Isis

The last (for now) identified deity appearing in Thor: Love and Thunder is another goddess, the queen of her pantheon: among the first seen in the Golden Palace, there’s a winged goddess standing in her personal stage. That’s Isis, and she’s not exactly a newcomer in the MCU. We already met her avatar in Moon Knight, portrayed by Nagisa Morimoto, but she’s killed off screen along with all the others by Harrow. As we already saw, Marvel Comics draws plenty from Egyptian mythology, and Isis doesn’t make an exception: let’s see how she factors in the stories of superheroes.

Isis was one of the oldest Enneads, born from the union of the God of the Earth Geb and the Goddess of the Sky Nut. Known at first as Goddess of Fertility and Domestication, she taught ancient humans to sow the earth, to weave clothes, to build houses, and even established the institution of marriage in the land that would have grown to become Egypt. She was also, however, the Goddess of Magic, and she proved just how powerful a sorceress she was when her brother and husband Osiris was murdered by his jealous brother Seth. Some (malicious?) sources claim that she enchanted her dead husband’s body to have a son from him, Horus; more myths tell instead how she, along with her son Horus and her stepchild Anubis gathered all the pieces of Osiris’ dissected body from all corners of Egypt and put it back together, infusing life into him once again. Since a piece was still missing, however, Osiris was bound to stay in the underworld, that became his dominion. Isis established her cult in the land of the living, teaching her followers the mysteries of the land ruled by her husband. As Horus defeated Seth, Isis was free to take her place among the immortals, and left Earth to settle in the Celestial Heliopolis, watching over her followers from there. She was worshiped not only in Egypt, but even by the Amazons, as Queen Byrn was a pious observant of her mysteries, by Athicus of Hyboria, and eventually even in the Roman Empire, where hers became the primary cult among the “imported” ones. From time to time she appeared to mortals, such as when she visited a young slave named En Sabah Nur in a near-death dream, and prophesied for him a glorious destiny, but usually didn’t mess with mortals anymore, as she had her hands full with the problems raised by her fellow gods.

As the Third Host of the Celestials came and left, Isis was among the goddesses summoned by Gaea to help her with her quest: to find and collect the best specimens of humanity to make Young Gods out of them, to present them to the Celestials when the Fourth Host came and convince them that humanity was worthy of existence… a plan B to that of the male gods, who were raising an army to stand against them in battle. When the time came, the gods failed miserably, while the goddesses succeeded, the Young Gods proving to the Celestials that humanity deserved at least more time for further consideration. Troubles came also from within, as Seth broke free from his millennial prison and trapped Osiris, Isis and Horus in a pyramid for all eternity: with her magic, Isis managed to materialize the pyramid in the XX Century, where Odin and Thor came to their aid, defeating Seth. The Asgardians proved to be precious allies to the Enneads also in other occasions: when Isis and Osiris were imprisoned by Seth, ready to sacrifice Horus to the Devourer, Thor and The Thing freed them and foiled the betrayer’s plan once again, and when Seth stole the power from all the other Egyptian gods and attacked Asgard directly, Thor replenished the Enneads’ strengths, and they gladly joined him in battle against Seth and his army in gratitude. After these episodes, Isis came back to the mortal world as a powerful conjunction of magic forces attracted her to New Orleans: the magic was powerful enough that, come the equinox, she would have been able to harness it to finally resurrect Osiris for good, freeing him from the underworld. Isis and Horus operated to prepare the ritual, but what they didn’t know was that they were secretly aided in the quest by Satan, who wished to resurrect Osiris as well, only to exploit his absence from the underworld and expand his dominion into the Egyptian afterlife, gaining more power. Only Hellstorm realized his father’s plan, and moved against the powerful Isis to prevent her husband’s resurrection… learning that her wrath was something to be feared, even for a half-demon like him.

Capable of the infinite tenderness of a mother and of the focused wrath of a distraught lover, Isis is the wise and proud queen of the Enneads, holder of forbidden knowledge and ancient mysteries. Albeit she has minimum fighting skills and physical attributes (strength, speed, stamina, durability, reflexes, senses, agility) inferior to those of other Enneads, she is the most powerful sorceress of her pantheon, and she can bend elemental forces to her will, being powerful enough to raise the dead and to turn regular people into immortals. Revered and worshiped even before Ancient Egypt, Isis is Ament (the “hidden one”) and Ankhat (“giver of life”), she’s Anquat (“she who makes the land fertile”) and Khut (“light bringer”), a primeval force for good who’s been aiding humanity since its first steps into the world, and who’s been sharing her wisdom with mortals giving birth to entire civilizations. She’s the Maker of Sunrise and the Lady of the New Year: wherever she goes, something new and marvelous is bound to happen.