Superhero Gods

"Gods, angels — different cultures call us different names. Now all of the sudden it's superheroes."

— Mary, Hancock

Perhaps it's because of the connection of incredibly attractive and powerful people intervening in our daily lives with saving the world. Perhaps it's because having the godlike serve to protect our lives is the closest we can get to getting the divine to serve us. Perhaps it's what comes naturally of making a character stronger than the strongest person. Whatever the case, comic book writers (and others) have seen the obvious logic in not just making godlike superheroes, but making gods superheroes.

The ancient Greek myths (as well as those from any number of other ancient cultures) often featured the heroic (by the standards of the time) adventures of various Demi-Gods, usually people with mixed Divine and Mortal parentage since the Gods themselves were usually too busy being complete dicks and getting away with it, because, well they are the Gods...

Note: There's a lot of overlap with Physical God, so this trope only refers to mythological gods or original divinities becoming superheroes.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball;
  • Kami was Guardian of Earth but also a Flying Brick able to help the heroes take on the various aliens that attacked Earth.
  • Goku and Vegeta's Super Saiyan God forms that Goku learned to fight Beerus, the God of Destruction in Dragon Ball Super. Other gods in the setting confirm that these forms do make them gods. ^note While in this form, their power levels can only be sensed by other gods.
  • Belmod is Universe 11's God of Destruction and commands a Sentai group called the Pride Troopers, of which he used to be an active member. The Troopers' current leader, Top is in training to replace Belmod as God of Destruction.
• Retired superheroine Athena from Don't Meddle with My Daughter! is actually the Greek goddess, making her superheroine daughter Clara Semi-Divine.

Comic Books

• Marvel Comics
  • The Mighty Thor is one of the first (and more obvious) examples.
  • Thor's sister, Angela, joined the superhero team Guardians of the Galaxy, and fought alongside them.
  • Thor's lover, Lady Sif. Although she doesn't join any superhero team and mostly fights for or in Asgard, she does have her moments in Midgard (Earth).
  • Even Thor's adopted brother freaking Loki was in two superhero teams: In the second lineup of the Young Avengers, although admittedly the guy was most of their problems too; and if we count disguises in one iteration of the Mighty Avengers (as the Scarlet Witch).
  • Brunhilde the Valkyrie is a super heroine as well. She had a lengthy stint as a member of the Defenders.
  • The Ultimates takes an interesting look at Marvel's Thor, focusing on the fact that anybody who claimed to be a god would immediately be classified as insane. The existence of superpowers only makes it worse, of course, as his powers are not entirely inexplicable.
  • As is The Incredible Hercules.
  • And Ares, god of war, sometime member of The Avengers.
  • Snowbird from Alpha Flight is an Inuit demigoddess. Her family would make occasional appearances in the book, and their enemies, the Great Beasts, were recurring villains.
  • The Golden Age Marvel heroes Mercury and Venus were Exactly What It Says on the Tin. In modern continuity, Mercury was revealed to be Makkari of The Eternals, and Venus was revealed as merely a Siren.
• DC Comics
  • Hercules is treated as a Jerkass more often than not, usually showing up to get in fights with Wonder Woman or Superman. His most notable outing as a hero was in the Silver Age series Hercules Unbound where he defended the remnants of mankind in a post-nuclear world.
  • Wonder Woman gets half-points for a few reasons: she's an Amazon, which are basically a race of semi-immortal demigoddesses, and she was created when her mother, Hippolyta, prayed to the gods to create her from clay. The New 52 changed things so that she was Zeus' daughter, but DC Rebirth has changed it back. In Wonder Woman (1987) she briefly became the goddess of truth, but was able to return to her (semi-)mortal state as an Amazon in short order.
  • At one point, Donna Troy became a Titan of Myth.
  • The second Wonder Girl, Cassie Sandsmark, is a modern demigoddess, being the daughter of Zeus and a normal Muggle archaeologist. (During the New 52 she was reimagined as Zeus' granddaughter.)
  • Monkey Prince is the son of Sun Wukong the Monkey King.
  • The New Gods, though the degree to which most of the New Gods are gods rather than Human Aliens with superpowers and advanced technology varies a lot. Jack Kirby originally conceived them as new characters to introduce into the Thor mythos—they were literally a new pantheon for modern times, hence all the technological and modern imagery, rather than ancient chariots and swords. But he jumped ship to DC and took them with him. In that sense, the name "New Gods" is something of an Artifact Title.
  • Justice League of America (Rebirth) and Doom Patrol (2016) introduced not simply a superheroic god, but the God of Superheroes himself, Ahl. Reaching down from his domain in "Final Heaven" millions of years ago, he gave birth not only to the idea of justice, but to the concept that would eventually become Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, from whom all other superheroes symbolically descend; the area where he touched Earth, having risen up to meet him and eventually becoming a mountain in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, would one day become the first headquarters of the original Justice League, who were unaware of the true significance of Mount Justice. By the time we learn of him however he's long since been murdered by Haxxalon the Star Archer with "The Brick That Can Think", which in an apparent attempt at communicating its own sentiments on the matter had "I'M SORRY" written on it.
  • The angel Zauriel debuted in JLA (1997).
  • Similar to Marvel’s Squadron Supreme, DC has a Captain Ersatz Avengers group variously called the Champions of Angor/The Justifiers. Their Thor counterpart is Aboriginal Australian thunder god Wandjina/Wundajin.
  • Doctor Manhattan from Watchmen is the quote source for A God I Am Not but at the end of the story he accepts his role as a Deity of Human Origin and leaves Earth to create human life elsewhere. It later turns out he created The DCU, or at least was responsible for the New 52 version.
  • The Linda Danvers version of Supergirl was an "Earth-born Angel".
• Supergod revolves around various countries' attempts to create superheroes based on their religion or mythology. The projects have mostly... not fulfilled their hopes.
• Viz had a story called SuperGod and The Son of Man Wonder where God and Jesus are superheroes who fly around doing nothing but assuring victims of accidents and crimes that they'll go to Heaven when they die (apart from the man having impure thoughts about his wife's sister) and that their tormentors will burn in Hell unless they repent and get to sit at God's side for all eternity.
• National Lampoon had the Son-O'-God comics about a guy who could transform into a superhero Jesus.
• Thor also appeared in Elementals. Not too surprising, since all the supers there have magical or mythological origins.
• Inverted in The Savage Dragon: Thor is a villain.
• Black Hammer is about a group of superhero gods called the New World, based on the New Gods with shades of the Asgardians from The Mighty Thor.

Comic Strips

• Tom the Dancing Bug: Parodied, along with conservative Christian views of God, in the "God Man" strips.

Film

• Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe saved Earth multiple times and teamed up with other superheroes to form The Avengers.
• The Asylum did a Mockbuster called Almighty Thor where Thor comes to Los Angeles to save it from Loki.
• Wonder Woman (2017) has the Amazons, a mythical race of female warriors. The villain in the movie is the Greek god Ares, the last of the gods after a long war. Diana is also the daughter of Zeus, born and raised to be a living weapon against Ares.
• Hancock belonged to a race of immortal Flying Bricks who were considered gods and angels in ancient cultures but superheroes today.

Live-Action TV

• The Secrets of Isis featured a school teacher who used a magic amulet to transform into the titular Egyptian goddess and save people.

Music

• The song "Something Just Like This" by The Chainsmokers and Coldplay invokes this, the lyrics comparing Superman, Spider-Man, and Batman to Achilles and Hercules while the singer describes how his girlfriend specifically didn't want somebody in that mold.

Religion

• The Indian parody religion Dinkoism worships the cartoon superhero mouse Dinkan.
• There's a Christian kid's song that reinterprets Jesus as a superhero "Jesús es mi superheroe".

Tabletop Games

• Mutants & Masterminds:
  • The Halt Evil Doer! supplement has Athena leave the Olympian gods and come to Earth to be a Wonder Woman Wannabe superheroine.
  • In Freedom City, the Siren is a voudoun superheroine who gains her powers from being a "horse" to the loa La Sirene.
• Sentinels of the Multiverse features Dr. Blake Washington, Jr. Ph.D., an archeologist who took on the powers of the Egyptian sun god Ra and fights evil under the name; his archnemesis in the game is the Ennead, a team of villains which consists of a large part of the Egyptian pantheon.

Theater

• Invoked in most productions of Godspell where Jesus has a Superman logo on his t-shirt.

Video Games

• Asura's Wrath has all the major deities actually be genetically-altered cyborgs. Most of them besides Asura become the main villains. It should be noted, though, that there is a spiritual component to them, as they can be powered up by the prayers and souls of mortals.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Raiden is the God of Thunder and the Protector God of Earthrealm. He normally takes a hands off approach to protecting Earth, usually serving as the Big Good, but when circumstances are really dire he steps in to kick ass alongside the heroes.
  • Fujin, Raiden's fellow Earthrealm god, occasionally gets in on the action as well.
  • Taven is The Hero of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and the demigod son of the Edenian Protector God Argus and his wife Delia.

Web Comics

• The God of High School probably counts. After all, Mori Jin is the Monkey King from Journey to the West. Later, we get a character who's a direct descendant of of Hercules, which allows him to get possessed by him, essentially becoming Hercules for a brief duration.
• Parodied in League of Super Redundant Heroes where putting Athena and Odin in the same room isn't the best idea.

Web Original

• Given this is a Supers Trope, you know there's a Whateley Universe example, and here it is: The New Olympians may or may not be the classical Greek Gods reborn. They certainly think they are, and have appropriate powers.

Western Animation

• The Avatar from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra is the earthly embodiment of the show's equivalent of God.
• The Justice Friends Super Group from Dexter's Laboratory has Valhallen the Viking god of Rock.
• The Super Best Friends from South Park are a supergroup composed of Jesus, The Prophet Muhammad, Moses, Krishna, Joseph Smith, Laozi, Buddha and an Aquaman parody called Seaman.
• One of the most powerful characters in The Tick is the Mighty Agrippa, Roman god of the aqueduct. According to the series canon, he's the last god to join the Roman pantheon, but when he showed up the rest had left for another planet. Despite being a low-ranking god, he's still a Physical God and one of the strongest beings in the series.
• The Mighty Hercules was an interesting example. For whatever reason (Moral Guardians?), Hercules and the other characters from Greek myth are never explicitly referred to as gods, demigods, etc., only as "King Zeus" and so on, so that Hercules could plausibly be a "mere" superhero from a realm of other superheroes.

---