Hela (comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

Hela was born in Jotunheim, the land of the giants. According to legend she was the child of Loki (albeit a different incarnation who died during a previous Asgardian Ragnarok) and the giantess Angrboða. When she came of age, Odin appointed her as the Goddess of Death, giving her rulership over the dead in the realms of Hel and Niffleheim.

Hela often tried to expand her power to the dead who dwell in Valhalla as well. These attempts often brought Hela into conflict with Odin or his son Thor. She once appeared to Thor while he was on the verge of death after battling the Wrecker who knocked a building onto him while he was depowered. However, she failed to tempt Thor into entering Valhalla, despite an image of one that dwelled in Valhalla.

Later, she stole a portion of the sleeping Odin's soul while he was on the Sea of Eternal Night due to Loki planning to take over Asgard, thus creating the powerful entity Infinity. Hela then unleashed Infinity upon the universe. Infinity even took control of Odin. Hela slew Thor, who was restored to life by the sacrifice of her servant, the Silent One. Hela was then slain by Odin to save Thor, but then returned to life by Odin after being convinced by Thor to restore the natural balance of life and death. Hela slew Thor after tracking him down by putting humans in danger, but restored him to life after Sif offered to die in his place.

Hela later battled the Olympian Death-god Pluto for the right to claim Odin's soul, as Odin had been killed by the monster Mangog. As a result, Hela restored Odin to life to prevent Pluto from claiming him. Some time later, Hela confronted Thor. Some time after that, she confronted Odin. She then plotted with Loki to bring about Ragnarök by slaying the god Balder then attacking Asgard. She summoned Volla's spirit before this to tell her and Loki about Ragnarok, after which she prepared an army of monsters to attack Asgard. However Odin used his powers to prevent Balder dying. Later Balder was restored after the Asgardian's death and resurrection battling the Celestials.

Hela then summoned the Valkyrie to aid in a war against Ollerus, while Hela encountered the other Defenders. Hela was then forced to join a conspiracy of Loki and Tyr against Odin. She also unwillingly entered an alliance with the death-gods of other Earth pantheons, joining their realms together to create a vast hell. As a result, she was destroyed and devoured along with other Death-gods by Demogorge the God-Eater, though it happened to her last, who was wakened by the joining, but was restored to life with Demogorge's defeat.

Hela later allied with Malekith, and took souls of Earth mortals to Hel using special food of the faerie. She then appeared in Asgard to claim Odin's soul, but was driven off by Thor. She encountered the X-Men and New Mutants in Asgard. She appeared to claim Wolverine's soul, but was driven off by the X-Men and Mirage. Hel was then invaded by Thor, Balder, the Executioner, and the Einherjar to rescue the captive mortal souls. Hela wrestled Thor for the captive mortal souls. Hela raised an army of the dead to stop Thor's escape from Hel.

During this fight with Thor, in revenge for his defiance and invasion of her realm, Hela cursed Thor with eternal life, while making his bones brittle, leaving him unable to die while rendering him increasingly vulnerable to attack. Hela then contested against Mephisto who attempted to possess Thor's soul. With the aid of Tony Stark and dwarf ironmongers, Thor attempted to create a special armor to keep his body together, but eventually forced Hela to lift the curse by using the Destroyer as his host body to invade Hel after his bones were literally pulverized during a battle in which he killed the Midgard Serpent, forcing Hela to restore his body to life and health in an attempt to extract Thor from the Destroyer.

From time to time, Odin would enter a magical sleep in order to bolster his powers. It was during one of these sleeps that Hela made a plan for power. She corrupted the Valkyries, mentally and physically, transforming them into fire-demons. This also included Danielle Moonstar, of the New Mutants, who was on Earth at the time, who Hela set against the New Mutants. Dani and her team were eventually brought over to Asgard. Hela sent the Valkyries against the dwarves and New Mutants in Asgard. The New Mutants skirmished with Hela's forces again and again, even rescuing the prisoner Hrimhari, a wolf-prince from a far away land. Hela forced the dwarf Eitri to forge an uru sword. One of Hela's spells split the group. This resulted in a more efficient recruitment of resistance force, which included the Warriors Three. Hela sent Mirage to kill the sleeping Odin. While most of the Asgardian forces battled Hela's soldiers, the mutants ventured to Odin's very bedchambers, saved Odin's life and foiled Hela's plans. Hela was defeated when the uru sword was destroyed.

Conflict with various forces brought Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Hulk, and Agamemnon, the leader of the Pantheon, to Hela's realm. After an undetermined time fighting Hela's skeletal forces, Agamemnon pleaded, based a vaguely hinted upon relationship, to allow the two to leave. Hela relented, reluctantly.

Hela was awakened from her mortal guise after Ragnarök by Thor, albeit due to Loki's machinations. She now lives in Las Vegas, maintaining a lair where she can feed on the souls of random unlucky people, and agrees to use her powers to aid Loki in bringing him back in time to Asgard to complete his own sinister plans for Asgard.

She was seen attending a meeting with Mephisto, Blackheart, Satannish and Dormammu about a disturbance created by the newly resurrected Magik, who is looking for the soulsword and the original Bloodstone amulet. Belasco's daughter, Witchfire appears during the meeting and reveals she is now the current owner of the original amulet and vows to take her father's place as ruler of Limbo and seat at their table.

When Norman Osborn attempted to subdue the X-Men, Cyclops sends Danielle Moonstar to Las Vegas where she approaches Hela for a boon. Hela warns her that the price of the boon is a heavy one, but Dani accepts, requesting "a new ride home and a big ol' sword." Later, Hela is summoned to Utopia by Hrimhari to save a pregnant Rahne and their child, which is neither human nor mutant. Faced with a moral dilemma, to save his child or Rahne; Hrimhari asks Hela to restore Elixir to full health so Elixir may heal them both and to take him instead. Hela agrees and takes Hrimhari away.

During the Siege of Asgard Loki appears before Hela asking if she has made arrangements for the dead. Hela points out she is without a Hel so she cannot take them in and plans to let the dead wander Midgard forever. Loki provides her with proof of the Disir, banished, cannibalistic Valkyrie's who once belonged to Bor whom he cursed for dining on the flesh of other Asgardians to only be able to feed on the souls of gods. Using his extraordinary swordmanship skills Loki was able to make a group of 13 submit to him. Meeting with Mephisto, Loki strikes up a deal granting a portion of his netherworld to Hela for one thousand and one years, as her new Hel. In exchange for this, Hela erases Loki from the Books of Hel, thus he is no longer tied to Hel or Asgard, gaining absolute freedom. However, unknown to Hela, Loki had manipulated these events in his favor as he had the Disir in his services and had leased them out to Mephisto for one hundred and one days after demonstrating their skill to the demon lord. Hela summons Danielle Moonstar to repay her debt and to gather the spirits of the Asgardians that fell in battle with Norman Osborn's forces as quickly as possible so they do not fall prey to the Disir.

The Disir, still hungry, attack Hela's new Hel as it was not the true Hel they were banished from. Sensing the Disir's assault on the dead Asgardians, Hela attempts to protect them using the sword Eir-Gram, but she is disarmed and her arm sliced off brutally. Hela is quickly overwhelmed and her own remaining power insufficient to counter theirs. Absorbing the dead into her body, Hela creates a fortress around herself to protect them and asks Thor for help through the recently deceased body of an Asgardian. With the help of Thor and Tyr, they manage to slay and banish the remaining Disir, whose souls are claimed by the triumphant Mephisto.

In the aftermath of the Siege of Asgard, Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor are mysteriously drawn into one of the other Nine Realms, eventually revealed to be the Hel-realm of Hela. Thor, after a fierce struggle with the Enchantress, engages in open combat with the Nightsword-armed Hela, and though managing to hold his own against her and her forces for some time, ultimately falls to her immense and evidently vastly enhanced power. Amora, after teleporting herself and Hela away to save Thor's life, herself challenges Hela using all her strength, but Hela defeats her twice in quick succession, attempts and fails to destroy Mjolnir, despite summoning Bor himself to her aid, and apparently slays the Enchantress after revealing that she now wields the Twilight Sword of Surtur.

After Thor reunites with Iron Man and Captain America, he manages to persuade many of his former Asgardian enemies into rallying behind him into an army against Hela and her own forces. Hela attacks Thor and his allies, defeating and nearly slaying him with the power of the Twilight Sword, but the Enchantress intervenes and saves him, teleporting him away to re-claim Mjolnir and using her own powers to help Thor fight Hela. Thor ultimately manages to claim the Twilight Sword and uses it to restore the Nine Worlds back to their former harmony and order while banishing Hela, but refuses to set Asgard back into the sky, as Amora asks, claiming that using such unholy power for his own ends would make him the same as Hela herself. A grateful and healed Amora then returns Thor and his friends back to Midgard after Thor promises her that her allegiance will not be forgotten.

During the Chaos War storyline, Hela breaks into Pluto's throne room in the Underworld to warn him of Amatsu-Mikaboshi's army of thousands of alien deities decimating the death realms, joining forces with him in a desperate and a seemingly futile attempt to repel the massive assault on their domains. Hela, along with Pluto, Satannish, and many other rulers of Earth's various netherworlds, are shown to be slaves of the Chaos King after he obliterates the realms of Hell itself.

During the Fear Itself storyline, Cyclops sends Danielle Moonstar to what's left of Las Vegas (after what Juggernaut in the form of Kuurth: Breaker of Stone did to it) to look for Hela while the X-Men fight Kuurth. When Moonstar does find Hela, she teleports Moonstar to Hel in order to defend it. When her teammates try to invoke a dark magic to summon a portal to follow Danielle, they end up in Hell instead of Hel where they encounter Mephisto who says that he will get them to Hel if Magma goes out with him.