Norse and Greek mythology, especially, are depicted with some frequency in movies, books, comics, and television. It's reasonable to wonder how closely their representation in pop culture media represents their traditional mythology.
So far, it seems like these can be on-topic, good questions, and be well-received by the community).
And some of them aren't so well received.
What makes a good question of this type?
Looking at how these are going, here is what I think:
The question should still be answerable if all references to pop culture sources were removed.
I'm not saying you should remove them. Those references are great for clarifying and establishing context. But you should be able to remove them easily, and still be left with a clear, answerable question. They should be treated as clarifying material, not as the meat of the question.
Remember who your talking to. The people in this community are expected to be knowledgeable about mythology, not comic books or video games. Don't assume we know about Marvel's Thor. Don't assume we know about "God of War", or "Age of Mythology", or the new "Clash of the Titans" movie, or even the old "Clash of the Titans" movie. If you are asking about a film, you need to be the film expert.
Pretend you are asking this guy*:
Not this guy:
Looking at some examples of questions of this sort:
Is Mjolnir actually capable of flying back into Thor's hand like a boomerang after being thrown? The question is right there in the title, it's clear and answerable. The images are helpful, but not really necessary. Nothing that relies on the reader knowing about Thor in the comic books.
Was Poseidon actually jealous of Zeus? Again, the title asks the real question directly. All the stuff about "Age of Mythology" provides some context for the question, but it could easily be removed.
Was the Mjölnir usable by only the worthy? This is mostly good, but does rely on how you define worthy. It relies on Marvel's definition of worthy, and I don't know what that is.
https://mythology.stackexchange.com/questions/238/which-properties-of-thor-from-marvel-comic-books-are-true This fails the test. It asks the reader to fill in the blanks about character traits, powers, and physical appearance of Marvel's Thor. I don't know, and I don't really care to. This isn't the right pool of experts to expect that body of knowledge. (Also too broad)
https://mythology.stackexchange.com/questions/9/how-accurate-is-the-mythology-in-the-game-age-of-mythology Same here. The question assumes the reader knows the plot and structure of "Age of Mythology". (Also too broad)
This one confuses me a bit:
* : I don't actually know who this guy is. Just a tweedy, bookish-looking character, as far as I know.
I personally think that these questions should all be off-topic.
Stack Exchange sites are supposed to attempt to attract experts, and my guess is that mythology experts would rather answer questions about mythology than questions about a comic book. Artists frequently take artistic liberties, and attempting to stay true to stories written a long time ago is rarely one of their goals. I can't see how questions based on what is essentially fan-fiction would be interesting to someone studying ancient cultures.
