ISIS

Real Name: Au Set (Isis is the later Greek translation)

Occupation: Queen of the Egyptian Gods, former Queen of Egypt, Goddess of fertility and domestication

Legal Status: Citizen of Celestial Heliopolis

Identity: The general populace of Earth is unaware of the existence of Isis except as a mythological deity. She was well known in Ancient Egypt.

Other Aliases: Ament ("hidden"), Ankhat (as the giver and producer of life), Anquat, Aset (Egyptian name), Ast (Egyptian name), Auset ("throne"), Eset (Egyptian name), Esu, Isis Campensis (Roman title), Renenet, Thenenet, Urthekau, Usert

Place of Birth: possibly Busiris, Egypt

Marital Status: Married

Known Relatives: Geb (father), Nut (mother), Osiris (brother/husband), Horus I, Seth (brothers), Nephthys (sister), Horus II, Anhur, Neper, Min (sons), Bast, Sesmu (daughters), Anubis, Bata (step-sons), Duamutef, Hapi II, Ihy, Imsety, Qebshuf, Mihos (grandsons), Sakhmet (granddaughter), Hathor, Qadesh, Hatmehyt (daughters-in-law), Babi, Suchos (nephews), Edjo, Nekhbet (nieces)

Group Affiliation: The Ennead (Gods of Egypt)

Base of Operations: Celestial Heliopolis

First Appearance: Thor I#239  

History: Isis is the daughter of Geb and Nut, two members of an extra-dimensional race known as the Ennead, who were worshipped as gods by the Ancient Egyptians. When her brother Osiris replaced his father as Pharaoh of Egypt, he took her to be his queen without any objection from their parents. As Osiris spread the accomplishments of Egypt across the world, Isis also proved herself as a wise and just ruler in his absence. In ancient times, she was credited by helping to civilize the ancient Egyptians by showing them how to grind corn and how to spin and weave cloth. She also taught medicine and instituted the first rites of marriage. Isis was so loved by the Egyptians that they counted her as superior to all other goddesses such as Inanna to the Sumerians.

Isis and Osiris, meanwhile, had a brother named Seth, the god of misfortune, who hated Osiris. Seth had Osiris imprisoned within a sarcophagus and tossed it into the Nile where it was lost in its turbulent waters. Out of remorse Isis cut off all her hair and fled to Chemmis where she was protected by her half-brother, Khnemu, the god of the Nile. During her stay, she gave birth to Horus, the youngest son of Osiris, and Khnemu helped her to conceal Horus from Seth. Wearing clothes of mourning, Isis departed Khnemu to search the banks of the Nile for her husband’s body. She eventually heard a rumor from children about a sarcophagus that had been washed up from the Nile and caught in the branches of a tree, from where was taken by the King of Byblos. Isis managed to endear herself to his servants to gain entrance to his court where the sarcophagus was displayed. To earn the right to claim it, she promised to make the Royal heir an immortal, but the Queen screamed as Isis attempted to burn off the child’s mortality. Frightened by the distraction, Isis revealed her godhood and demanded the return of her husband.

Isis concealed the sarcophagus in a swamp, but upon learning that his brother had been found, Seth appeared as Isis opened the tomb and cut Osiris up into several pieces then became scattered to the winds. Isis called upon the gods to collect the pieces and restore them as Anubis, her stepson, mummified them as a whole figure. With the aid of Anubis and several other gods, they were able to restore Osiris to life, but by now, he had seen enough of the afterlife that he decided to return to rule it. By now, Horus had grown fully into adulthood and deposed Seth as Ruler of Egypt.

During this time, Osiris and Isis were elevated to the position of gods. At some time in the past, Isis appeared to the Egyptian wizard Shazam imprisoned by an evil magician named Serpenotep. She helped to free him by donating part of her life energies into an amulet. Shazam placed the amulet into a tiara and gave it to a young woman of noble heart who became Isis’s defender on earth and defeated Serpenotep, ousting him from rule and freeing Shazam. The tiara was passed down through the years through the young girl’s descendants, including Queen Hatshephut in the 15th Century BC, one of Egypt’s few female pharaohs. Shazam later created a similar spell for a male champion based on the power of the gods of Greece. In the Twentieth Century, one of Queen Hatshephut’s descendants, an archaeologist named Dr. Andrea Thomas, rediscovered the tiara in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings and used it to become the heroine known as Isis.

>Isis and Osiris also reportedly appeared in a vision to the youth En Sabah Nur, a slave of later Pharaoh Rama-Tut. Osiris warned the boy not to become drawn to the Princess Nephri as he could never have her, but Nur did not fully understand the warning and did not heed it. As a result, Nur set into motion a string of events that would transform him into the mutant terrorist known as Apocalypse, a prophecy Osiris had hoped to prevent from occurring.

After each of the Egyptian gods had retired from earthly rule, they had traveled to the other-dimensional realm of Celestial Heliopolis to live out their existence. Ammon-Ra, Shu’s predecessor, had retired here millennia before, and at some point, he stepped down from his position as Ruler of the Egyptian Gods and chose Osiris, who had been only a pharaoh and god of the dead before, to succeed him. Seth eventually overthrew and imprisoned Osiris once more, but this time, he imprisoned Isis, Horus and the rest of the Egyptian Gods in a pyramid for all millennia so that there would be no other threats to his power. In the absence of Osiris, Thoth, Ammon-Ra’s son who had been vizier to Osiris, became head of the Egyptian pantheon. During Thoth’s rule, each of the Egyptian gods moved to the other-dimensional realm of Celestial Heliopolis to traffic earth no more.

In recent years, the pyramid appeared in the United States, and from within it, Isis, Osiris and Horus cast a spell over the Asgardian god Odin, causing him to believe he was the reincarnation of Atum-Re, their divine ancestor. (Whether or not there is actually any connection between Odin and Atum-Re is unknown.) Odin’s son, Thor, tried in vain to force Osiris and the others to release Odin from his spell, and accompanied Odin, Isis and Horus to the other-dimensional realm of Heliopolis where they fought Seth’s armies of animated skeletons. Thor then realized that, unless stopped, Seth would menace earth and Asgard next. Therefore, Thor himself entered into battle with Seth, but it was Odin who won the battle against Seth by creating a bolt of energy that obliterated Seth’s right hand. Horus then cast Seth from the Golden Bridge of the Gods, and Seth fell from power once more, and Osiris resumed his rightful place as ruler of Heliopolis. Isis, Osiris and the released Egyptian Gods then made Odin the reincarnation of their ancestor, Atum-Ra.

Seth, however, would return several times to attempt to overthrow Osiris. From Abydos, he imprisoned Isis and Osiris and attempted to sacrifice Horus to an entity known as the Devourer, but the creature became a bit more than he could control and Horus, Thor and the Thing helped to defeat it and free Isis and Osiris once more.

In order to lead an attack into Asgard, Seth absorbed the life forces of Isis and the Ennead in order to have the power he required to invade Asgard, home of the Asgardian gods. He also imprisoned Bes, the Egyptian god of luck, in order to steer his powers over probability into his favor, but Thor released Bes and Seth lost the absorbed life forces of the Ennead. Osiris led the rest of the Ennead to rally with the Asgardians against Seth, who was defeated by Odin once again.

Height: 6’ O”
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black

Strength Level: Isis possesses superhuman strength enabling him to lift (press) around 35 tons under optimal conditions.

Known Superhuman Powers: Isis possesses the conventional physical attributes of the Egyptian gods. Like all of the Ennead, she is extremely long-lived, but she is not immortal like the Olympian gods. She has not aged nor started showing the outward sings of aging since reaching adulthood and cannot die by any conventional means. Se is immune to all Earthly diseases and is resistant to conventional injury. If she were somehow wounded, her godly life force would enable her to recover with superhuman speed. It would take an injury of such magnitude that it dispersed a major portion of her bodily molecules to cause her a physical death. Even then, it might be possible for a god of significant power, such as Ammon-Ra, Osiris or for a number of Egyptian gods of equal power working together to revive her. Isis also possesses superhuman strength and her Ennead metabolism provides her with far greater than human endurance in all physical activities. (The flesh and bone of the Egyptian gods is about three times as dense as similar human tissue, contributing to Ennead superhuman strength and weight.)

Isis also has extra-ordinary powers above the majority of the Egyptian Gods to tap into and manipulate mystical energy with the obvious exception of such gods as Ammon-Ra, Osiris and Seth. Elemental in nature, she can control and influence the weather to create storms and control the wind. She can travel dimensionally, such as from Earth to Celestial Heliopolis and back again, send her voice and image across space and manipulate energy, such as she when she donated some of her godly attributes into the mortal heroine named Isis. She can also change her form at will and can appear in gigantic stature or an immaterial form seemingly created from astral matter to appear before mortals. She has also exhibited the power to raise and protect the spirits of the dead, but to fully raise one back to a full semblance of life, she has to rely on the added life energies of other gods, such as Anubis and Amaunet, such as when she restored Osiris back to life.

Comments: Just as among the Olympian Gods, converting a mortal to an immortal involves burning off their mortality. Demeter did it to Triptolemus and Thetis did it to Achilles.

Clarifications: Isis should not be confused with:

UPDATED: 05/11/06

 

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