*spoilers ahead*
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is having a mythological moment.
The Disney+ series Moon Knight was about a couple of heroes in the same Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) system.* They are connected to the Egyptian gods, executing their will and participating in their ancient feuds. Marc Spector and Stephen Grant are the avatars for Khonshu, the ancient Egyptian god of the moon. He was thought to watch over those who travel at night and, along with Thoth (the ibis-headed god of the moon and writing), Khonshu marked the passage of time.
Sorry for the digression: as some of you know, I love the moon and have a special interest in all lunar gods.
*check out this Twitter thread from someone in a DID system, who live tweeted watching Moon Knight.
Other gods featured in Moon Knight included Ammit, a goddess with the head of a crocodile, front legs and upper body of a lion, and back legs of a hippo. She was a funerary goddess, who devoured the hearts of the dead, when they had been weighed by Anubis in the Duat and had been deemed impure. Ammit wasn’t worshipped because she embodied all of the things ancient Egyptians feared. We also see a very cute rendering of Taweret, a bipedal hippo god with pendulous breasts (which were, thankfully, omitted from the Marvel TV show), a household goddess of fertility and childbirth.
There’s also The Eternals, which is rife with Mesopotamian and Sumerian, Greek, and Indian mythologies: Makkari is Mercury (the Roman version of Hermes, messenger god), Ikaris is Icarus (and his story ends with him flying into the sun, which genuinely made me cackle in the cinema), Sersi is Circe (the Titan witch of Greek myth), Ajak is Ajax (a warrior from the Trojan cycle in Greek myth), Sprite is based on trickster gods, including Pan and Puck, Kingo is the Babylonian Kingu, Phastos becomes Hephaestus from Greek myth, and Gilgamesh is based on the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. Even Kro is based on Kronos, the Titan king and child-devourer.
In The Eternals, Angelina Jolie plays Thena, who the Greeks apparently used in their creation of Athena. Now, this is where the interconnected universe gets complicated, because we also catch a glimpse of Athena in her full armour in Thor: Love and Thunder, when Thor and the gang visit Omnipotence City, the parliament of pantheons where all the gods of all the myth systems have orgies reside. So how can people have made up a goddess based on Thena, but she’s also a very real goddess that Thor sees? Let’s not look at it too closely.
Instead, let’s look closely at the Greek gods that Thor, Jane, Valkyrie, and Korg see in Omnipotence City.
There were some things I really liked about Russell Crowe’s Zeus. All the references to orgies was a good nod to Zeus’ ruinous hypersexuality in myth, and a notable departure from Disney’s previous choice to portray Zeus as a loving father and husband.
I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that I enjoyed Crowe’s Greek accent. I’m not saying it was good; I’m saying I enjoyed it.
I didn't exactly love the fatphobia. Zeus’ power was apparently diminished because he has fat. This was despite the fact that he's the king of the gods, and not just the Greek gods, but all the gods. See also: the fact that he was in a swishy mini-skirt, since effeminacy is still an easy way to score a cheap laugh.
I was also disappointed by the lack of an overtly queer storyline, but I knew I couldn't get my hopes up with the MCU.
On the topic of him being the king of all the gods… it’s an interesting choice, and I can read it in one of two ways. Maybe it’s lazy western centrism, suggesting that the Greek gods are the “best” and therefore they are in charge of all the gods. Or maybe it’s a comment on the enduring prevalence of Greek myths, that they have been uniquely preserved (in part because of western empires and white supremacy), so that’s how the MCU’s Zeus maintains his power over other pantheons.
We caught some glimpses of Dionysus, surrounded by nymphs and grapes and wine, plump and ruddy, whooping and hollering. Which was, frankly, perfect.
But some of the other Olympians were less clear.
Was the old dude playing the lyre meant to be Apollo? Or was he one of the beautiful, crowned young men on the dais, along with Hermes? Was one of them Ganymede, Zeus’ boyfriend and cupbearer to the gods?
And what about the goddesses? I choose to believe the blonde one that Valkyrie kissed on the hand was Aphrodite (was that swoon-worthy or was it queerbaiting? Can it be both? Why couldn’t we see Val sweep her into a proper hero’s kiss?). There was also a woman with a small lyre, so maybe she was Calliope, the muse of music and epic poetry. Maybe all four of them were muses. Maybe the one tending to Zeus’ wound was his wife, Hera, but more likely (given the state of their marriage) it was any of his immortal mistresses. Considering the decadence and debauchery of the scene, maybe Ganymede would need help, and one of the goddesses in attendance is Hebe. We certainly see her husband later…
As well as Athena in full armour, we caught a glimpse of Ares in golden armour too, but neither of them were any match for the Norse gods–turned–heroes, and their golden ichor soon spilled.
Basically, what I’m saying is, when Thor: Love and Thunder comes to Disney+, I am going to pause it on every frame of Omnipotence City, to find all the mythological allusions I can. Why, in that case, am I writing this blog post now, instead of then?
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| Me in the cinema, trying to work out who was who |
Mostly because I wanted to get my thoughts out on a page.
And because I wanted to highlight that bit where Thor says that he’s a big fan of Zeus’, and with Zeus being the god of lightning and himself being the god of thunder, that he based a lot of what he does on Zeus. That was a gratifying moment for anyone interested in comparative mythology. Moreover, Zeus’ bratty comment of “what is thunder if not the sound of lightning?” being immediately followed by getting his butt kicked by Thor was fun.
Okay, okay, it’s time to talk about it. THAT post credit scene. Where Zeus sets Heracles on Thor, because his pride has been wounded. Certainly fits with Zeus’ characterisation in myth. But, more importantly, does this mean we’re going to see a Heracles vs. Thor movie, Greek vs. Norse, Demigod of strength and endurance vs. God of Thunder and warfare? Marvel Comics have done Hercules Panhellenios comics, and the Olympians have their own series in the comics too.
Taking into account that
- the MCU has been drawing on myths more and more in their movies and TV shows,
- Greek myth retellings are more popular than ever right now, and
- the hype surrounding forthcoming Greek myths for the screen, such as Netflix’s show KAOS (about the Greek Underworld), the new Percy Jackson series for Disney+, and Blood of Zeus on Netflix…
I wouldn’t be surprised if Marvel’s Phase 5 included the Olympians.
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| Marvel Comics' The Olympians (SOURCE) |
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