If An Eye Offend Thee…!

Odin has lead the Olympians on an attack on Olympia, home of the Eternals to prevent them from attacking the space gods known as the Celestials.[1] This has led to a battle between Odin and his own son, Thor, who has been trying to learn why his father has allied himself with the space gods. Felling his son with a blast of mystical energy, Odin stands over Thor prepared to make a killing strike with Gunginir. He is poised to slay his own son with the enchanted spear, claiming it would be the second time he has done so.[2] However, Odin reflects on the events leading up to this moment, he finds his heart filled with sorrow. He ultimately decides against killing his son, tossing his weapon away.

The enchanted weapon soars through the battle between the Olympians and Eternals, making them all stop dead in their tracks until the spear imbeds itself into a nearby wall. Recovering from his father’s attack, Thor questions Odin about what he means about killing his own son for the second time. Odin refuses to provide any direct answers but gives his son a cryptic clue about where he can find them by telling Thor, “If an eye offend thee, pluck it out!” Odin then recovers his spear and although Zeus and Zuras are eager to continue their battle to determine who is more powerful, Odin calls an end to all hostilities and departs without any explanation. While the Olympians and Eternals are spoiling for a fight, Thor tells them that continued conflict is pointless in face of the threat from the Celestials. Zeus agrees that the fate of the Earth is in the balance and admits that his battle with the Eternals was entirely out of old resentments for centuries old cases of mistaken identity.[3] Zeus however, has no more desire to fight and orders his people back to Olympus, as he has preferred not to get involved in the affairs of mankind.

In the aftermath of the battle, Thor asks Zuras if he and his Eternals still plan on attacking the Celestials directly in order to prevent their 50 year judgement on humanity. Zuras has changed his mind, deciding to come up with another means of confronting his creators..[4]

As the Eternals get down to repairing damage done to their city, Thor ponders what Odin has said at the end of the battle. He suddenly remembers how Odin recently plucked out his own eye and scarified it to the flames of the prophet Mimir.[5] Deciding to figure out where the eye may have gone, Thor uses Mjolnir to lock onto it and open a portal to its destination. This opens a portal to another dimension where a village of dwarves are being attacked by a massive eye. Thor then crosses the threshhold and confronts the eye, demanding it provide answers for Odin’s strange actions of late. The eye admits that it knows the truth but refuses to divulge its secrets and attacks. Thor fends off what amounts to mere illusions and then traps the eye in a vortex created by his hammer, refusing to let it free until it answers his questions.

Realizing that Thor will not give up the struggle, the eye offers him an ultimatum: The thunder god can learn why Odin bowed before the Celestials, or he can learn what his father meant about killing Thor in the past. Admitting that there are aspects about his path that he no longer remembers, Thor decides that knowing what his father meant is more important. The eye tells the thunder god that he made a wise choice and warns him that once he learns the truth he will never be the same again…

Recurring Characters

Thor, Eternals (Zuras, Ikaris, Sersi, Makkari, Thena, Forgotten One), Ransak the Reject, Karkas, Odin, Odin’s eye, Zeus, Hercules, Ares, Hermes, Athena

Continuity Notes

1. Thor learned that his father, centuries earlier, once bowed to the Celestials for some unknown reason, as revealed in Thor #288-289. It will later be revealed in Thor #300 that Odin — acting on behalf of all the gods of Earth — agreed not to interfere with the Celestial’s judgment of humanity. This was all part of a long con by the gods to try and come up with a way of proving humanity’s value to the space gods.

2. Allegedly, Odin killed Thor in a similar matter centuries earlier as we’ll learn in issue #296.

3. This is a petty reason for fighting since Zeus and Zuras had made a pact with one another centuries earlier as explained in the Olympians profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition #9.

4. As explained in the first volume of the Eternals, the Celestials came to Earth an experimented upon primitive man creating three different species: baseline humans, the god-like Eternals, and the genetically unstable Deviants. They then left the three factions to flourish on their own. In more recent times the Celestials returned to Earth to render judgement on their creations. This evaluation would take some 50 years to determine.

5. Odin sacrificed his own eye in order to learn how to stave off Ragnarok as seen in Thor #274.