To manage the threat against the apocalyptic star-beings known as Celestials, Odin and Zeus assemble the Council of Godheads, summoning the exalted all-fathers of Earth’s legends.
Sky-Lords
The Council of Godheads, sometimes known as the Council Elite, is a union of leaders or delegates of Earth’s gods’ various pantheons. There are over twenty separate pantheons of superhuman beings associated with Earth claiming to be gods. The vast majority of these trace their origins to Gaea, one of the Elder Gods (such as Chthon and Set) who materializes on Earth before other life appears. The other Elder Gods degenerate into demons, preying upon each other. Gaea calls upon Demiurge, Earth’s biosphere’s sentient life force, and gives birth to Atum, who becomes Demogorge and slaughters or banishes the other Elder Gods. Gaea then infuses her life essence into all living beings on Earth. It is unclear whether Gaea mates with the Demiurge to create a newer, more perfect race of gods, or if Atum simply splits his essence to spawn the new gods. The timing of this is unclear as it predates recorded history.
Further confusing matters is the existence of many races (some demonic) whose supernatural members are often worshipped as gods. In addition, some demons usurp gods’ names, while some gods usurp the names and worshippers of older beings. Further, some of the current gods’ live through cycles of death and rebirth, interacting with humanity at various points in the past.
A Quorum
The 20 Earth pantheons are first brought together by Zeus of Olympus and Odin of Asgard, and they discuss how to protect Earth from threats they could not manage alone. Together, with the Hindu God Vishnu, they represent the Council when not all members can meet.
World-ending Threats
The Council of Godheads first convenes over the star-spanning Celestials, who plan to judge Earth and deem whether the planet and people are worthy of continuing its existence. The Council also goes up against Atum the Demogorge, and joins with a multitude of heroes and villains from Earth and the rest of the universe to oppose the supremely powerful Thanos.
Council Guests
The Anasazi’s totem god Tomazooma and the God of Earth, rain, and fertility Okonorote are both non-members of the Council of Godheads, but are guests at their meetings. The Council hears from other gods such as Athena, who warns them of a coming threat, the Skrull deities. They choose god-heroes to respond such as Hercules, his companion Amadeus Cho, Ajak, Atum, and Amatsu-Mikaboshi, AKA Mikaboshi, dubbing them the God Squad.
Defending Humanity
Around 1000 AD, the Celestials’ Third Host came to Earth, and Odin assembled the heads of the godly pantheons to discuss this threat. A few other gods, such as the Anasazi’s Tomazooma and the Kamekeri’s Okonorote, also attended alongside their leaders. Zeus, Odin and Vishnu were chosen as representatives to confront the Celestials, who threatened to sever the dimensional passages of all of the gods’ realms to Earth unless they promised not to interfere with the Celestials’ plans to judge humanity’s worthiness. The three gods bowed to the Celestials’ superior power, but Odin began planning to deal with the Fourth Host of the Celestials by creating the nigh-indestructible Destroyer automaton and the Odinsword. Seeking a more peaceful solution, Gaea allied herself with the pantheons’ goddesses and had them gather humanity’s best examples over the next 1000 years. When the Celestials returned in recent years, Odin imbued the Destroyer with the spirits of himself and the rest of the Asgardians, rendering it 2000 feet tall. However, the Celestials combined their own power and melted the Destroyer into slag, killing the Asgardians. Thor visited each of the Godheads, convincing them each to donate a portion of life force, and the Asgardians were resurrected. Gaea presented the Celestials with the 12 representatives she had gathered, and the Celestials ruled in humanity’s favor, taking these 12 under their tutelage as the Young Gods.
Shortly thereafter, a union of Death Gods caused the return of Demogorge, who consumed them and then prepared to devour the other gods. Odin petitioned the Godheads to send a delegates to oppose Demogorge. Buluku, Manitou, Osiris, Tezcatlipoca, Vishnu and Zeus responded, and so Thor joined Shango, Tawa, Horus, Quetzacoatl, Indra and Apollo in confronting Demogorge, eventually convincing him that it was not time for the current pantheons to die.
When Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to eliminate half the universe’s population, the Godheads met in Asgard to discuss this. Ironically, Odin was then missing and Loki had usurped his role, but apparently none present realized the deception. Another group of Godheads met to discuss the actions of virtually omnipotent former pharaoh Akhenaten against humanity: Atar, Horus, Hunab Ku, Izanagi, Ndriananahary, Shou-Hsing, Thor, Vishnu, and Zeus. They also discussed summoning “Those of the Forgotten Realm.” Horus, who was most familiar with Akhenaten, used the Eye of Ra to spy on him, but Akhenaten detected them and attacked, destroying all present except Thor and Zeus, who managed to flee. Soon after, Thanos claimed the Heart of the Infinite (Akhenaten’s power source) and used it to retroactively prevent all of Akhenaten’s actions. The Godheads joined forces with heroes and villains from Earth and the rest of the universe to oppose Thanos. Thanos easily wiped out every being in the universe, but was convinced by Adam Warlock, AKA Magus, to sacrifice himself to restore the universe to its previous state.
Following Odin’s demise, Thor was tested by the Godheads for worthiness to join them as Odin’s replacement. Thor passed the tests of awareness and insight, but failed when he supplied food to a starving population rather than teaching them to grow their own food. In addition, the Council decided that Thor had violated the oath of non-interference on Earth. Those present included Osiris, Yu-Huang, Zeus, Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu. The Council Elite met once again and discussed Thor’s continuing problems, including his most recent effort to resurrect a young girl. Information brought back in time from Reality-3515 (“The Reigning”) convinced Thor to turn from the path of interfering with humanity.
When the Skrulls invaded Earth, Athena Parthenos called a meeting of the godheads, calling them the Council of Elite, and informed them of the threat they posed to their adoring planet. Athena asked which one of them would stand against the Skrull Pantheon alongside the Olympians led by her brother Hercules and his mortal arms-bearer and boy genius Amadeus Cho. Hodiak of the Northern gods answered and offered their mightiest champion, Snowbird. The gods of the South chose their great hero Ajak of the Eternals. The gods of the East chose the shape-shifter Amatsu-Mikaboshi to represent them in the fight against the shape-shifting Skrulls. Atum, the god who fathered the gods of Egypt joined their ranks as well after his son Horus asked him to do so. The team became the God Squad, a name coined by Amadeus. Altjira offered them a ship that would sail them through the Dreamtime space to anywhere gods live so that they could attack the Skrull gods in their own realm. But they were all of them betrayed, for Athena was a Skrull in disguise and once sent to the Dreamtime, there they were lost.
Guided by the God Council, they were to track down the fear lord Nightmare and obtain a map to the Skrull Pantheon. Once they did, they destroyed two of the Skrull’s dieties, Kly’bn and Sl’gur’t, allowing Mikaboshi to take over their pantheon. They lost Atum and Ajak in the fight, but Hercules reassured his mortal companion Amadeus that they both had a habit of resurrection. Following the victory, Athena watched the events in her scrying pool, speaking with her pet owl Pallas, confirming she was not a Skrull and had orchestrated this turn of events.
The next time the Council of Godheads convened was to judge Alexander Aaron, AKA Phobos, son of the war god Ares. The Council found him worthy of the title God of Fear since he had not shown any, despite his father claiming he wasn’t a true god yet, since he hadn’t yet died and come back to life. The Council Godheads that were present included Balder, Hera, and Quetzalcoatl.
When the Council convened to choose the greatest hero in this Heroic Age in anticipation of the coming threat of the Chaos King (Mikaboshi), they welcomed their newest member Athena Parthenos. She put forth the obvious choice, Amadeus Cho, as their hero. Though Loki’s son Vali Halfling, AKA Agamemnon, attacked Athena by extinguishing the Promethian Flame, which granted her and other Olympians their immortality. As Balder confirmed it was indeed Agamemnon, the Council members retreated to their heavens to prepare defenses against Agamemnon and Chaos King.
When the Council called on Hercules to judge him on his recent resurrection by Amadeus’ hand, Hercules attacked them for not using their power to do anything against the Chaos King who was attacking reality to negate all of existence. The Chaos King then manipulated Hercules into telling him the location of the Council and attacked, bringing them to their knees. Meanwhile Amadeus worked with Galactus to find a way to evacuate the universe, and Hercules became an All-Father, gaining more power. With the mighty Thor, the God Squad, the Incredible Hulks, the Avengers, the X-Men, and Alpha Flight, they defeated the Chaos King, and Hercules restored the universe, but lost his godly status with everything back to normal.
