One of the greatest things about comic books are their ability to expand our beliefs without forgetting the beliefs our society was found upon. No matter what religious beliefs you may have, The Marvel Universe will never tell you that you're wrong!
Through the mythos of The Mighty Thor, we have learned that various gods and almighty entities have existed in the MCU since it's conception. Thor is an obvious example as we see him, Odin, Loki, and other Norse Gods being present in this reality throughout the nine realms of Norse mythology. But if the Asgardians were the only Gods, then they'd be the only religion the people of the MCU would believe in. Not to worry my God-fearing friends, the tales of the Bible are canon to the MCU. We discover this through Ghost Rider, while obviously the most sacrilegious hero in Marvel we do know Ghost Rider has had multiple encounters with the demon Mephisto who has also gone by the names Satan and Lucifer. In fact, the character Daimon Hellstrom has been known as The Son of Satan since his creation in 1973. So if we're to believe Satan exists in the Marvel Universe, so must The Almighty. Daredevil, you can keep on praying. But hey, let's move away from the sensitive subject of Christianity and move on the to the totally discussable Greek/Roman mythology. Please turn your attention to Hercules, not the colorful Disney version or the perverted DC version, no we're talking about the swashbuckling Marvel version who first appeared as a rival to Thor and then member of The Avengers. Not only does Hercules appear in Marvel, we also see Ares the God of War appear as a villain and a hero. Hercules has also been a member of a team called The God Squad which sports heroes related to multiple religions: Snowbird is tied to an Inuit Goddess, Bast is an Egyptian Panther God, and Mikaboshi is based on a Japanese God. Gods and Goddess from Muslim, Indian, Native American, Celtic, African, Chinese and other cultures have appeared in some capacity in the MCU. There have also been Gods of alien races such as The Kree and The Skrulls, but nobody cares about those Gods because they're not conceived by humans. Yup, we humans sure are ignorant. Unless we're writing comic books in which case: everything counts!
As soon as you introduce the concept of Gods into a story you run the risk of looking one-minded about religion. I'm sure when The Mighty Thor was introduced to comics there were some concerns over religion being swayed one way or another in the context of the stories. Of course back then the concern for religious views was less expansive, it was a time before people thought comic books were bad for children. But in the modern era to not acknowledge that many people have many different beliefs would be seen as ignorant. A guy like Captain America can still be a Christian even if Thor is flying around, Ms. Marvel can be Muslim despite The Son of Satan roaming the planet, and Tony Stark can still be atheist regardless of Hercules sleeping on his couch. In comics, belief is proof just as proof is belief, and whether that factor applies to our world or not these characters and stories stand to teach us that nobody is more right or more wrong about our universe's history. Maybe we're all just telling the same story a different way. Thanks for reading.
P.S. My guest appearance of The Distractions Podcast will be getting recorded tonight so look forward to multiple links appearing on The Panel Biter's multiple media sources quite soon.
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