Norse Mythology The Norse Gods - 1750 Words

How Marvel Comics has Americanized the Norse Pantheon Norse mythology has always been close to the consciousness of the public. If we look at all the references in comics, movies, literature, art, music and graphic novels it is absolutely full of them. This close relationship to the Norse myths could be embedded into our society partly because of the influence of Christianity into the Scandinavian culture during their changing of religion. The texts that we have as our source material are the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. These were for the most part written down by Christians after the oral tradition had died out. Christians have transcribed the majority of what we do have in a bias fashion so that the Norse Gods weren’t really†¦show more content†¦Marvel is widely known for their comic books and superheroes. Some Marvel characters are completely made up by Marvel writers themselves inside their own universe whereas others draw from historical texts, such as Gods of the Norse Pantheon. The primary writers for Marvel comics were Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. They didn’t exactly do an accurate job of portraying Thor as the Norse God that he was in the Eddas. Thor is by far the most popular of the Norse Gods. Thor gains his popularity because of how people can relate to him so easily. He is not very intelligent but he is brave, honest and straightforward in most of his encounters. Although he is easily outwitted and â€Å"all brawn, no brain†, Thor is well liked because of his brute force and ability to kill giants with one blow from his magical hammer Mjolnir (Lindow, 287). People that worshipped the Pagan Gods felt that they could relate with Thor because they knew where they stood with him. He was always hitting things and eating things, similar to what you would think of as a â€Å"manly man.† Marvel has continued to make Thor a popular character to the American reader and viewer. In Marvel’s comic books and movies (Thor), Thor is blonde, muscular, has a clean shave and speaks in a sort of Shakespearean pattern. Where as in the texts, Thor has red hair with a beard and does not speak any English at all. In order for Thor to use his mighty hammer Mjolnir in the Norse world, he needs his iron gauntlets where