Marvel's Asgardians of the Galaxy, Explained

Who are the Asgardians of the Galaxy?

That was the question posed by Marvel in a teaser released yesterday, and now, just a day later, we have the answer. In a new series launching this September, Cullen Bunn and Matteo Lolli will bring together some fan-favorite Asgardians alongside some deep cuts and one mystery member.

Apparently heading up the team is Angela, who is the only member to also serve on the Guardians of the Galaxy. Raised in the Tenth Realm of Heven, Angela believed she was an Angel until she learned she was actually the daughter of Odin and Freyja, sister to Thor and Loki.

Asgardians of the Galaxy promo art by Dale Keown

Angela joined the Guardians of the Galaxy after she was ripped from Heven following the events of Age of Ultron and has served with them sporadically through the past few years, most recently helping them drive back a Badoon invasion of Earth. She's also technically still the Queen of Hel, though Balder The Brave currently serves as her regent. Events in Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo's upcoming Thor might explain what her current status is.

Alongside Angela is Valkyrie, the one time-leader of Odin's shield-maidens who found a life for herself on Earth. Bunn last wrote her adventures in the pages of Fearless Defenders, where he established a relationship between Brunnhilde and a human named Annabelle Riggs. Their romance was stymied by the fact that the partners share the same form since Riggs sacrificed herself to save the Defenders from Caroline le Fey and her Doommaidens. She's not to be confused with the Valkyrie in Saladin Ahmed and Javier Rodriguez's Exiles, who is an alternate reality version of the character modeled after Tessa Thompson's portrayal of the character in Thor: Ragnarok.

Speaking of which, fans of Ragnarok will recognize Skurge The Executioner, who nobly sacrificed himself in the film in order to give Thor and his companions time to escape Hela. Usually allied with Amora The Enchantress, Skurge became his own man when he realized Amora could never love him the way he loved her. He subsequently accompanied Thor to Hel to rescue a group of Midgardians, and held the line of the bridge Gjallerbru so that Thor and the humans could escape. Skurge has been dead since his sacrifice nearly thirty years ago, so his return to the land of the living is certainly noteworthy.

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Also on the team, and sure to delight '90s fans, is Kevin Masterson, aka Thunderstrike. The original Thunderstrike was his father, Eric Masterson, who briefly served as Thor. When Odinson returned to the role, he was gifted a mace made of Uru metal and became Thunderstrike. Eric died at the end of his ongoing series, but his son was re-introduced as the new Thunderstrike in his own miniseries a decade later.

After his father's death, Kevin had a negative view on superheroes but was gifted the Thunderstrike mace by Steve Rogers. He learned how to be a hero under the mentorship of Valkyrie and later joined Avengers Academy. where he was drafted into the Young Avengers army in the fight against Mother.

The team's smallest member may actually be their mightiest, as Throg, Frog of Thunder wields an Uru hammer similar to Mjolnir and Stormbreaker. Once a human named Simon Walterson (named after legendary Thor writer/artist Walter Simonson), he was cursed by a witch to become a frog and was forced to live among a clan of frogs in Central Park. When Thor himself suffered a similar fate at the hands of Loki, he met Simon, now going by the name Puddlegulp, and helped the frogs in their war against the rats. Puddlegulp later found a shard of Uru chipped off Thor's hammer, and wielding it proved worthy enough to gain the power of Thor, becoming Throg, Frog of Thunder.

Finally, the team includes The Destroyer, Odin's deadly armor which was build to fight the Celestials. The Destroyer is piloted remotely, leaving its wielder vulnerable in their physical form, and in the past has been used by the likes of Balder, Volstagg and Cul. It has also served as Herald of Galactus and is mostly used as a way for Loki to fight his brother Thor one-on-one, negating Odinson's significant size and strength advantage. According to Marvel's character descriptions, the current wielder of the Destroyer armor is unknown, so it could be anyone -- maybe even someone who isn't Asgardian.

The line-up of the Asgardians of the Galaxy is certainly an odd assortment of characters, and the reason for their assembling and for the dissolution of the Guardians of the Galaxy are currently a mystery. With that said, the team gives a spotlight to a number of fan-favorite characters who haven't been seen in recent years, including two queer women placed front and center, so Asgardians of the Galaxy is definitely a book to look out for this September.