I've seen in a lot of bios, talking about those Gods ( Olympians) who have True Immortality, versus Virtual Immortality ( Asgardians), who have extremely long life spans, instead. Except who was the last Asgardian that died of old age?
Back during Simonson's run, Thor met his great grandfather Tiwaz, still very powerful, and in happy retirement in the mountains.
And Zeus, for a true immortal, doesn't look much younger than Odin - at least not Elrond-looking young. This seems like a falsehood. I think either you are immortal, or not.
Not even the Olympians have tru eimmortality. If attacked by a sufficiently powerful force they too can die as stated in their bios. They however dont die from natural causes like the Asgardians eventually do.
Immortality means you don't die of old age; you just keep living, in apparent health. It doesn't mean you can't be killed.
Think of LOTR: The Valar favoured their favourite children, The Elves, with Immortality. They would never die; just grow more beautiful and more wise. But their bodies were made of the earth, and in times of war, they could be slain like any other.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
Immortality doesnt mean that conclusively. Thats one of the definitions and that in itself isnt true immortality. True immortality is where you exist indefinitely whatever happens be it the end of the universe or whatever.
The Elders Of The Universe are Immortal, but were still vunerable to being killed by sufficient force. They were put beyond death by the gamesmenship of The Grandmaster, however. Thanks to a scheme by him, Mistress Death would refuse them and send them back to life, if anything happened. Thanos has a similar marking. Not aware if any of it has been reversed lately.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
true immortality means you cant die no matter what, regardless of how powerful a force you are met with.. the most immediate example would be vandal savage, sinister,thanos, and warlock(not adam warlock).
Virtual immortailty means you will live forever providing you DONT get killed......by a powerful enuff force like deadpool, deathstroke, wolverine and sabretooth...if they just chill they could easily outlive the entire human race.
even tho in bio's the asgardians fall into the "virtual" category im still willing to say that they, and all gods are true immortals,,,why? cuz even if they die their essence is just gonna end up in the realm of whom ever in thier pantheon is god of death...who can turn around and let them go if they want to. so no matter who dies the option to come back ia always there
AOA Sinister was completely destroyed by phoenix (proving that he can be killed) so he should count as virtually immortal.(and if x-men the end is to be believed true , then he only ages very slowly).
well sinister has shown to come back from just a few molecules, just like deadpool has..but virtual immortality wouldnt be all that bad for him either, plus the reason he got there in the frist place is becuase he mucked with his own genes, so who knows, maybe he can engineer away that frailty in his makeup
Ancient myths, depends. The Nords werent and the Olympians in prectically all versions wer. Thats why the big guns when defeated wer imprisioned in Tartarus instead of just dying.
It depends on if you'll defining immortality according to the true concept of what it actually is. What manjaro stated in the first and second examples he/she gave is actually an example of being (1)completely immune to injury, and (2)having endless life.
To be immortal doesn't mean that you can't die by being kill(dead but body or particles of you remain) or destroyed(Annihilation, nothing remains down to the infinitesimal molecule or particle). To be truly immortal, is to have self-sustaining life, the kind of life force that is its own power source.
An immortal being doesn't need/or depend on any created thing to sustain its life essence, no special apples of power, no sun or stars, no food or water, nothing. There is nothing that sustains them or powers them except they themselves, they can breathe, talk in any environment.
People with everlasting life(perfect humans) wouldn't age, once they've reached full adulthood and don't get sick and die, but can definitely be killed just as an imperfect human would be killed, it would just take longer for them to die because of having a stronger-tougher body but still they would have human-level durability. Having immortality, means being a lot more than long-lived, whether you have a physical or spiritual body.
Most beings in comics that are long-lived and called immortal, just have a form of resistance to death/injury combined with near-endless or everlasting life that is based on the writer's understanding of
Immortality is a special gift that comes directly from God. The holy angels are not even immortal, they are spirit beings who are higher than and far more powerful than anything in the physical realm but they don't have self-sustaining life. Angels depend on God for life in the same manner as we human do, they just are higher forms of life, since they are spirit beings with spirit bodies just like God.
Jesus, was given immortality by God, after remaining faithful and accomplishing all God required of him, here on earth. A limited number of others, like his faithful apostles are spoken of in the Bible as being resurrected to heavenly life and given this special gift of self-sustaining life.
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Dec 23rd, 2005 05:27 PM
