I am not very familiar with Thor outside of the movies. The movies basically treat Asgardians as the "ancient alien theory" where the "gods" that ancient mankind worshiped were really aliens. The beginning of Thor: The Dark World also has a scene with Odin and Loki that says they live a mortal life like humans, except that their lifespan is several thousand years. Are the Asgardians in the comics like this too? Ancient Aliens and not actually gods?

Gods, in my reading experience. Granted the peak of my reading was during the Bronze Age.

Can't they be both?

They are illegal either way and should be deported back to Asgard. Taking crime fighting and world saving away from American superheroes.

But then again, the evil Asgardians such as Loki and the enchantress chick from Agents of SHIELD give American crimefighters work.

The movies also have the dark elves piloting spaceships and Asgard having gun turrets and flying skiffs, while the comic version (unless it's changed drastically) has always been depicted as old school fantasy. In any case, I don't think they come from Earth (or this dimension) so I guess they can be considered aliens either way. The movieverse (and cartoon-verse) tends to look at "magic" as science that is so far advanced we can't explain it, but I can't remember Thor or any Asgardian being able to decipher even current technology... it's not like, say, the New Gods with Motherbox.


In Earth X, I think they turned out to be some mutation of aliens who were shaped by the beliefs of those around them, but I doubt that's in current continuity or anything.

Yeah, the spaceships/gun turrets reminded me of Star Wars/Trek. It's a really odd mix. The Asgardians have medieval style swords and shields, but they also have this very futuristic stuff too.

Asgard is a different realm from Earth. Isn't Earth part of the Midgard realm? Then there is Jotunheim, the frost giant realm, in the first movie, and Svnirfhelm, the dark elf realm, in the second movie. Thor says there are nine realms in total. I'm not sure what the others are since I only know the ones mentioned in the movies.

In classic Marvel continuity (actual comic books, not Hollywood fluff meant to appease modern audiences) they were the actual Norse Gods. The modern Marvel filmverse has been pretty staunch about eliminating any kind of fantasy or mythological aspect from their superheroes. Making them advanced Aliens that just look human allows everything to be simple sci-fi.

Hollywood has a real aversion to packaging supernatural fantasy elements into their comic book properties. Almost all of their recent movies have done everything possible to strip it out of the characters when possible.

It will be interesting to see how WB treats Wonder Woman, the ultimate mythological superhero. There are rumors they are going to scuttle her fantasy origins for the idea Amazonians are Kryptonian descendents, the real source of her powers. Hollywood feels much more comfortable hammering their blockbusters into sci-fi tropes.

What everyone else said.

Although:

They're galiens.

Not to be confused with gayliens, which is something else entirely.