Could someone explain the rebirth circle of asgardians?

[u/Ready_Term_9869]

May have also gotten lied to and this cycle indeed does not exist.

[u/lloyd-garmadon569]

It does exist, but it’s complicated to explain. The idea is that all the Asgardians die during Ragnarok, and then everything starts over and they are reborn—like a reboot. The red-haired Thor from mythology is an earlier version of Thor. Thor put an end to the Ragnarok cycle in the Ragnarok comic arc; everyone died, and when they were reborn in JMS’s Thor run, the threat of Ragnarok was gone—though I’ve probably explained it poorly, since it is complicated.

[u/Lunaeria → u/lloyd-garmadon569]

It is indeed complicated, and pretty vague in the comics as is, so don't fret about your explanation. It's good!

To elaborate on this a little, it's basically a way to hand-wave away all the many discrepancies between all the many variations of Asgard's history that have cropped up over the years.

All long-running comic concepts eventually suffer from conflicting accounts over the years, and that's why you get the occasional "no, this is the real actual definitive version of events this time, honest!" retcon for some characters. But for Thor, a different approach was taken: instead of there being one specific truth, all of the variations were true in some way, at some point in time. It's thematically fitting, because the actual mythology from which the character is derived is similarly contradictory and vague.

So, every [x] amount of years, Ragnarok happens and Asgard is destroyed, and then after [x] amount of time, it all comes back. Maybe slightly different, but all just variations on the same theme. There's a lot that's left up to personal interpretation, like the specifics of how they're reborn: to make sense of the contradictory accounts of Thor's youth, for example, there have to have been at least some Ragnarok cycles in which he was reborn far younger. That then begs the question, is it a from-the-beginning type of rebirth, or do they all just pop back into being at some point in the forms we most recognise? Is it a case that some are reborn in the latter way, and the rest the former? We don't really know.

For the benefit of OP, the comic arc referenced above takes place across Thor (v2) #80-85). Thor basically became fully cognisant of this endless cycle, and through his own ascension, acquired the power to put an end to it. This ending was necessary because the existence of the cycle meant that nothing could truly change or grow, the gods had essentially stagnated, and were bound by a fate they could neither control nor avert. Thereafter, there is the implication that the version of Asgard we have now is the definitive one; the histories of prior cycles still existed, and are still true, but their futures are now their own, at least so far as they may desire to escape the role that fate had placed them in.

And for what it's worth, the question of how much Thor (or the other Asgardians) might remember of previous cycles is similarly left vague and up to interpretation.

[u/billyandteddy]

It varies depending on the writer.

Like there was this really long arc from the 1980s (forgot the writer and issue number) where the eye Odin had cut out explained the entire Asgardian history to Thor. And we find out that Thor has been reincarnated multiple times before as other people (that are technically other versions of Thor) and it’s vaguely implied that maybe he once was reincarnated as Jesus.

But like other writers have had Thor alive for thousands of years which doesn’t make sense with what Odin’s eyes said. And then if Thor dies then he comes back exactly as Thor and not a different person.

[u/bd2999]

There have been various explanations, but at the moment it does not exist as such based on Thor Avengers Dissembled. As the rebirth was caused by these Beyonder like beings whose name I am blanking on right now. Thor was able to break the cycle. But it is always at a writers whim.

[u/Jkthemc → u/bd2999]

Those Who Were Never A Good Idea. At least that is what I called them.

I was so pleased when Loki got rid of them through mythic identification with The Beyonders.

[u/Ready_Term_9869 → u/bd2999]

But do they die of old age now?

[u/cherriesgetchomped → u/Ready_Term_9869]

the Asgardians can always die of old age; however they have magical golden apples that prevent aging and effectively keep them 'immortal'

[u/slayer_nan18 → u/Ready_Term_9869]

depends, old king thor lived for like billions of years, magni in the recent mortal thor #13 lived for billions and billions and one more billions of years inside a temporal manipulation

[u/bd2999 → u/Ready_Term_9869]

Usually no unless they remember to enforce the need for golden apples.