It all goes back to the Norse pantheon's ancient war with the Celestians, which they lost. They, like so many other troublemaking convicts, were shipped south to the Antipodes, where they re-formed as the Ausgardians. But as a provision of that war settlement, the gods were now demoted to hemigods and were not allowed to use their powers on or to physically visit 'Middlinggard'.

The Oldman managed to find a way around this when his firstborn son was born. Donar's power was invested into an enchanted weapon - which was manifested through the Aussie-filter as a baseball bat with a nail in it. As the sticker on the bat specified, whosoever held the bat gained the power of Donar. So when actual-Donar was eventually reincarnated as a normal Australian (which may be a non-sequiteur), Gavan eventually discovered Mjalcolm and came again into his birthright and divine personality - but on Earth. With a few variations and exceptions on the scenario over the years, that's been his situation ever since.

In a no-magic no-Oldmanforce mundane world, the conditions that made Gavan into Donar no longer exist, so Gavan is back to being the version of Donar he was set on Earth as before he had his Mjalcolm transformation.

Meanwhile, Donar had Harlagaz by a non-Ausgardian mother who was quite capable of bearing children on Middlinggard - an earth goddess, if I recall correctly, whose natural state was to be on Earth. Hence Gaz is a demi-hemigod with dual citizenship. But he has never had a "human-only" personality so in the current non-magical mundane world he retains his character and patois but has only the equivalent physical characteristics of a strapping Aussie beach surfer. Over a prolonged period of time he may have lost the Ausgardian accent along with all other knolwledge of Ausgard and other worlds, but fortunately as of our most recent chapter that is no longer a problem.







That very allegorical, extremely coded foundation text was supposedly the call to arms of the Rosicrucian movment, the "Invisible College" that some speculative historians (polite term) like to claim was behind the Renaissance and were key shapers of history. Long back when I wanted an eighteenth-century movement to cover some plot I wanted to set there I decided that there was a lot could be done with them.

Also, at that time in comics, Grant Morrison's "The Invisibles" had just started publication. Since I'd already ripped off Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" it seemed only fair to haul a PV version of the other organisation into play.