Athena (Marvel Comics) - Fictional Character Biography - The Olympus Group

The Olympus Group

Meanwhile, Hera and Pluto have taken over the Olympus Group, the modern day seat of power for the Olympians, via the inherited shares of Zeus' and by buying out Poseidon, and have decided the company has a new major goal: the deaths of Athena and Hercules. As a part of her master plan, Hera kills Aegis, a hero favored by Athena. Using his body as a bait, she lures Athena, Amadeus and Hercules into a trap. Among Hera's retinue is Delphyne Gorgon, who wishes to kill Athena in revenge for her cursing the original Gorgons. Athena formulates a new plan to counter Hera, and the heroes escape in the midst of a battle between Hera's forces and the Dark Avengers.

When they arrive in Atlantic City, Athena revealed that she's sending them to Hades to retrieve Zeus. They are successful and Zeus is reborn as a young boy, although without his memories, but he still has weather control. As Amadeus leaves them to find his sister, Athena and Hercules race to hide Zeus with The Mighty Avengers. Cho, meanwhile, departs to uncover the truth behind his parents' death and his sister's disappearance, uncertain whether to trust her any longer. Subsequently, he learns that in fact Athena has been posing as an ally of his, former FBI Agent Sexton, to aid him on his adventure, and that she intervened even earlier to save his life from the murder attempt that killed his family. It is revealed that Pythagoras Dupree was Athena's original choice to be her champion, but he refused the position, and, retreating inside an elaborate web of realities, began killing anyone who could possibly lead Athena to him. Cho, after confronting Dupree, rejoins Athena, and shares with her information about Hera's superweapon, Continuum.

Athena reveals to Cho that he is her choice to be the next Prince of Power, as the 'hero of the mind', as opposed to the hero of strength that Hercules represented. Further, as there cannot be more than one Prince of Power at any one time, this means that Hercules will soon meet his death. Cho vows to prevent this, even as they gather forces to mount an assault on New Olympus. Athena provides Aphrodite with information on her enemies, the Agents of Atlas, in exchange for her distracting Ares from joining the battle. Using the aegis breastplate taken from Aegis, Hephaestus forged a helmet channeling the power of the Medusa head, which Delphyne used to turn Athena to stone. Hephaestus then planned on creating a mold of her face to place on one of his automatons to bring with him to the new universe. However, she is freed from this by the death of Zeus, which transfers his divine thunderbolt to her, she then starts calling herself Athena Panhellenios. After Hercules defeats Typhon within the alternate universe Hera's machine created, Athena reveals that Hercules must die so that Cho can take his place as Prince of Power, and, tearfully saying that she considers herself Hercules' real mother and that she fed him Hera's milk to increase his power, she destroys the machine, seemingly killing him. Athena later attends Hercules's funeral with Neptune, Hebe, Apollo and Pluto, presenting Amadeus Cho (whose own relationship with her has been deeply strained due to Hercules's demise and her initial lack of attendance at his funeral), with an offer to have him serve as the new head of their Olympus Group. Apollo challenges Athena for leadership of the Olympians, leading a brawl between various champions, with Athena and her allies triumphing. Cho initially declines her offer, but accepts upon learning that Hercules is not in the Underworld, vowing to use the Groups' resources to locate him.

Now the leader of the Olympians, Athena is shown meeting with the Council of Godheads to discuss the new Heroic Age, and who should be selected to confront the coming darkness of Mikaboshi. Other Skyfathers suggest Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America, but Athena states that Cho will save the world. Subsequently, upon Vali Halfling's capture of the Olympus Group headquarters, Athena is severely weakened by the snuffing of the Promethean Flame, and is then captured by Halfling's men upon returning to the Olympus Group from the panicked Council of Godheads. Delphyne Gorgon, who escaped her cell, at first confronted Athena, but was then convinced to help her defeat Halfling's men and attempt to locate the Flame. Following Cho and Delphyne's defeat of Halfling, the Flame is restored by Cho's new divine powers and Athena returns to her full power, released from captivity, just as the Chaos King Amatsu-Mikaboshi prepares to invade Earth, destroy every trace of life in the Marvel Universe, mortal and immortal, and annihilate all reality at long last in his devastating Chaos War.

During the Chaos War storyline, Sersi asked Hercules why wise Athena was not with him and Amadeus. Hercules told her that Athena tried to kill him, and had fled when he returned to Earth. After Amatsu-Mikaboshi decimates the realms of Earth's pantheons and seemingly absorbs the God Squad into his own void, Athena (with her pet owl Pallas) appears to him, telling him to focus on only Hercules and Cho, his two true threats, and that none of this would have been possible if not for the wisdom of his "greatest servant". Athena insists to Amatsu-Mikaboshi that he would need her aid in the final battle to destroy Hercules, telling him that Creation would simply emerge from his void even if he did triumph, but the Chaos King enslaves her in turn. Athena brutally attacks Hercules with all her power, screaming that she exiled him to Hera's Continuum bubble universe because she sought to protect him from the Chaos King, but even in death, Hercules was as stubborn as he was in life. Hercules, with the help of Gaea and her daughter Pele, destroys and recreates himself with the full power of Skyfather, casually annihilating Athena with one gesture.

Though the combined efforts of Hercules, Cho, and their God Squad, bolstered by the aid of Earth's few surviving gods, are unable to stop Amatsu-Mikaboshi, they manage to trick Amatsu-Mikaboshi into returning the Continuum bubble reality back into the Primordial Void instead of their own universe, whereupon an apparently restored Athena appears to Hercules, revealing that she had seen what could have happened all along, and that long had she been planning for her brother to rise forth as Skyfather of a new and cleansed world, as "the greatest of men" and "the greatest of gods". However, overriding her protests, Hercules instead sacrifices all his divine power and immortality to undo all the damage that the Chaos King had wrought upon Creation and raise Olympus upon Earth. With Delphyne still trapped in her cursed guise, Athena still lives even after the end of the Chaos War, although with Zeus and Hera's restoration to high power, she is no longer the Olympian Godhead.