then battled Athena of Olympus, during a battle between the Olympian gods and Eternals.[12]
She and the rest of the Etenals were captured by the Deviants aristocracy, but were rescued by Iron Man (James Rhodes). Thena was contacted by her father's spirit and proposed to the Eternals the need of going to the space.[13] She then formed the Uni-Mind again, to decide the matter and battledMaelstrom alongside theAvengers; she was chosen by the Uni-Mind to stay on Earth.[14] After Zuras' death and the subsequent departure of most of Earth's Eternals, Thena becamePrime Eternal (leader of the Eternals of Earth), but she was traumatized by her father's death and was being subtly influenced by a Brain-Mine Kro had placed upon her. Thena was angry when few eternals assisted to her crowning ceremony.[15] In a new conflict with the deviants, Thena meet Kro again and helped him to escape from High PriestGhaur's control. She thwarted the other Eternals' efforts against Kro and turned againstIkaris to help save Kro's life, but later relinquished her title to Ikaris after a ceremony, and was banished. She was captured with Kro by Ghaur, and freed from Kro's brain mine; when she learned of the Brain-Mine, she was furious with Kro. She battled Ghaur alongside the Eternals, Thor, and theWest Coast Avengers.[16][6]
Some time later a maddened Dr. Damian transformedAjak into a monster through the use of Celestial technology, sending them to kill Thena and Kro's twin children,Donald & Deborah Ritter. The monstrous Ajak killed many sets of twins along the way. After the Eternals restored Ajak to their true form, suddenly grief-stricken with the deeds that committed as a monster, Ajak committedsuicide, additionally disintegrating Dr. Damian himself. Thena was reunited with her children and Kro, forming a family.[6] Thena then sent Gilgamesh to help the Avengers, and later helped the superhero group in the fight against Proctor and his Gatherers.[17] Kro and Thena searched for their children when they were captured by the villain Maelstrom.[18] When the mad priest Ghaur tried to form anAnti-Mind, he captured the twins and Thena. Kro led his deviant faction to rescue his children and his lover, with help of theHeroes for Hire. However, he was outmatched by Ghaur's power and kept up the fight as his family escaped.[19] Later, Thena and the rest of the Eternals had to fight Apocalypse and posed as a superhero group.[20]
In the 2006Eternals title, Thena began as normal woman married to Thomas Eliot with a son, Joey, and a researcher atStark Enterprises. LikeSersi andMakkari, she was affected bySprite's reality warping to have no memory of her past as an Eternal.[21] Thena assisted at a Vorozheika party organized by Sersi. In the party, the amnesic eternals were attacked by mercenaries of another faction of Vorozheika government, killing her husband. The reunion of four eternals triggered a recovery of their powers.[22] With their returned powers, Thena frees herself from the mercenaries that captured her. Afterwards, she began to suffer terrible nightmares in which she was indeed immortal, and fought off various multicolored Deviants with ease. When she awoke from one of these dreams, she found she had gained back her costume and powers.[23] The Eternals, now remembering their past, arrived to San Francisco to deal with the Dreaming Celestial. They realized that they cannot stop the Celestial (they are programmed to protect him) and leave him be. The Eternals then embark on a quest to go and recruit the other members who have similarly forgotten their true selves due to Sprite's trickery.[24] Thena remained one of the Eternals, keeping her (human) child with her in their home after a heated argument with Ikaris.[25]
Thena kept caring for Joey and began to bicker with Ikaris for the method of awakening Eternals. She did not recognize that her son was host to a Horde' scout.[26]
Later when the Celestials' Final Host arrived on Earth, Thena along with all the Eternals killed themselves after realizing the true purpose for which they were created.[27]
Thena is a member of the race of superhumans known as the Eternals. As a result, she has superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, agility, and reflexes. Thena also possesses the ability to manipulate cosmic energy to augment her life force, granting her virtual invulnerability and immortality, the ability to project cosmic energy from her eyes or hands in the form of heat, light, or concussive force and possibly other powers. Thena has total mental control over her physical form, granting virtual invulnerability and immortality. She also has the ability to levitate herself and thus fly at superhuman speed, the psionic ability to rearrange the molecular structure of objects, the ability to castillusions to disguise her appearance and that of others from the perceptions of normal human beings, the ability to teleport herself and others with her, and the ability to initiate formation of theUni-Mind.
Thena has a gifted intellect, and has studied under the greatest Eternal and human scholars throughout her lifetime. She is highly educated in numerous areas of Eternal and human knowledge. Thena is also a formidable hand-to-hand combatant, with extensive training in unarmed combat and the use of many ancient and Eternal high-tech weapons.
Thena wears body armor of unknown composition. She carries a bow that fires arrows that release "cold energy", and she carries an energy spear that surrounds victims with a ring of intense heat and light or bombards them with anti-gravitons.
InAvengers-Next issue #2, It is revealed that Thor had a daughter in the alternate timeline, who is also calledThena, and possesses her father's storm god powers.[32]
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