HECATE

Real Name: Unknown

Identity/Class: Extraterrestrial (race unknown)

Occupation: Scientist

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Warhawk;
Formerly the Elementals

Enemies: The Elementals, Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile

First Appearance: Ms. Marvel I#11 (November, 1977)

Powers: Hecate seems to have some sort of psionic ability to channel energy, fire explosive rays and turn her thoughts into mass. She can conjure up the worst fears of her foes into their real life solid counterparts. She also has an especially long life and seems to have ceased aging.

History: (Ms. Marvel I#11-13) - Hecate was an exceptionally long-lived being who was confused with the Olympian goddess Hecate and who for reasons of her own continued to pose as the goddess. After rescuing the Elementals -- Hydron, Magnum, Hellfire and Zephyr -- from space, she learned they were seeking a powerful ruby scarab and went to stop them. Ms Marvel, acting on a preminition of her friend Salia Petrie's death on a space shuttle, encountered them. Thinking she was after the scarab as well, Hecate and Ms Marvel clashed as the Elementals found it and used it to levitate a small island and fling it on top of the feuding females. Hecate blasted it with one mind beam, but the blast also killed Salia Petrie as Ms Marvel had predicted. Realizing that Ms Marvel only cared for her friend, Hecate and the heroine teamed up against the Elementals and defeated them. Ms Marvel, however, regressed into Carol Danvers and took the scarab to use it against Hecate. But the scarab merged the personalites of Danvers and Ms Marvel and she forgave Hecate, who took the scarab to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

Comments: Created by Chris Claremont & Sal Buscema

Pretty much a let down as an appearance. Not only does Danvers give in too easily, but Marvel cheats the reader by not making Hecate the Olympian goddess she is supposed to be. Marvel has already established the Olympian gods as major participants in the MU, what did they hope to establish by not making this Hecate the actual goddess is anyone's guess.

Since the Eternals have been masquerading as the Olympians for centuries, it's probably likely that this Hecate is also an Eternal, though perhaps not an Earth Eternal. She has several powers and things in common with Sersi, the Eternal who masqueraded as Circe in ancient times.
--Both of the above points are true -- however, the fact that Hecate was mistaken for an Olympian goddess does not mean that she was mistaken for another person, who would have been the Hecate from mythology. It is possible that in the MU, there was never an Olympian goddess named Hecate, but just the woman from this profile who deliberately led others to believe that she was a goddess. I'm not saying I agree with this, or have any evidence to support it, but I'm just trying to present all options. This issue is undefined -- and likely to remain that way--Snood.

Anyway, the mythological Hecate, whoever she is, was invoked for power by Clea in the spell that created Ardina, in the Order#4.

A mini-profile of the mythological Hecate follows.

• Real Name: Hecate
• Identity/Class: Titan, Olympian Goddess
• Occupation: Goddess of the underworld and witchcraft
• Known Relatives: Perses (father), Asteria (mother), Leto (maternal aunt), Apollo, Artemis (cousins), Crius, Coeus (grandfathers), Eurybia, Phoebe (grandmothers), Scylla (daughter by Phorcys)
• History: Hecate was one of the few Titans to remain in power after Zeus conquered Olympus. As an underworld goddess, she was convinced she was to rule the underworld as wife to Hades but was offended when he abducted Persephone to be his bride. She retaliated by becoming a goddess of the occult and showing off the secrets of the dead to the world's first witches. Her mortal priestess, Eidyia, had several children by King Aeetes of Colchis -- one of whom, Medea, became one of her most devout followers, but learned much of her own magic from the goddess Circe herself.
• In some versions of Greek mythology, this Hecate is the mother of Circe--Snood.

by William Uchtman

Clarifications: Hecate should not be confused with:

• Erishkigel, Deviant explorer who used this alias, @ Thor I#284
• Hecate, one of Daimon Hellstrom's steeds, @ Marvel Spotlight I#12
• Hecate, of Bishop's timeline founder of the XSE, @ XSE#1
  
• as discussed above, the connection between the mythological Hecate and the extra-terrestrial scientist Hecate is uncertain.
  If they are not the same character, than the mythological Hecate has yet to appear in the MU.