Thor Annual #10 (1982)

Long ago, the newly-formed planet that would one day be known as Earth possessed a rich, fertile biosphere seething with the potential for life. As the oceans cooled and land emerged from the seas, the power and life-energy in the air above became aware of its own power and so the Demiurge, the sentient life-force of Earth's biosphere, came into being. After aligning the planet with the Celestial Axis, the Demiurge showered Earth with sparks of its own life. The interaction of pure life-energy and the matter of the planet created the Elder Gods, the first forms of ethereal life to be born on Earth, whose number included Chthon, Gaea and Set. As time passed, the Elder Gods proliferated and eventually began to war against each other, degenerating into demons in the process. The one exception was Gaea, who cared for the new forms of organic life that now existed in the oceans. By meditating upon how that life could be protected, she summoned to herself the Demiurge to conceive in her a force for good. She later gave birth to Atum, the first of a new generation of gods, whose power was that of the blazing sun. Using his power, Atum went forth and slew the demon gods, absorbing their forms and energies into himself and causing his body to transform into that of Demogorge, the God-Eater. Although most of the Elder Gods were slain, Gaea was allowed to remain and Chthon, after creating the parchments of the Darkhold to be his indestructible touchstone, fled into a nether-dimension. With his task complete, Demogorge rose up into the skies and cast the forms and energies he had absorbed from his body, seeding the heavens with godstuff, and then returned to his form as Atum and merged with the Sun. Eons later, Earth's highest physical lifeform, mankind, came into being, and their nascent consciousnesses tapped into the godstuff, causing new gods to be born in Man's image, creating all the gods of Earthly pantheons. In the present, all of Asgard had come together to witness the funeral of the recently-deceased goddess Nanna. After her funeral pyre was lit by lightning summoned by Thor, two wraith-like Valkyries arrived on ghostly winged horses to gather her spirit-form and escort her to Valhalla's Hall of Noble Women. Once the funeral was over, Odin spoke with Thor, revealing his anger that Hela, the goddess of death, had not attended the ceremony and his determination to know what had kept her away. Meanwhile, deep in the realm of Hades, Hela was meeting with five other death-gods and the demon Mephisto who were discussing a proposal to merge their seven realms into one. Although Hela had grave doubts, she was the only one who voted against the plan and she reluctantly agreed to respect the majority and participate. Joining hands to form a circle, the seven gods of death combined their powers to create a permanent nexus between all the myriad hells. As the seven nether-worlds aligned to create a larger netherworld, the Cosmic Axis was shaken and Demogorge the God-Eater appeared, declaring that his purpose was to destroy their degenerate forms and release their godly energies. The death gods began attacking Demogorge but were easily and swiftly overcome. By the time the raven Hugin arrived, searching for Hela, only Hela and Ereshkigal had not yet been consumed. After Hugin returned to Asgard, Odin was shocked to learn of the existence of a God-Eater and he immediately went to the base of the world-tree Yggdrasill to speak with his fellow godheads and reveal what he had learned. Odin then proposed that each of them would send their greatest champion to the nexus of the netherworlds to vanquish the God-Eater before it could reach their home dimensions, and six of them agreed to do so. When Odin then told Thor that he was to be Asgard's champion, Thor accepted the mission and flew off. Soon afterward, Thor and the six other champions arrived at the Nexus of the Netherworlds and began their search for the monster. They soon encountered Hela, the last of the death-gods, just in time to watch her be absorbed into Demogorge. The seven champions then began their own battle against Demogorge but their attacks were just as ineffective. However, as he began to consume them as well, Demogorge started to experience pain, both from absorbing them and from their attacks, but the battle continued until only Thor had not yet been consumed. Seeing that Demogorge had withstood their combined assault, Thor realized that the monster could not be defeated from without, only from within, and he then allowed himself to be absorbed. Sucked into the creature's digestive tract, where the thirteen other gods were being drained of their life-energies, Thor resisted the numbness and continued to fight. Suddenly, the digestive processes ceased and Demogorge communicated with Thor, stating that his purpose was to convert outgrown deities into their essential energies, but that Thor's incredible resistance against the metabolic process of his being had reversed the rhythms of his living body so that he could not contain the energies that he had consumed. Since this was something that could not happen unless it were not their time to die, Demogorge used the power he had absorbed to break the linkage between the seven netherworlds, returning them to their original boundaries and stabilizing the Cosmic Axis. Once that was done, Demogorge dispersed the energies he had consumed, restoring the fourteen gods to life in Hades. After warning them that he would one day return, when time's present cycle had ended, and successfully fulfill his purpose that had now been postponed, Demogorge transformed into Atum and left. Once he was gone, some of the death gods spoke of trying their scheme again, now that they knew about Demogorge, but the seven gods of life declared that they would join forces to oppose their plans. Deciding not to fight at that time, all of the gods except Pluto left Hades, with Thor and Hela going to Asgard. Although Hela feared that Odin would not forgive her so soon after her recent failed attempt to claim Valhalla, he surprised her by welcoming back both his god-daughter and his dear bloodson, both of whom he had feared he had lost.