SNAP Into Marvel: Make Room For Thena!
by Austin Gorton
Real Name: Azura
First Comic Book Appearance: The Eternals #5 (November 1976)
First Multimedia Appearance: Eternals (2021), played by Angelina Jolie
Powers & Abilities: Thena possesses the standard enhanced powers and abilities of all Eternals. Additionally, she can teleport herself and others, and is both highly educated and an accomplished fighter, both with weapons and hand-to-hand.
Comic Book Chronicle
Like the rest of the Eternals, Thena debuted in the late 70s from the mind of Jack Kirby. And like many of the other Eternals, Thena was originally meant to have been the source of stories about other gods and heroes (in her case, Athena/Minerva), before the group was later incorporated into the Marvel Universe and said to exist as separate beings from their mythological inspirations. Aside from her prowess as a warrior, the most distinguishing thing about Thena relative to the rest of the Eternals is her relationship with the Deviants.
The Deviants are the Eternals’ thematic opposite and chief antagonists. The first results of Celestial manipulation of human genetics, the Deviants are generally monstrous and grotesque where the Eternals (created after the Deviants) are physically ideal and god-like. If the Eternals inspired humanities stories of heroes and gods, the Deviants are the stand-ins for the demonic forces in those stories. Despite their centuries-long conflict, Thena is notable for having a long-standing star-crossed love affair with the Deviant warlord Kro. Though their relationship has never been enough to stop the conflict people their peoples — Thena routinely opposes Deviant attacks on humanity while Kro is not above using their relationship to further the goals of his people — it does allow Thena to often serve as the entry point into Deviant society in various stories.
Most recently, in the wake of the Eternals’ learning the cost of their immortality — each Eternal resurrection comes as a result of a human life — Thena, drawing on her experiences with Kro, helped a core group seek shelter in the Deviant city of Lemuria. Believing this form of resurrection contradicted their Celestial-decreed responsibility to protect humanity, Thena was key to helping this group of Eternals seek help in becoming “more deviant”.
Fit & Finish
When you have a character who is played by Angelina Jolie in a movie, you don’t NOT lead with that version of the character. But honestly, the focus on the MCU Eternals as visual inspiration for Marvel Snap is perhaps least egregious with Thena. Her original comic book look is certainly fun — Jack Kirby, it turns out, is pretty good at character designs. But in the grand scheme of the Eternals — to say nothing of the Marvel Universe writ large — Thena’s comic book look is a pretty standard “fantasy-tinged sci-fi warrior woman” routine. Subsequent iterations of the character rarely break from that general vibe. All of which is to say, I’m sure we’ll get a classic Thena variant at some point, but the loss here hits less hard.
Form & Function
Thena’s ability — to gain +3 power any time you play exactly two cards — makes her a riff on Angela. She gains the freedom of being boosted regardless of where you play subsequent cards (unlike Angela) in exchange for the limitation of needing TWO cards instead of just one. That’s enough of a limitation to make Thena likely more of a supporting player than a card that gets decks built around it.
But like Angela, her ability is neither an On Reveal nor an Ongoing, meaning she can’t be Cosmos-ed or Enchantress-ed. That means her only counters are Shadow King, Valkyrie, or Shang-Chi (if she gets big enough). Her ability to grow after being played — without needing to be in a lane in which cards are played — makes her an easy inclusion into Professor X/Cannonball decks, filling a similar role as Havok in that archetype. Bounce is another early candidate, given its propensity for playing multiple cards per turn even in the late game.
Like Gilgamesh, the connection between her Snap ability and her comic book powers/history is less obvious. But the fact that she’s being released at the start of the season alongside Gilgamesh, instead of later on, likely speaks to their connection in the Eternals film. There, Gilgamesh serves as caretaker of sorts for Thena, who spends most of the movie suffering from the “Mahd Wy’ry” (sidebar: if you’d told my younger self reading Avengers comics in the early 90s that someone would be saying the words “Mahd Wy’ry” in a major motion picture someday, I’d have called you a liar). That partnership is reflected in the ways their abilities interact, with a turn 5 Gilgamesh plus a 1 drop boosting Thena which in turn boosts Gilgamesh (or the pair going into a KaZoo deck that plays to both their strengths). While both cards will likely find their place in various decks on their, there’s a synergy between them which reflects their cinematic arc.