Olympians (Marvel Comics)
The Olympians are a fictional species appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. These characters are based loosely on the Twelve Olympians and other deities of Greek mythology. During the beginning of the 1960s, the exploits of the Asgardians Thor and his evil brother Loki demonstrated that an updating of ancient myths could again win readers. In 1965, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the Olympians in Journey into Mystery Annual #1.
History
The Olympians are a race of extra-dimensional beings that possess a variety of mystical superhuman abilities that were once worshipped by civilizations centered on or around the Mediterranean, Agean, Ionian, Tyrrhenian and Ligurian seas such as Greece, the Roman Empire and parts of Egypt and Turkey as gods from roughly 2500 BC until roughly 500 AD. The Olympians are related to every other pantheon of gods that have ever been worshiped on Earth, such as the Asgardians and the Gods of Heliopolis (ancient Egypt) because Gaea, the spirit that represents life on Earth, was the mother of the first race of gods to appear on Earth. The various pantheons that exist today are the descendants of these earlier gods. It is believed that the Olympians were born somewhere on Earth but currently reside in another dimension that is adjacent to Earth known as Olympus. One known entrance to this realm is actually located atop Mount Olympus in Greece.