Knorda (Mountain Giant; Thor, Avengers, & FF character)

Enemies: Avengers, Fantastic Four;
formerly Odin, Thor, and the rest of the Gods of Asgard

Base of Operations: Currently unrevealed;
    formerly Praxis HQ, high atop the Swiss Alps (electronically shielded from the world at large);
    formerly mobile across Europe;
    formerly Jotunheim, Asgard

Powers/Abilities: Though human-sized, Knorda is an Asgardian giantess, and possesses superhuman strength (perhaps Class 25) and durability, as well as being highly resistant to cold, aging, and conventional disease. Given her garment, one would speculate that she is an experienced warrior. She carried a battle axe and rode a horse into battle.

Height: 6'2"
Weight: 467 lbs.
Eyes: Green (see comments)
Hair: Blonde

History:
(Domination Factor: Avengers#4.8 (fb) - BTS) - A human-sized giantess, Knorda was ordained at birth by her father to be betrothed to Uthorn, aged king of the Mountain Giants.

(Domination Factor: Avengers#4.8 (fb) - BTS) - Widowed before she could bear Uthorn a child, Knorda became queen of the Mountain Giants and vowed to never again suffer indignity at the hands of man.

(Domination Factor: Avengers#4.8 (fb) - BTS) - Knorda ruled with an iron fist, leading the Mountain Giants into countless successful battles.

(Journey into Mystery I#109/2 (fb) - BTS) - Knorda was long sought after by Arkin the Weak, cousin of Loki, though she spurned his advances.

(Domination Factor: Fantastic Four#4.7 (fb) - BTS) - Knorda also figuratively captured the heart of the Asgardian trickster god Loki, who hoped that the two of them might rule together.

(Journey into Mystery I#109/2 (fb) - BTS) - The Mountain Giants went to war with the Asgardian gods.

(Journey into Mystery I#109/2) - Centuries ago, Odin banished Thor from the city of Asgard for fighting a duel against his wishes, Arkin treasonously rushed to Knorda and informed her that Thor would be passing on a mountain trail by himself, hoping that she would find him worthy of her love. Knorda acknowledged the information (realizing that eliminating Thor would mark the death knell for Asgard), but told Arkin that they would discuss their plans for each other after Thor had been dealt with.
Soon the Mountain Giants ambushed Thor, who fled into a narrow canyon pass into a walled-off valley then escaped through a a cave too small for the giants to fit. Thor followed the cave up through the top of the canyon and met with Odin and his army, revealing they had planned this to expose a suspected traitor. Arkin was thus exposed, while the Mountains Giants, including Knorda were trapped and forced to surrender. Ignoring Arkin's explanation that he didn't know of the trap, Knorda offered Odin her sword, asking him to be generous in victory.

(Domination Factor: Avengers#2.4) - Odin sent Thor to bring him Knorda (to favor her request) and Arkin (to punish him for his treason).

(Domination Factor: Avengers#3.6 (fb)) - Somehow betraying the Mountain Giants, Knorda earned Odin's mercy. He banished her to Midgard (Earth) as a mortal, but gave her one of Idunn's golden apples, cut into nine sections to represent the nine worlds of Asgard, though Knorda was now an outcast to all save one of these worlds. Knorda ate one of the slices, but kept the other eight to remind her of her folly in making war on Asgard; Odin transformed the other slices into pure gold so they would not be affected by time. Odin instructed her to try to rule on Earth with a velvet glove, rather than an iron gauntlet. Thanking Odin for his mercy, Knorda departed, hoping to one day be deemed worthy of returning to Asgard.

(Domination Factor: Avengers#4.8 (fb) - BTS) - Odin had imbued the Golden Apple with the mystical power to establish a new kingdom on Earth.

(Domination Factor: Avengers#3.6 (fb)) - Before she could depart Asgard, Knorda was ambushed by a pair of vengeance-seeking Mountain Giants (apparently notified of her journey by Loki). Thor (at the time possessed by his future / modern era self) saved Knorda and directed her to the bridge to Midgard, but she dropped a piece of the golden apple in the struggle. Thor retrieved the slice, but as he did so his future self (along with the apple slice) was pulled out of the physical plane. Rendered vulnerable by the sudden de-possession, the young Thor fell victim to the assault of the Mountain Giants, who beat him furiously. Loki then appeared, transforming the two Mountain Giants into wood, while Hela arrived to claim Thor for her realm. Idunn appeared and tried to save Thor by feeding him a few seeds from her golden apples, but Hela claimed Thor's soul anyway, and Thor's body was instead bound into a tree that grew around it, depriving Odin of giving his son a warrior's funeral.

(Domination Factor: Fantastic Four#4.7 (fb) - BTS) - With Loki's aid and via the power of the Golden Apple, Knorda ruled the entire world -- a world that lacked any super heroes -- through her globe-spanning company, Praxis.
This was an altered reality, transforming and/or merging with the previously existing Reality-8921.

(Domination Factor: Fantastic Four#4.7) - Though excited by her leadership role, Knorda (still retaining memories from her life in Reality-8921) rightly suspected Loki pursued more than her heart, and he admitted that in this new reality Thor was long dead and that the Avengers and Fantastic Four existed only as hollow, astral exiles.

(Domination Factor: Fantastic Four#4.7 - BTS) - The astral selves of the Avengers and Fantastic Four of Reality-8921, having been outside the timestream at the moment of transformation, entered Reality-1000 and Captain America, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Scarlet Witch, and the Thing sought out their counterparts, possessing them, and the mystic energy of their astral selves imposed a genetic imprint of sorts on their counterparts, granting them the superhuman powers of their Reality-616 counterparts (though they had limited access to them).

(Domination Factor: Fantastic Four#4.7) - Observing as the Avengers and Fantastic Four members gathered to oppose them, Knorda was surprised to learn that Loki knew his foes would attain physical form; but Loki simply told her that their efforts to restore their own reality would be their undoing.

(Domination Factor: Avengers#4.8) - Knorda angered Loki while holding Thor's former helmet as she recalled her past up to her defeat by Thor and Odin, but he then apologized, noting that her memories of her past reality would soon fade. When Loki tried to romance her, Knorda shoved him away, calling him a fool and telling him that he had misjudged her on matters of love. Knorda revealed her time on Earth, and Loki revealed his full motivations for helping her, but she cast him aside, naming Earth as her dominion and refusing to be pawed as one would some serving wench. Her rebuff served only to fan the flame in Loki's heart, but he realized that if he remained she would wrap him around her little finger. Telling her that when the goddess yearned for the company of a god, he would return to her, Loki vanished. Denying she would ever want him, Knorda still sensed Loki's stink clinging to her royal garments, which she began to cast off.
Sue & Johnny Storm and Wanda Maximoff soon arrived to meet with Knorda, who gave them Thor's helmet and told them their quest was hopeless. Preying on Knorda's pride, Sue asked how she could accept the ill-gotten gains from Loki and reminded her that their friend Thor had been wiped from existence. Naming Thor only as the enemy who had previously defeated her, Knorda declared the audience ended, and her roboid servants captured the visitors as she departed.

(Domination Factor: Avengers#4.8 - BTS) - The Vision briefly obtained control of the mainframe, sending temporal coordinate information to Tony Stark and Reed Richards before being cast out by Loki. The energies released in the struggle between Loki and the Vision overloaded and destroyed the roboid servants and some of hte computers. Loki then sent the Harbingers of Everlasting Winter to destroy Richards' trans-time vehicle, but Wanda had the others touch both the vehicle and Thor's helmet, and she used her chaos magic to channel Thor's essence. Despite Loki's interference, Thor took the form of another wooden giant (emerging from the ground presumably via the magic from Idunn's apple seeds) and took both of the Harbingers.

(Domination Factor: Avengers#4.8) - As Loki prepared to summon a plague of termites to devour Thor, Knorda arrived holding the Golden Apple, and she used it to blast Loki from existence. Knorda then boarded the trans-time vehicle and used the Apple to guide it to Asgard of Reality-616. There she merged with her own past self and told of Loki's plot, after which she joined the Apple's power with Odin's and used it to banish Loki's future self and then transform Loki into a tree, telling him that he wouldn't be freed until someone shed a tear for him (noting that Loki would escape and be reinterred thusly many times before the lesson would be imparted on him).
    As the Golden Apple disintegrated, Odin asked Knorda if she wished to have another. Her duty fulfilled, the future Knorda's astral self returned to its own time.
    Passing Loki's astral self as she returned, Knorda told him she would gladly die a hundred mortal deaths than accept favor from man or god.
    Returning to the restored Earth-616 timeline, Nora Queen perished, and as her spirit was accepted by Hela, she announced that at long last her penance on Earth was done. Hela told her that she was going not to Hel, but to Valhalla, where roam the spirits of noble Asgardians.
    Loki acknowledged that this outcome had been foretold by the three fates long ago, but that he had still had to try, and in doing so had amused himself.
    Back on Earth, Stark and Richards discussed Norway's gift to the United States, a statue of Queen Knorda.

The whole transtemporal/trans-reality saga of Knorda is here: Knorda

There are three realities here:

1) Earth-616 which is how things ended up: Knorda-616

2) Reality-1000, where Knorda and Praxis ruled Earth: Knorda-1000

3) Reality-8921, in which most of the series took place (involving the Golden Apple): Knorda-8921

It's hard to sort out altered Realities, but the realities had a common past up to Knorda's defeat by Asgard and Odin sending Knorda to Earth.
In Reality-8921, Knorda obtained the Golden Apples and departed to Earth peacefully before Loki's brigands sacked her and stole the Apple.

On Earth-616 Knorda destroyed the Apple foiling Loki's plot and then traveled to Earth without the Apple.
On close inspection, it would appear that Realities-8921 and -616 are divergent versions, splitting off at the point after Knorda's acceptance of Odin's exile. Reality-1000 would be an altered reality, transformed from -8921 by Loki after he gained the Golden Apple.
Interestingly, though, when Knorda acted to reverse the changes Loki had made, she didn't just revert Reality-1000 back to -8921, but instead diverged -616 from -8921.
Presumably versions of Reality-8921 and -1000 still exist somewhere in the multiverse.

As these were altered and divergent realities, the heroes really shouldn't remember things, but they may hold onto fragments. The realities briefly overlapped.

Knorda's eyes looked green in Journey into Mystery#109, but blue in the Domination Factor. Alternate dimensional variation? Colorist error? Who knows? I'm partially color blind, so maybe I'm just mistaken.

I'm not sure what happened to Knorda in Reality-1000, since it was not seen after Knorda prevented the events that created it in Reality-616, and it was never seen again. Knorda may or may not have aided the Avengers and Fantastic Four in returning to their reality but continued to rule Earth-1000 herself. And though seemingly dead, Loki could have come back for revenge.

images: (without ads)
Domination Factor: Fantastic Four#4.7, p2 (full body Knorda)

Appearances:
Journey into Mystery I#109/2 (October, 1964) - by Stan Lee (writer), Jack Kirby (penciler), and Vince Colletta (inker).
Domination Factor: Fantastic Four#1.1, 2.3, 3.5, 4.7 (November, 1999 - February, 2000) - by Dan Jurgens (script & layouts), Bob McLeod (finished inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Domination Factor: Avengers#1.2, 2.4, 3.6, 4.8 (November, 1999 - February, 2000) - by Jerry Ordway (writer/penciler), Dennis Janke (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)

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