Hela was allegedly the daughter of the Asgardian god of mischief, Loki, and of the sorceress giantess Angerboda.
The three Asgardian goddesses of fate, the Norns, are said to have warned the Asgardian gods that Hela would prove to be a great danger to them. Odin, the ruler of Asgard, decreed that Hela would become the goddess and ruler of the spirits of the dead on the day of her maturity. These spirits were in the other-dimensional realms of Hel and Niffleheim, two more of the Nine Worlds, both of which Hela ruled. However, Odin himself directly ruled the souls of Asgardians and their human worshippers who died in battle as heroes and had the palace of Valhalla built in a distant section of Asgard to house them.
During World War II, Hela's mind was controlled by the Nazis and she was forced to fight the Invaders.
For ages, Hela sought to bring more Asgardian souls under her control, and especially longed to possess the souls of Odin and his son, Thor; however, during their first meeting, when Thor offered his own life in exchange for that of Lady Sif, who was a prisoner of Hela, the goddess was impressed by the young thunder god's nobility and let both of them go.
When Harokin died, the Asgardians prepared his body to be collected by the Stallion of Doom. They all gathered to await the arrival of Hela to escort him off to Valhalla.
When Thor appeared to have been killed by Wrecker, his body was then visited by Hela, who had come to claim his soul. However, before she could give Thor her killing touch, his still-living body projected an astral image that stayed her hand. He then reclaimed his body to defeat the Wrecker.
When Lady Sif was injured in battle, she and Thor were visited by Hela who has come to take Sif to Valhalla. Thor refused to allow Hela to take his lover, and when Hela attempted to entice Thor into joining the warriors of the dead in Valhalla, he refused even when he was beckoned by his old foe Harokin to join them. Upon refusal, Hela departed, leaving Thor to contemplate the situation.
Hela stole a piece of Odin's soul while he was on the Sea of Eternal Night. This created the powerful entity called Infinity. Hela then unleashed it upon the Nine Realms. Infinity came to Odin and took over his body. Hela killed Thor, but he was restored to life by the sacrifice to the Silent One. Hela was then slain by Odin to save Thor, but was restored to life; as there needed to be a natural balance of life and death. Hela later managed to kill Thor by putting humans in danger, but restored him to life after Lady Sif offered to die in his place.
Hela battled with the Olympian Pluto, the lord of Hades, for the right to claim Odin's soul after Odin was slain by the monstrous creature Mangog; however, Hela eventually restored Odin to life to stop Pluto from claiming him.
Hela met Thor again when he traveled to Niffleheim in search of Odin. Once there, Thor was confronted by the legions of the Einherjar. Thor tried to reach Odin, only to learn it was Grombar, not Odin. Hela then let Thor leave unmolested from her realm.
Working with Loki, the pair tried to begin Ragnar�k, the Asgardian apocalypse, by killing Balder and then attacking Asgard. Hela summoned Volla's spirit to advise them on how to start Ragnar�k, after which she sent a horde of monsters to attack Asgard. The plan was thwarted when Odin was able to use his power to save Balder's life.
The Defenders helped Hela battle Ollerus and his army in Valhalla.
Hela was later forced to join a conspiracy of Loki and Tyr against Odin.
Hela met with Hell-Lords in Hades. They have decided to merge their respective realms, thus increasing their power, and to begin taking in new souls. They performed a ritual creating the nexus of the netherworlds. Unfortunately, this also summoned the Demogorge, who began consuming the Hell-Lords one by one. Odin and Thor arrived to defeat the Demogorge, releasing all its captives.
Hela sent the Wolflings to instigate a war between Queen Jolena and Uthar. She later came to Asgard to claim Odin's soul but was driven off by Thor.
Hela trapped Thor and the Warriors Three in an idyllic paradise, with their loved ones all around, leading them off. But when Thor saw Sif and she spoke words of love, he knew the truth: that they were leading the Einherjar to their deaths, and the image of Sif changed to that of Hela herself. Thor challenged Hela to combat; if he won, they all go free; if she won, Thor was hers forever. During their bout, Hela slashed Thor's face. Writhing in agony, he managed one last feat, tearing Hela's cloak from her. Thor discovered her secret: her cloak is the key to her power, and without it, she was a half-decayed corpse with no power at all. Hela relented, and Thor led them all out of Hel.
Hela next met the mutant heroes known as the X-Men and New Mutants in Asgard. She appeared to claim Wolverine's soul, but Danielle Moonstar was able to drive her off.
For untold ages, Hela had directed the construction of a gigantic ship, Naglfar, said to be made of the fingernails of the dead. Hela planned that when Naglfar was finished, she would send an army of Draugr in it to Asgard to destroy the gods. However, Naglfar was destroyed by the Asgardian hero Executioner as it neared completion.
Hela once cast a curse on Thor which prevented him from healing any wounds and also prevented his death. After many battles and untold amounts of pain, Thor, reduced to pulp by a battle with the Midgard Serpent, entered Hela's realm within the armor of the Destroyer. The Destroyer's power proved too much for Hela, and she restored Thor's health and removed her curse. The Destroyer remained in Hela's realm to remind her of her defeat.
Hela later battled against Mephisto when he attempted to gain Thor's soul.
When Odin went into the Odinsleep, Hela used this as a chance to gain power. She corrupted the Valkyries by turning them into Fire Demons. At the time, Danielle Moonstar, of the New Mutants was also a member and was set against her friends. Danielle and her team traveled to Asgard, where Hela sent the Valkyries against the Dwarves and New Mutants.
They battled with Hela's forces and rescued Hrimhari, the Wolf-Prince. Hela forced Eitri the Dwarf King to forge an Uru sword. One of Hela's spells split the group, but this only helped them find more recruits, such as the Warriors Three, to help fight with them. Hela sent Danielle to slay Odin while he slept. While the battle raged, the young heroes snuck to Odin's very bedchamber and saved the All-father's life. She was defeated when the Uru sword was destroyed.
After Ragnar�k, Hela was awakened by Thor from her mortal guise, albeit due to Loki's machinations. She began living in Las Vegas, maintaining a lair where she could feed on the souls of random unlucky people, joining her powers with those of Loki to enable him to travel back in time and prompt Odin to adopt him as a child, fulfilling the penultimate step of his mastermind plan against Thor. Quasimodo researched Hela along with nearly two hundred other anti-heroes and villains, revealing his knowledge of her current whereabouts and the loss of Hel and Niffleheim to Osborn. He suggested that, while the goddess herself seldom took an interest in mortal affairs, he believed she could be persuaded by Loki to support their agenda if needed.
She attended a meeting with Mephisto, Blackheart, Satannish, and Dormammu about a disturbance created by the newly resurrected Magik, who was looking for the Soulsword and the original Bloodstone Amulet. Belasco's daughter, Witchfire, appeared during the meeting and revealed she was now the current owner of the original amulet and vowed to take her father's place as ruler of Limbo and a seat at their table.
Danielle Moonstar met with Hela at the Inferno Club of Las Vegas, asking her for a boon, though one not coming for free, which gave her a sword and a new ride home, thus allowing her to defeat Ares during Norman Osborn's attack on The X-Men in San Francisco.
When Selene attacked the X-Men's new sanctuary Utopia, Asgardian wolf-prince Hrimhari called upon Hela, offering his soul to save the life of X-Men healer Elixir, so that he could, in turn, save Hrimhari's pregnant lover, Rahne Sinclair.
During the Siege of Asgard, numerous Asgardian warriors perished. Without a Hel to go to, their souls would remain wandering in Midgard, at the mercy of the Disir, a group of cannibalistic exiled Valkyries cursed to only be able to feast on the spirits of the dead, as long as they weren't in Asgard or Hel. Hela initially believed their existence to be a myth, until proven otherwise by Loki. Now with a true need of a Hel, Hela was willing to bargain whatever was necessary for a territory of her own again.
By giving the D�sir he had captured to Mephisto, Loki brokered a deal with the Hell-Lord, in which part of Mephisto's Realm, from the Peninsula of Perfidy to the Gully of Hubris, would be Hela's to govern for one-thousand-and-one years. With Ragnar�k passed, an Asgardian's only destiny was a place in Hela's halls. For Loki's part in the bargain, it was considered a destiny he no longer shared, and he was erased from the Book of Hel.
Danielle Moonstar was then called upon by Hela to return her boon by once again becoming a Valkyrie, this time in service of Hela and ushering Asgardians killed during the Siege into Hela's new realm.
Hela continued to operate and prey upon the weak in Las Vegas. When her servant, Pip the Troll, escaped with a pendant rendering him invisible to her, she hired X-Factor Investigations to locate him, which they did successfully.
Jamie Madrox, upon discovering Hela's intent, sent X-Factor to Las Vegas to rescue him, which they accomplish with help from Thor. During the subsequent battle, Madrox maneuvered adaptive teammate Darwin in the way of Hela's killing touch. Due to Darwin's involuntary mutant ability to evolve to save his life, he became a male version of Hela, matching her powers equally. He then ripped off her essential green cloak, forcing her to revert to her true, half-decayed form, leaving her vulnerable to the attacks of the undead Asgardians now free of her control.
Down but not out, Hela resurfaced again to thwart X-Factor when Rahne finally gave birth to Hrimhari's child, Tier. In the final stages of the pregnancy, the infant became the target of numerous godlike and undead beings eager to either use or destroy it for their own ends, and Hela was no exception. When the child was born, an exhausted and traumatized Rahne, having been captured by Hela's brother Agamemnon, cast him away, traumatized by her own child. Hela took this opportunity to reach out to and raise the child herself but was immediately attacked by the hordes of feral undead wanting to do likewise. In the aftermath of the battle, the child was nowhere to be found, until he was rescued by Werewolf by Night, who had helped Rahne earlier that day.
The still hungry D�sir attacked Hela's new Hel because it wasn't the true Hel they had been banished from, and the Queen of Hel tried to protect her realm using the sword Eir-Gram, but she failed and had her hand sliced off brutally in the process. After being easily overwhelmed and not having enough power to counter the D�sir, Hela absorbed the dead into her body and created a fortress to protect herself. Through the corpse of a recently-deceased Asgardian, Hela sought Thor's aid, and with the help of Thor and Tyr, they managed to slay and banish the remaining D�sir, whose souls were claimed by Mephisto.
When the Serpent stormed Midgard and planned on destroying Odin, he tried to ally himself with Hela. The reborn Loki informed Mephisto, who was Hela's landlord of sorts, and the Hell-Lord confronted Hela, ready to invade Hel if he needed to. Loki interfered once again, after discovering that the Serpent had been calling for an uprising in Hel, and convinced Hela and Mephisto to strike a deal. Seven of Mephisto's D�sir would police Hel against the promised uprising, and Hela would neither move against Hell nor towards the Serpent, and to Loki's need, she pledged her two closest servants, Tyr and her young handmaid Leah, so they could help Loki against the Serpent.
After the defeat of the Serpent, the D�sir returned to Mephisto, and Loki informed the All-Mothers of Asgardia that Hela feared that the slight whim of Mephisto could send them against her. The All-Mothers were then convinced not to let the death of the souls of Asgardians at the hands of the D�sir be a possibility, and they lifted Hela's curse, allowing her to return to the true Hel. Leah remained with Loki, as the young trickster still had other promises he had to fulfill.
Loki accomplished the final task he had to fulfill, fixing Hela's hand, when he helped Master Wilson overthrow the Otherworld. Loki arranged for Hela to drink from the Holy Grail, and her hand was restored; however, Hela's hand returned at the expense of Leah's life, who was, after all, Hela's handmaiden.
Leah returned to Loki's life in the form of a creation of Loki himself that the trickster had written into history to defeat the Serpent. When the young trickster had his hours counted as the result of a scheme created by the echo of his elder self, Loki arranged for Hela to banish Leah to the ancient past, in order to protect her from this echo, who was to take over his body. After banishing Leah, Hela hinted at the possibility that she was none other than the grown-up Leah.
Hela and the Hell-Lords next battled X-Factor, and Tier Sinclair became the central mover in a war between the various hell dimensions, as the first to kill him would be crowned King of Hell. After Tier was able to kill Pluto, Mephisto decided that the rules were forfeit and turned his attention to his fellow Hell-Lords. X-Factor became the last line of resistance and fought the seemingly victorious Mephisto. Strong Guy took the opportunity to kill Tier in the chaos, winning the war and becoming the King of Hell.
After Angela, the lost daughter of Odin and Freyja who had been raised among the Angels of the forgotten Tenth Realm, kidnapped her own sister Laussa, Hela was sought by the then unworthy Odinson and his brother Loki to find them. Hela then put the D�sir at their service, and they were able to discover Angela's whereabouts.
With the final incursion drawing near and thus the end of the universe, King Loki made a deal with Hela and Tyr to unleash the resurrected Midgard Serpent, in an attempt to destroy Midgard and thereby save reality. To this end, Hela's Draugr attacked Asgardia; however, Jormungand was defeated when Freyja, the All-Mother, sacrificed her own life to banish it back to Hel.
Reinforced by the Frost Giants of Jotunheim and the Kingdom of Rock Trolls, Hela continued to press the attack but was ultimately defeated when Odin used the Gjallarhorn to summon the fallen Asgardian heroes of the past to be reborn and return to fight in the new Ragnar�k.
Following the destruction of the universe and its eventual restoration, Hela was defeated in battle by Angela, who had passed the three trials required to get the power needed to defeat Hela in her own domain with the aid of an alternate Leah only so she could overthrow Hela, and change the rules of Hel to bring her lover, Sera, back to life. The role of regent of Hel was later passed down to Balder after Angela's abdication.
Disgraced, Hela allied herself with Thanos the Mad Titan to retake her kingdom, a favor he would do if she delivered a Mjolnir from a dead universe to him first. With Black Swan and Proxima Midnight by her side, Hela stole one of the Collector's retrieval shuttles to invade his great vessel, where the hammer was located. Hela ended up leading her allies into a brief fight against Beta Ray Bill and Odinson by mistakenly following the trail that led to Stormbreaker, Beta Ray Bill's hammer, before taking them to the right hammer; only to discover it couldn't be lifted. Hela and her companions of the Black Order were ultimately blasted into deep space by the Odinson when he reached the alternate Mjolnir and harnessed its power to defeat its would-be wielders. Returning to Thanos empty-handed, Hela knocked Black Swan out and killed Proxima Midnight in front of him to prove that she was worthier than them as an ally. She then proceeded to promise him the one thing he desired the most in return for his help: death.
