Kelda (Earth-616)

Kelda
Name	Kelda
Aliases	Kelda Stormrider
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Asgardians, Bill (husband)
Marital Status	Married
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Female
Height	6′3″ (1.91 m)
Weight	400 lbs (181.44 kg)
Eyes	Irises: Blue
Hair	Blond
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Deity
Living Status	Deceased
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	Asgard
Personal Information
Identity	No Dual
Citizenship	Asgard
Occupation	Goddess of winter storms
Creators and Appearances
Creators	J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel
First	Thor (Vol. 3) #6 (February, 2008)
First	Thor (Vol. 3) #6 (February, 2008)
Death	Mighty Thor Vol 1 11
Death	Mighty Thor Vol 1 11

 From this day, let my wrath be my life! From this day, let death be my lover, my patron, my soul! Never will I rest until Loki lies as dead as he whose love was the purest I have ever known! Let the word go out to Loki, wherever he may hide. Let him know that Kelda Stormrider seeks his life, and will not rest until that debt is paid! 

—Kelda

History

File:1211256-birds and fishes002.jpg

Kelda kisses Bill

Kelda is one of the many Asgardians who Thor resurrected after the Ragnarok Cycle. While the rest of her people are content to sit within Asgard and live out old glories, the golden-haired goddess instead seeks out new experiences within Midgard. Upon being returned to life, she traveled into the nearby town of Broxton, Oklahoma, stopping at Bill's Diner where she attracted the attention of one of the mortal residents, Bill, the local fry cook.

Kelda invited Bill to meet her in Asgard. Bill musters up the courage to answer Kelda's standing invitation to visit Asgard, and drops by. He brings her flowers which he bought on the way, though the attempt to deliver them just ends with her getting hit in the face with a rock. She shows him around Asgard, while the two flirt playfully, and he tries to explain basketball to the Asgardian males.

Kelda's powers

In time, Bill and Kelda fall in love with one another, to the extent that Bill leaves his home and business in Broxton to move to Latveria together, along with the other Asgardians. For Kelda, Bill's curiosity about the world around him and his sense of justice are some of his greatest qualities, and one of the reasons she fell in love with him. While in Latveria, some unruly Asgardians hassle Bill and goad him into a fight. Before Bill can enter the fight, Kelda arrives with an ice spear she summoned from the ongoing storm. She uses to break the Asgardians' weapons and then gives it to Bill. She says it is poison and one scratch is capable of killing an Asgardian. The Asgardians flee and Bill says he is going to investigate the recent move of Asgard to Latveria from Oklahoma. Tragically, however, Bill is murdered when he stumbles upon a conspiracy by Loki and Doctor Doom to harvest the organs of the Asgardians in order to give the armor-clad despot the secrets of immortality, but not before informing Balder of Loki's treachery and asking him to inform Kelda of his love for her. Seeing her mortal love dead before her, Kelda swears vengeance on Loki and travels to Castle Doom to confront him. Instead she meets Doctor Doom, who goads her into a fight. Blasting Doom with a bolt of lightning reveals him to be nothing more than a Doombot. Following a trail, she ventures deep into the castle and falls straight into his trap. Doom rips her heart out and leaves her body on the floor.

Thor and the other Asgardians are in Latveria, come to punish Doom for the the wrongs done to the people of Asgard. During the battle, Doom throws the corpse of Kelda from his castle. However, Loki appears and claims he knows how to save Kelda. But in order to do so, Loki says he needs someone to recover her heart. While Thor is fighting Doom, Balder retrieves the heart and brings it to Loki who is able to bring her back to life. While alive, Kelda is torn with heartfelt grief as Bill is not, saying that "what Kelda has is not life."

Later, Kelda goes to visit Bill's parents in Broxton, Oklahoma, to inform them of their son's fate. Suddenly, the house is surrounded by H.A.M.M.E.R. soldiers who demand the "criminal combatant" to surrender herself. Kelda leaves the house and the soldiers open fire on her. While Bill's father tries to reason with the soldiers, Bill's mother talks with Kelda bringing her back to her senses, since she hadn't intended to fight back. Kelda heals the wounds and rises up in the air, raining lightning down on the soldiers and freezes them solid.

After the Siege, Kelda is shown by a Valkyrie that Bill has been chosen to live in Valhalla but her love denies her entry since the "dead and the living can love but not be together". Kelda states they will find a way to make it work since they were able to form a bond between goddess and mortal as well.

Later, it is revealed that when Loki was tending to her during the battle against Doom, he met her upon an astral plane, explaining to her that he required a raw ingot of her empathic soul to forge the blade Eir-Gram, to cut the old enemies of Asgard and serve as their bane, the feared cannibalistic Disir, when nothing else could, as well as leaching the memories from her mind in an attempt to ease her inner pain; however, Loki also tells her that this would prevent her from growing emotionally, and that she would remain emotionally as she was, her agony and anguish bound. Loki's last words to Kelda were, "But if the memories ever return, know this: I'm sorry, Kelda. If I could, I would make the sacrifice myself...but purity of spirit was never amongst my virtues." Kelda later went slowly insane due to Bill's death and Loki's tampering with her memories and soul, and tried to kill Balder before her soul was purified by Thor.

She later wandered in the wilderness and was taken up by Norns to fulfill the role as the "Maiden" to ease her pain and obtain closer contact to Bill in Valhalla. However, she was betrayed by the Crone who was actually Karnilla in disguise who beat her to death with a rock. Her soul later reunited with Bill in Valhalla and they shared a tender kiss at the reunion. She was later shown to have married Bill while they were in Valhalla together and were seen in various future battles as souls fighting on behalf of Asgard.

Attributes

Power Grid

Powers

As an Asgardian, Kelda possesses conventional superhuman abilities of an Asgardian female, or "goddess." She is extremely long-lived (though not immortal like the Olympian gods), aging at an extraordinarily slow rate upon reaching adulthood. She is immune to all terrestrial diseases and resistant to conventional injury. Her Asgardian metabolism gives her superhuman endurance in all physical activities. However, on Midgard, all Asgardians are physically weaker and more vulnerable than on their native plane; their natural magical power is also somewhat reduced.

• Superhuman Speed: Able to move at the speed of sound itself, she traveled in storm clouds and appeared to levitate while not actually in the cloud.
• Superhuman Strength: Her Asgardian flesh and bone is about three times denser than similar human tissue, contributing to the her superhuman strength and weight. She has durability great enough for her to withstand the impact of bullets from such firearms with minimal injury.
• Sorcery: In addition, Kelda is numbered among the few Asgardians whom have developed their innate mystical talents, her "magics" able to give Asgard warning if any enemy approached it from beyond. According to Kelda, "born was I from light and sky, of sunrises and wind." She also utilized an enchanted wooden staff, likely to help focus and magnify her inherent mystical abilities, but it is shattered when Kelda's heart is torn out by the Doom-controlled Destroyer. Loki describes her as "high among us" to Thor and Balder, and that thus, Kelda's life flickers within her still some time after even the removal of her heart, and she could fully recover if her heart is retrieved and placed back in time.
  • Weather Manipulation: She claims that she controls "the wind and the storm". When she discovered Bill's death, she revealed her name to be Kelda Stormrider and demonstrated the power of flight, turning the lower portion of her body into a twister of snow and clouds. She also displayed some level of storm manipulation, causing it to rain when she confronts Doom, and blasting him with celestial lightning from the skies. After declaring vengeance on Loki and Doom, her form changes and it begins to glow brightly, just like it did during her and Bill's first nighttime encounter. Kelda shows herself capable of freezing mortals solid and projecting multiple bolts of lightning simultaneously from herself at will powerful enough to destroy highly advanced firearms
  • Poisonous: She can summon a poisoned ice spear from a storm deadly enough to slay three warrior Asgardians with but one scratch. Her own tears were also described as being poisonous for ingestion.

Abilities

• Allspeak: Thanks to the Allspeak she can communicate in all of the languages of the Nine Realms, Earth's dialects, and various alien languages.

See Also

• 35 appearance(s) of Kelda (Earth-616)
• 1 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Kelda (Earth-616)
• 1 minor appearance(s) of Kelda (Earth-616)
• 1 mention(s) of Kelda (Earth-616)
• 2 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Kelda (Earth-616)
• 5 image(s) of Kelda (Earth-616)
• 2 quotation(s) by or about Kelda (Earth-616)