Thursday

OMW: Golden Girl

Today we meet one of the most Obscure Marvel Women (OMW) of the Original Marvel Universe (OMU). The issues that feature this costumed heroine are so rare as to be nearly impossible to find. Furthermore, the stories have never been reprinted, nor are they likely to be any time soon. She has not even been seen since the end of the Golden Age, but she embodies the spirit of that bygone era like few others. Hers is a story that needs to be told.

Golden Girl

Elizabeth “Betsy” Ross was born in 1917 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated from college just as the specter of war was looming over Europe once again. She took a job as a clerk in the Public Relations Bureau of the War Department, where her consistently excellent performance brought her to the attention of her superiors. Then, in the autumn of 1941, she was recruited to work with the costumed hero Captain America as his liaison with military and domestic authorities. In this capacity, she assisted Captain America and his sidekick Bucky with many of their earliest missions.

After the United States entered the war a few months later, Ross found her work with Captain America limited by his involvement with the Invaders, which often took him overseas. Thus, that summer she joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps as an officer candidate. Following her training, she was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps, where inspection tours of supply depots around the country served as a cover for her work with Captain America when he was on the homefront.

In the summer of 1943, Ross enlisted in the newly-formed Women’s Army Corps and continued to work with Captain America occasionally until his sudden disappearance towards the end of the war. When a new hero took over as Captain America, Ross was one of the few people to know of the switch, on account of their close working relationship.

After the war, Ross joined the faculty of the Lee School, a private academy in New York City that brought together children of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. There, she met fellow teacher Jeff Mace and his teen-aged friend Fred Davis. Ross was immediately attracted to Mace, but he seemed to have little romantic interest in her. She soon found herself caught up in the adventures of the third man to assume the role of Captain America and his sidekick, the second Bucky. In the spring of 1948, Bucky was crippled by a gunshot wound while trying to apprehend a gangster known as Lavender. Captain America then revealed to Ross that he was Jeff Mace and Fred Davis was Bucky. Mace asked Ross to become his new crime-fighting partner and help him bring Lavender to justice. Finding the prospect exciting, Ross agreed.

Thus, after a brief period of intensive training, Ross donned a green-and-gold costume and went into action as the Golden Girl, causing a sensation in the press. Lavender and her gang were quickly captured. Not long afterward, Golden Girl accompanied Captain America on a mission into an alien dimension. As the pair faced many perils together, Ross became quite intimate with Mace, who had served in the wartime Liberty Legion as the Patriot before taking over as Captain America. Before long, they surrendered to the sexual tension that boiled over from their life of thrills and danger and began a torrid love affair.

After about two years, Betsy Ross decided to retire her costumed identity. Never entirely comfortable in the role of superheroine, she also realized that, as she was now in her early 30s, she wanted to settle down and have a family. Soon after, Mace gave up being Captain America and the two were married. They moved to Boston, where he resumed his career as a newspaper reporter and she became a housewife.


First Appearance: Captain America Comics #1

Final Appearance: Captain America Comics #73.




Wednesday

OMW: Witch-Woman

For the latest in our series, this OMW (Obscure Marvel Woman) from the OMU (Original Marvel Universe) was definitely too hot to handle.

Witch-Woman

The hellfire-wielding Witch-Woman was born Linda Littletree in 1947, a member of an unidentified Apache tribe living on a reservation east of Phoenix, Arizona. Her father was a snake shaman who went by the name “Snake Dance.” At some point during her childhood, her mother died.

One day in 1952, when Linda and her family were in downtown Phoenix, she wandered out into the street and was nearly hit by a truck. She was saved by a motorcycle cop, one Officer Craig Simpson. Linda was left with a vivid memory of the experience. Plus, she heard the story many times over the years, after Simpson started a daredevil stunt show and Linda developed her own fascination with motorcycles.

As she grew older, Linda proved to have a superior intellect. She studied hard and won several scholarships that enabled her to attend quality schools in Phoenix despite her family’s poverty. As she became a teenager, Linda developed a disdain for her father’s beliefs, decrying them as primitive superstition. However, she sensed that the boys at her school held racist attitudes toward her, so she refused to date any of them, instead entering into a romantic relationship with Sam Silvercloud, a boy from the tribe who was several years older than her. Sam wasn’t especially smart, but he had a steady job and shared her interest in motorcycles. He was an excellent mechanic, and the couple enjoyed tearing around the countryside on their bikes.

During high school, Linda won a much-coveted scholarship to Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She left Arizona for Boston in late August 1965. Once on campus, she met her new roommate, Jennifer Glatzer, a beautiful blonde who introduced Linda to the religion of devil-worship. Although Jennifer and her “sisterhood” believed themselves to be servants of the biblical Satan, they were in fact in the thrall of a demon named Marduk Kurios, who had an insatiable appetite for sex with human females and passed himself off as “Satan” whenever it suited his purposes. Notably, he had used the identity a generation previously to father two children in the same region by a woman named Victoria Wingate Hellstrom.

Over the next six months, Linda dabbled in Jennifer’s satanic texts and paraphernalia, until her soul had become sufficiently tainted for her to be offered up to the devil as his latest bride. As Linda lay passed out on her bed, Jennifer summoned her master, who placed his mark—an encircled pentagram—upon Linda’s body. Soon after, Linda and Jennifer attended a sabbat, where the girls ganged up on the terrified Linda, strapped her to the altar, and sacrificed her to “Satan.” Marduk Kurios transported her to his infernal realm, had sex with her, and then returned her to Earth to be one of his slaves. Coincidentally, this was around the same time that the lord of another hellish realm, Mephisto, merged the demon Zarathos with stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze, creating the being known as the “Ghost Rider.”

Unlike many of the girls in the cult, Linda embraced the supernatural powers that Marduk Kurios granted her, and she quickly mastered the ability to manipulate hellfire to create a variety of effects. The devil recognized that Linda could serve him in the role of the Witch-Woman, an honor he reserved for only his most adept servants—whom he would sometimes possess in order to move freely about the earth.

Then, in March 1966, having learned of the Ghost Rider, Marduk Kurios hit on the idea of using Zarathos against his rebellious half-human son Daimon Hellstrom. If he could capture Zarathos and separate him from Johnny Blaze, Marduk Kurios reasoned, he could then send the soul-devouring demon to consume Daimon’s human soul, leaving only his devilish Darksoul, which would be impervious to Zarathos’s attack. Thus, Daimon would become fully demonic and more amenable to his father’s wishes. The only problem he foresaw was stealing Zarathos out from under Mephisto’s control.

Finding that Johnny Blaze was in Arizona to jump Copperhead Canyon on his motorcycle, Marduk Kurios selected Linda Littletree as his agent, despite her inexperience, since it was right near her hometown. Playing his cards close to the vest, he instructed Linda to go home and help him “capture the soul of Johnny Blaze.” She went at once and arrived on the reservation late that evening, where she found her disgraced father about to be lynched by Sam and a group of his disgruntled former followers. Linda broke up the mob with her rifle but then became distracted from her mission when she learned that her father allowed two venomous snakes to bite a white woman during a ceremony. When Snake Dance then revealed that he had the only supply of anti-venom, Linda snatched it and rode into the city on her souped-up chopper. Upon reaching the hospital, Linda learned that the woman was none other than Roxanne Simpson, girlfriend of Johnny Blaze and the daughter of the motorcycle cop who once saved her life. Seeing the hand of “Satan” in this confluence of events, Linda set off after her quarry when the Ghost Rider rode past the hospital, the subject of relentless police pursuit.

Linda rode after the Ghost Rider as he fled into a remote area of the desert, until they neared an ancient pueblo, which was to be the site of their confrontation. There, Linda was transformed into the Witch-Woman for the first time. Her hair grew longer, her clothes morphed into her ceremonial garb (pictured above), and her body thrilled as a new feeling of power and ecstasy swept over her. Then, as a police helicopter spotted Ghost Rider, Witch-Woman generated a space-warp that drew him deep within the ancient ruins. There, she easily defeated her opponent and rendered him helpless with her mystic flames. However, she could not resist telling Blaze her life story in great detail and became so wrapped up in her tale that he slipped his bonds and escaped. She tried to stop him but failed, prompting an angry Marduk Kurios to manifest himself. Witch-Woman begged her demonic master for a second chance to serve him, so he ordered her to incinerate herself just to torment Johnny Blaze. She obeyed, and her burning body plummeted hundreds of feet from the top of the pueblo, just as the dawn was breaking. A guilt-stricken Blaze rode away without looking back.

However, Marduk Kurios had a contingency plan, and the hellfire that engulfed Linda’s body prevented it from sustaining any injury. She instead reverted to her normal appearance and was teleported back to her father’s cabin, where she lay in a comatose state. Hours later, Marduk Kurios manifested himself again and woke her from her trance, saying that she would have her second chance to serve him if she permitted him to take possession of her body. Linda granted her master’s request and found her soul instantly transported to his realm of Hell. However, when the devil had successfully captured the Ghost Rider and brought him to Hell, Linda’s body and soul were reunited there, rather than on Earth—and she was likely to remain there for all eternity.

Marduk Kurios was just about to use his mystic sword to separate Zarathos from his human host when the proceedings were interrupted by Daimon Hellstrom himself, who fought off his father’s hordes and rescued both Linda and the Ghost Rider from Hell. Marduk Kurios could only assume that Johnny Blaze was under Daimon’s protection, and so he decided to abandon his plan. Furthermore, he realized that the scheme was not worth starting a war with Mephisto, who was none too pleased when he caught wind of it. In truth, however, Daimon Hellstrom had rescued both Linda and Blaze merely to spite his father and cared nothing for either of them. Nevertheless, Hellstrom had broken the devil’s hold over Linda and set her soul free, although this meant, of course, that she had lost her supernatural powers.

Callously, Hellstrom left Linda and Blaze at another abandoned pueblo hundreds of miles from civilization, with no provisions and no means of transportation. Desperately, Linda taught the Ghost Rider how to create a motorcycle out of hellfire. But, believing she would be unable to ride upon such a creation, she sent him on alone to get help while she remained behind. Then, sitting alone under the stars, Linda’s thoughts kept returning to Johnny Blaze, and she realized she was rapidly falling in love with him. She whiled away the hours dreaming up romantic fantasies of his coming to her rescue in the morning. Eventually, night gave way to day. Linda waited and waited, with no food or water, seeking shelter from the scorching desert sun. Finally, in the mid-afternoon, a jeep arrived to fetch her, but her savior was not Johnny Blaze after all but a now-benevolent Daimon Hellstrom. He drove her back to the reservation but made sure to be on his way before night fell again. Returning home, she immediately learned that Blaze had been in a terrible accident on the freeway at dawn and was hospitalized in critical condition. She left at once to visit him, only to be turned away by the nursing staff. However, while at the hospital, Linda was questioned by the police about her connection to Blaze, during which she claimed to be his lover.

The next morning she learned that the Ghost Rider had escaped from the hospital and led the police on a chase all the way to Las Vegas, where he was at last captured. Furthermore, the police paid Linda another visit, informing her that the Nevada attorney general had arranged for her to be brought to Las Vegas for questioning. Despite Sam Silvercloud’s protests, Linda went along with them, hoping to see Blaze again. Once in Vegas, she was subjected to a brutal interrogation by a swaggering, racist police sergeant named Decker, though Linda remained uncooperative. Later, she finally went to see Blaze in his hospital room, only to find him with Roxanne Simpson in his arms.

Fueled by her jealousy and too frightened to return to college now that she was free of demonic influence, Linda followed Johnny Blaze when he hooked up with Dude Jensen’s demolition derby show. She convinced Jensen to give her a job as an office assistant, where she filed paperwork, ran errands, and passed out paychecks. For two months she tried to break up Blaze’s relationship with Roxanne, until he finally told Linda to get out of his life. When Dude Jensen died mysteriously shortly afterwards, his operation folded. Blaze and Roxanne moved on, and Linda returned home to the reservation, dejected and angry. Having forfeited her scholarship, Linda Littletree had no choice but to take a low-paying job in Phoenix, where all her many talents went to waste.


First Appearance: Marvel Spotlight #10

Final Appearance: Ghost Rider #4




Monday

OMW: Val de La Fontaine

Another in our continuing series featuring the OMW (Obscure Marvel Women) of the OMU (Original Marvel Universe). This international woman of mystery has her secrets revealed at last as her top-secret bio is finally declassified.

Contessa Valentina Allegra de La Fontaine

The sultry spy Contessa Valentina Allegra de La Fontaine was born in northern Italy in 1928. Her father was a French nobleman, Le Comte de La Fontaine, who had married an Italian woman and settled in her homeland, where Val grew up. Although the nation was under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, Val’s parents supported the pro-democracy movement, and being nobles, pledged their allegiance to King Vittorio Emanuele III rather than whomever happened to be running the government. However, they became embittered when Italy joined with Nazi Germany in declaring war on France in 1940.

In late 1943, Val’s parents were both murdered by the Nazis for having given aid and comfort to the Italian Resistance movement. Devastated by her loss, the teen-aged Val nevertheless joined the Resistance and waged a reckless guerilla war against both the Nazis and the fascist Italian troops who remained loyal to Mussolini after his ouster. All through 1944, she proved herself to be an effective fighter and gained a fearsome reputation. Finally, in April 1945, the war came to an end and Val returned home, claiming her title as a contessa.

Now 17 years old, Val decided to attend a university in the United States of America. While there, she was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency, based on her wartime exploits. When she graduated from college in 1950, Val returned to Italy, and at the behest of the CIA, she took an administrative position at SIFAR (Servizio Informazioni Forze Armate), the new Italian intelligence service which was formed under CIA direction and control.

After a few years, she resigned in frustration over the fact that she was not permitted to be a field agent or, indeed, much more than a secretary. Using her family fortune, Val became a member of the emerging “jet set,” attending glamorous parties and elegant social affairs across Europe and North America. Eventually, though, she grew bored and dissatisfied with this life of indolent luxury and conspicuous consumption, and she sought a way to once more serve the cause of international justice.

Then, in the early weeks of 1963, she was recruited into the newly-formed international intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D. as part of its first class of agents. She jumped at the chance and enthusiastically underwent one year of specialized training. During this period, she befriended fellow recruit Clay Quartermain. Val finished her training and became a full-fledged S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in February 1964. Around this same time she met the agency’s Executive Director, Nick Fury. The two felt strongly attracted to each other, and before long they became lovers.

Val quickly rose through the ranks, and in 1965 she was assigned to a taskforce of female agents, which came to be dubbed the “Femme Force.” She was soon promoted to a leadership position and led her squad on numerous operations around the world. After a few years, however, the taskforce was disbanded and Val, reaching her 45th birthday, was assigned a desk job as head of the S.H.I.E.L.D. public relations department. She served with the agency until it was dismantled in 1974 following the infamous Deltite Affair.

After a brief stint in the CIA, Contessa Valentina Allegra de La Fontaine joined Nick Fury’s all-new S.H.I.E.L.D., even though their sexual relationship had ended. With her many years of experience, she was a valuable asset to the streamlined agency.

Val is pictured above in her official S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform from the agency’s heyday in the early 1970s.


First Appearance: Strange Tales #159

Final Appearance: Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. v.2 #14




Sunday

OMW: Miss Locke

Today, a portrait of one of the deadlier OMW (Obscure Marvel Women) of the OMU (Original Marvel Universe).

Miss Locke

Little is known of the history of the femme fatale who calls herself Miss Locke. Sometime prior to 1969, she became personal assistant to the flamboyant master assassin known as Arcade, helping him operate his Murderworld installations in various parts of the globe. She appears to be of at least partial Asian descent and has demonstrated some proficiency in the martial arts, although she has a clear preference for long-barreled guns. Since she specializes in procurement—capturing, kidnapping, and imprisoning her victims—it is likely that “Miss Locke” is an alias.

Each February, in honor of Arcade’s birthday, he and Miss Locke hold a duel, in which she has 24 hours to kill him any way she can. Despite the respect she has for her employer, she makes every effort to end his life, knowing that if she succeeds, Murderworld and all its resources will be hers alone. However, each year Arcade manages to survive by a narrow margin, thus proving his superiority. They celebrate the resolution of their conflict with a champagne toast.

In early 1969, Miss Locke was present aboard Arcade’s luxurious private 747 aircraft when he accepted a contract on Brian Braddock, an English college student whom Arcade’s clients, representatives of the Maggia, believed might be their nemesis Captain Britain. If so, he would be the first super-powered victim of Murderworld, and they eagerly accepted the challenge. In the course of their preparations, Miss Locke kidnapped Braddock’s girlfriend, Courtney Ross, and took her to the original Murderworld, located beneath the streets of New York City.

However, when Arcade happened upon Captain Britain himself in the company of Spider-Man, he decided on a change of plan and captured both heroes. Unfortunately, Spider-Man escaped the complex’s various deathtraps to wreak havoc on its internal systems. With Murderworld crippled, Spider-Man and Captain Britain rescued Ross and escaped. Miss Locke was pleased that Arcade accepted this unaccustomed defeat with good humor, announcing that they would build a bigger and better Murderworld in another location outside the city.

Within a matter of months, the new installation was completed, located deep beneath a landfill next to an abandoned amusement park in the Bronx. Then, Arcade accepted his second contract involving superheroes. This time the targets were the X-Men, and the clients, “Black Tom” Cassidy and the Juggernaut, were able to provide Arcade many details about the mutant heroes, including the location of their secret headquarters.

During this time, Arcade also entered into an agreement with an unscrupulous businessman named Amos Jardine to assassinate Spider-Man. Both Arcade and Miss Locke relished the thought of a rematch with the web-slinger, who had proved to be a worthy opponent.

Within a few weeks, Murderworld was ready for its latest victims, and so Miss Locke, Arcade, and their technical advisor, Mr. Chambers, set about capturing the X-Men, along with some of their friends. Once again, Murderworld proved no match for its super-powered prisoners, and Nightcrawler even managed to teleport into the control room and punch Miss Locke in the face. Realizing that their scheme was unraveling, Arcade aborted the mission and ejected the X-Men from the complex.

Then, to add insult to injury, Amos Jardine cancelled the contract on Spider-Man, saying he had found another assassin to do the job more cheaply. When Jardine demanded a refund of his deposit, Arcade rebuffed him, and Miss Locke found it necessary to subdue Jardine with her martial arts skills. The pair was amused later that night when Jardine’s bargain-basement killer made a total hash of the job and was defeated by Spider-Man and Nightcrawler.

The following spring, when Arcade ran afoul of the super-villain Doctor Doom, Miss Locke blackmailed the X-Men into rescuing him from Doom’s castle in upstate New York, knowing she was probably sending them to their deaths. She secured the heroes’ cooperation by kidnapping several of their friends and family members, including Moira MacTaggert, John and Elaine Grey, Stevie Hunter, Amanda Sefton, Candy Southern, and even Illyana Rasputin, whom she brought all the way from Siberia. However, while the X-Men confronted Doom, Miss Locke was unable to prevent the hostages from being rescued by a reserve team of mutant heroes, made up of Iceman, Havok, Polaris, and Banshee. Once again, Murderworld was crippled, but Miss Locke and Mr. Chambers got away, as the X-Men could not press charges without revealing too many of their own secrets.

When Arcade returned, safe and sound, he and Miss Locke discussed their poor track record with super-powered victims and decided not to accept any more contracts on superheroes unless there was a personal grudge involved. They continued to use Murderworld to kill ordinary men and women, and also found tremendous profit in renting the installation out as a training ground for super-villains. Arcade used the money to build new Murderworld installations in other parts of the world, including one near London, England.

In the years to follow, Miss Locke assisted Arcade in a number of grudge-matches against members of the X-Men, including Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, Shadowcat, Rogue, Dazzler, Iceman, and the Beast. Later, they pitted themselves against the Britain-based superhero team Excalibur, which included Nightcrawler and Shadowcat as well as their old enemy Captain Britain.

Over the years, both Miss Locke and Arcade successfully eluded law-enforcement authorities around the world, and so, despite her countless crimes, Miss Locke does not even have a criminal record.


First Appearance: Marvel Team-Up #65

Final Appearance: Excalibur #5




Saturday

OMW: Sun Girl

Today, the ultimate OMW (Obscure Marvel Woman), whose very existence in the OMU (Original Marvel Universe) is largely speculative. Her true story has never been told.

Sun Girl

The mysterious adventuress known only as Sun Girl burst on the scene in the summer of 1948 and became a worldwide sensation. Her astonishing beauty, unsurpassed martial-arts skill, unparalleled acrobatic ability, and unconquerable will made her the toast of a fascinated public and the bane of a frustrated underworld. In addition to her natural abilities, she employed a number of technological devices as well, which she claimed were provided by admirers in the scientific community. Chief among these was a wrist-mounted “sunbeam ray” that produced a blinding light.

In September of that year, Sun Girl began occasionally teaming up with the original Human Torch, and through the following winter she acted as his partner while his regular sidekick, Toro, was on a leave of absence. During one such adventure, she met Captain America (actually Jeff Mace, the third man to wear the costume). Associating with two of the world’s premiere superheroes only increased her fame.

Suddenly, in the summer of 1949, Sun Girl vanished without a trace, as mysteriously as she had appeared the year before, and was never heard from again. In subsequent years, many legends grew up around Sun Girl, propagated mainly by men who remained obsessed with “the Mysterious Beauty,” as she had been dubbed in the press. Some writers claimed she was really a secretary and former WAC named Mary Mitchell, who had died at the same time Sun Girl disappeared. Others claimed that the heroine had been fighting crime since the late 1920s or early 1930s but was possessed of eternal youth, leading to speculation that she was the Human Torch’s android lover or an extraterrestrial or a goddess. Despite the many theories, however, the truth about Sun Girl was never discovered.


First Appearance: Sun Girl #1

Final Appearance: Marvel Tales #97




Friday

OMW: Glamor

Continuing this month’s portraits of some of the fascinating, enigmatic, and sexy OMW (Obscure Marvel Women) of the OMU (Original Marvel Universe).

Glamor

Glynis Zarkov, under the stage name Glamor, worked with her husband Ilya as a performing magician in New York City, although the couple accomplished their feats using actual superhuman powers rather than sleight-of-hand or other trickery. Fearing that audiences would feel cheated if the truth were known, the Zarkovs kept a low profile and lived like a typical married couple in their suburban home of Leonia, New Jersey.

When the superhero couple the Vision and the Scarlet Witch moved into the neighborhood in September 1973, the Zarkovs decided it was in their best interest to assist the two Avengers in dealing with a group of intolerant residents who were intent on driving them out. As a result, the foursome became good friends and invited each other to various holiday celebrations.

However, since the Zarkovs supplemented their income with the occasional jewel heist, they eventually realized it was too risky to maintain such a friendship, and so they sought to distance themselves from the heroic couple. When the Vision and the Scarlet Witch moved to California, the problem was solved.


First Appearance: Vision and the Scarlet Witch v.2 #4

Final Appearance: Vision and the Scarlet Witch v.2 #12




Thursday

OMW: Isis

As a corollary to my posts about the OMU (Original Marvel Universe), I’m devoting this month to presenting portraits I’ve done of some of my favorite OMW (Obscure Marvel Women). These characters never received their due but remain fascinating, enigmatic, and sexy.

Isis

The goddess Isis was born in the land now called Egypt around the year 4000 BC, the daughter of Geb, the local “God of the Earth,” and Nut, a sky-goddess—both of whom were descendants of the original Elder Gods of Earth. This was about four thousand years after the Post-Hyborian Cataclysm decimated the earth and utterly destroyed the civilization that had called this region Stygia. It was only about a thousand years previously that the human inhabitants had reintroduced agriculture and begun to form small village communities along the Nile River. During this period, the local gods lived on the earth, but much further from the Nile Valley than humans dared venture.

About 500 years later, when Isis was still relatively young, the Nile Valley was conquered by a quartet of extradimensional invaders with superhuman powers. These so-called Elementals set themselves up as gods and ruled tyrannically. However, Isis and her brother Osiris lent their mystical energies to a human wizard to create a powerful artifact called the Ruby Scarab, with which a young warrior drove the Elementals from Earth’s dimension. Osiris then accepted the worship of the grateful humans and began teaching them advanced techniques in agriculture and metallurgy, eventually coming to rule over them politically as well. Isis also sought to civilize the humans by sharing her knowledge of more domestic skills, such as preparing food and weaving cloth. In time, Osiris and Isis married, and she bore at least five children.

Shortly before 3000 BC, Osiris was killed by his evil brother Seth, but Isis was able to resurrect him. Nevertheless, Osiris chose to return to the underworld to be its ruler and charged his son Horus to hunt down Seth and make him pay for his crimes. Osiris then decided that the humans were advanced enough to rule themselves, and so the gods retired from the earth, establishing their new home, called the Celestial Heliopolis, in another dimension. From there, they continued to guide and protect their worshipers in Egypt. However, after only two centuries free of Osiris’s control, the Egyptians began to develop in their own manner. Though the flourishing culture maintained many Heliopolitan influences, the gods found their direct involvement in human affairs diminishing.

Finally, in 31 BC, after battling each other for millennia, Seth finally defeated Horus and imprisoned him, along with Isis and Osiris, in a pyramid which he buried deep beneath the desert sands. Seth then made himself ruler of the Celestial Heliopolis and its remaining denizens. Isis, along with her husband and son, would remain imprisoned for twenty centuries. Without their benevolent influence, the last Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, was finally defeated by the forces of the Roman Empire, which then conquered her lands, ending forever the reign of the pharaohs.

In 1968 AD, Isis, Osiris, and Horus were freed from their long imprisonment by the Asgardian thunder god Thor and his father Odin. Seth was driven from the throne but remained a menace to the other Egyptian gods. Isis resumed her rightful place as the Queen of Heliopolis but found herself now totally divorced from the earth and its inhabitants.


First Appearance: Thor #239

Final Appearance: Thor #400