CTHULHU

Real Name: Unrevealed - presumably sounds similar to Cthulhu to human ears (see comments)

Identity/Class: Class III (extradimensional) demon

Occupation: Priest of the Other Gods/Old Ones

Group Membership: Old Ones/Other Gods

Affiliations: (worshippers via invocations) Cancerverse residents, Charles Palentine (Charles Palene), Reimos, Thoth-Amon, Thulandra Thuu

Enemies: Doctor Stephen Strange and/or Baron Karl Mordo (Earth-20221) (see comments);
   pretty much all humanity except his worshipers

Known Relatives: Khonshu (alleged son), Spawn of Cthulhu (offspring), Nug (parent), Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath (parents), Hastur (sibling), Yeb (Nug's sibling - so uncle or aunt?), Tsathogghua (cousin), Wilbur Whatley, Dunwich Abomination (uncles), Shaurash-Ho (son), Yogash the Ghoul (grandson), K'baa the Serpent (great-grandchild), Ghoth the Burrower (great-great grandchild), Llunwy of Wales, Hippolyte Le Sorcier, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft (distant descendants) (see comments)

Aliases: Ctulhu, Ktuhl

Base of Operations: R'lyeh, somewhere beneath the Pacific Ocean;
   possibly currently trapped in an unidentified container within Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, Manhattan, NYC (see comments)

First Appearance: "The Call of Cthulhu," Weird Tales magazine (February 1928);
   (Marvel, name seen on poster) Avengers I#83 (December 1970);
   (Marvel, mentioned) Savage Sword of Conan I#41 (April 1979)
   (Marvel, illusion of) Moon Knight VIII#191 (March 2018)

Powers/Abilities: Immensely strong, able to regenerate from almost complete bodily destruction within minutes. Able to manipulate the weather.

Height: Unrevealed; "miles high", a "walking mountain"
Weight: Unrevealed; presumably several hundred or thousands of tons
Eyes: Yellow
Hair: None

History:
(Moon Knight VIII#191 (fb) - BTS) - Per the Egyptian god Khonshu, lore states that all existence was populated by primordial beasts before the act of creation. Also according to Khonshu, those creatures, which from Khonshu's visuals included Cthulhu, embodied nothingness, the absence meaning, and thus evil, and they did not disappear into some alternate dimension when existence as we know it began, but were instead reborn into new forms, congealed in their new environment to become a single entity, Ra, the founder of the Egyptian pantheon (see comments).

(Marvel Zombies: The Book of Angels, Demons & Various Monstrosities#1) - Cthulhu is considered a demon of the third class, to whit extradimensional in origin and alien in form and motivation. It is one of the Great Old Ones, ancient beings who predate the Earth and possibly the universe itself. An archetypal Great Old One, Cthulhu arrived on Earth in the distant past and was imprisoned...

(Savage Sword of Conan I#176 - BTS) - ...beneath the waves in the sunken city of R'lyeh, as confirmed by the chants of his cultists: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Ctulhu R'lyeh wgah-ngal fhtaga!" ("In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming")

(The Nameless City prose story - BTS) - However while dead in the sense men understand it, Cthulhu was also not dead, and intended to arise again:

   "That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die." - Abdul Alhazred

(Adventures of the X-Men#4) - The extra-dimensional Dweller-in-Darkness is considered a true offspring of Cthulhu (see comments)...

(Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z#3) - though this was apparently more in a spiritual sense, as no direct relationship exists.

(Savage Sword of Conan I#176/3 - BTS) - In Hyborian times the piscine "Men of the Sea" (a.k.a. Deep Ones) worshiped Dagon, and could summon him using a spell that invoked "Ctulhu" (sic).

(Savage Sword of Conan I#41/1 - BTS) - In Hyborian times at the Oasis of Khajar the wizard Thoth-Amon cast a spell that invoked Set, Vrathuggulos and Cthulhu in order to teleport himself to Kulalo, the capital of Juma the Kushite, as part of his quest to acquire the Cobra Crown.

(Savage Sword of Conan I#52/1 - BTS) - In the Aquilonian city of Tarantia, the evil Lemurian mage Thulandra Thuu was confronted by the barbarian Conan and his allies. Invoking Tsathoggua, the sunken city of R'lyeh and Nyarlethotep (sic), the wizard cast a curse at them, but one of Conan's compatriots, the Mitra priest Dexitheus, blocked the attack with his own magic. As Conan advanced on Thuu, he cast another cantrip, this time invoking Yog-Sothoth, the planet Almuric, and Cthulhu, to generate an invisible but impenetrable barrier.

(Conan the Barbarian I#141 - (fb) - BTS) - Seeking to avenge his family being sold into slavery and his own torture at the hands of the pirate captain Dalvalte, the sorcerer Reimos called on the Old Ones, including Shub-Niggurth (here only identified by the sobriquet "the Goat with a Thousand Young") and the Children of Cthulhu, to grant him magical power.

(Savage Sword of Conan I#176/3 - BTS) - Held captive by an unidentified witch doctor, Conan was shown visions of potential futures where he would die, including one where the Men of the Sea summoned Dagon who then took the barbarian's mind, turning him into a mindless servant of their god.

(Savage Sword of Conan I#200/1 - BTS) - In the desert town of Tarsephus nestled in the steppes of the kingdom of Zamora the dark mage Dharmi Shan sought to sacrifice the recently captured Conan to his dark gods, and invoked among others Yog-Sothoth, Nyratlathotep (sic), Tsathoggua, Nodens, Shub-Niggurath, Azathoth, Hastur and Cthulhu in order to summon and control an eldritch beast to carry out the deed.

(Venom: The Enemy Within#2 (fb) - BTS) - Imprisoned in Alcatraz in the 1960s, Charles Palene found a spell in the prison library tied to a ceremonial necklace he had stolen from some cultists prior to his incarceration. Performing the incantation, he invoked Shoggoth, Shub-Niggurath "Goat with a Thousand Young") and Cthulhu and summoned an army of goblins to serve him.

(Avengers I#83 - BTS) - In Tom Fagan's mansion in Rutland, Vermont, there was a framed poster on the wall for a play, stage performance or film titled "Cthulhu Lives!"

(Spider-Woman I#5 - BTS) - Trapped in an illusion by Morgan Le Fay, Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) imagined a bookshelf collapsing on her, with a torrent of books including one titled "Cthulhu" falling in her direction.

(Marvel I#2/3 - BTS) - Fighting the Gathonagog-possessed Silver Surfer, the Thing sarcastically called his foe Cthulhu.

(Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme Annual#2/1 - BTS) - Confronted by the Defenders (Doctor Stephen Strange, Hulk/Bruce Banner, Rick Jones possessed by Namor the Sub-Mariner's spirit, Silver Surfer), the entity dubbed the Wild One told them to "scoot off and bother Great Cthulhu or somebody."

(Secret Avengers I#31) - Agent Venom described people possessed by the extradimensional Abyss as "Cthulhu-type nullification demons."

(New Avengers IV#4 - BTS) - Upon seeing Moridun, the tentacle-faced Dark Wizard of the Fifth Cosmos, Songbird described him as a "giant Space Cthulhu."

(Ultimates III#3 - BTS) - Wondering if novice hero Giant-Man (Raz Malhotra) had ever dealt with monstrous extradimensional threats before, Blue Marvel inquired of his teammate whether he had ever fought "a Cthulhu"?

(Amazing Spider-Man IV#1.6 - BTS) - Detecting from a distance that an interdimensional gate had opened up in the same location where Spider-Man (Peter Parker) and the Santerians were fighting an alien-possessed Julio Rodriguez, Tony Stark called Spidey mid-battle to tell him that the heroes' power usage was expanding the rift in reality. As the Santerians pressed their attack despite his warnings to desist using their powers, Tony shouted at them "For Cthulhu's sake, stop using your powers!"

(Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality#1 - BTS) - The Hobgoblin (Ned Leeds) used the powerful magical item known as the Word of God to temporarily merge Earth-616 with Earth-20221 In this merged world Cthulhu was apparently imprisoned somewhere inside the Sanctum Sanctorum, though not in a coke bottle, as Spider-Man was corrected on this last by Wong when he jokingly suggested it. This presumably means that Cthulhu is also imprisoned in the same device within the Sanctum on either Earth-616, Earth-20221, or both.

(Spider-Man: Unforgiven#1 - BTS) - Spider-Man noted to himself that certain supernatural horrors, such as Werewolves by Night, zombies and "Cthulhus," gave him a primal uncomfortable jitter.

(Captain America XI#3 - BTS) - While investigating a magical problem together Misty Knight told Captain America (Steve Rogers) that she had an expert to call on, showed him a figurine of Doctor Strange, and said she only needed to say "the magic words." Slightly incredulous, Cap asked which ones - Abracadabra, Open Sesame or "Cthulhu fhtagn?" before noting "Because I wouldn't do that last one if I were you."

(Moon Knight VIII#199 - BTS) - Struggling to hold on to his fragile grasp on reality, Marc Spector began hallucinating monsters around him, including both tiny and massive versions of Cthulhu.

Comments: Created by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. First invoked in Marvel by Roy Thomas. First depicted in Marvel by Max Bemis, Jacen Burrows and Guillermo Ortego.

   Cthulhu debuted in H.P. Lovecraft's story The Call of Cthulhu in the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales magazine, the second of four stories in that issue (the other three were "The Ghost Table" by Elliot O'Donnell, "The Shadow on the Moor" by Stuart Strauss, and "The Curse of Alabad, Ghinn and Aratza" by Wilfred B. Talman). Though only actually present for the very end of the tale, Cthulhu proved majorly influential in Lovecraft's canon, becoming the namesake for the burgeoning Cthulhu Mythos that not only Lovecraft but his friends and fellow writers were developing. One of these was Robert E. Howard, which is why Cthulhu gets namedropped in Conan tales, both prose and comics. Appearing in prose tales with sparse accompanying illustrations, it wasn't until 1934 that Cthulhu got a visual depiction, in a sketch drawn by Lovecraft himself.

   Cthulhu Mythos stories were always well regarded within horror story circles, but might have been in danger of dying out slowly from the public consciousness like many other Pulp era creations have done were it not for the release of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG in 1981. Released as the hobby was rapidly expanding, it swiftly became one of the best known and regarded RPGs on the market, introducing many people to the Mythos - it's certainly where I first heard of the stories, and like many others I picked up the new collections of Lovecraft's tales that were published soon after as a result.

   For the sake of brevity, not to mention my own sanity, I've tried to stick as much as possible to only stuff confirmed within Marvel in the history. There are a LOT of non-Marvel tales that make up the Cthulhu Mythos, many contradicting one another, which is unsurprising when you've got a shared universe contributed to by multiple writers with no sort of editorial oversight. Suffice to say that from the Mythos tales we could add the Olympian gods as early foes of Cthulhu and his ilk, as Atlantis was one of two civilizations that existed when Cthulhu's spawn landed on Earth, and we've got (at least) two differing family trees for the Big C - the one listed above is the one Lovecraft himself outlined, and given he created the character I give his version more weight. But since I'm mentioning Cthulhu's family tree I will take a moment to sidestep to Archie Comics, and the amusing fact that in Afterlife With Archie the teenage witch Sabrina kicks off a zombie apocalypse with some careless spellcasting from the Necronomicon, and is punished for this by her aunts by being married off to Cthulhu!

   Khonshu claims in Moon Knight VIII#191 that the beings that predated existence became his father Ra. He doesn't state that this includes Cthulhu or the Old Ones, but he does picture Cthulhu when saying this, so he's heavily implying that. However, that doesn't jibe well with Cthulhu still apparently being a separate entity if we take Khonshu's statement at face value. Perhaps only some of the Old Ones became Ra, and Cthulhu was one of the exceptions. Perhaps Cthulhu did become part of Ra, but since Cthulhu also exists outside of time as we understand it both Ra and Cthulhu are still around - kind of a Kang the Conqueror / Immortus situation. Or perhaps Khonshu is mistaken or just lying.

   Cthulhu is apparently trapped somewhere in the Sorcerer Supreme's Sanctum Sanctorum in Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality#1. Since this was a version of Earth created by the temporary merging of Earth-616 (the main Marvel universe) and Earth-20221, this presumably means that Cthulhu is similarly trapped on 616, 20221, or both, and as such is likely an enemy of one or both world's Sorcerer Supreme - which at the time of the story was Doctor Strange (616) or Baron Mordo (20221). Of course, it might have been an earlier Sorcerer Supreme who did the trapping, and they are merely the current custodians.

  Cthulhu is not the entity's name if we're being precise. It's not an Earthly entity, and its name wouldn't be spelled that way in its own language - Cthulhu, Katulu, Ktuhl, etc. are all just best approximations of how human ears can hear the otherwordly name and guess at spelling it in whatever alphabet that human uses.

   There's speculation on some online sites that the raised (formerly sunken) city seen in Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme#1 and the "Old One" seen emerging (see left) are R'lyeh and Cthulhu respectively. While I can totally believe the basic idea of the creature imprisoned in the sunken Pacific city was probably taken from Lovecraft's tale, and the city itself could be R'lyeh, I've got to say that there's no way I can see the being in that issue being Cthulhu, as it has zero resemblance to any confirmed depiction of the octopus-headed entity. I think it's much more likely to be another appearance of this entity, which had appeared in an earlier Doctor Strange story by the same writer, Peter B. Gillis.

   I included the Adventures of the X-Men reference to Cthulhu, despite that being an alternate reality, because the connection to the Dweller-in-Darkness has been confirmed to also hold true in 616 by the Handbooks' entry for the Dweller.

   Ktuhl gets invoked in Thanos Imperative#1, 2, 4 and 6 by denizens of the Cancerverse. While this is pretty well definitely just another name for Cthulhu, it's presumably a different reality's version of him, so not listed in the history above. Unless, of course, Cthulhu is the same entity across the Omniverse, but while that could be the case we've also got no evidence it is afaik, and if all Cthulhus are one and the same then I'd have to expand this entry to include a LOT of other non-Marvel appearances, something I'm not inclined to do without good cause. I also left out Cthulhu possessing Black Widow in the Marvel Avengers Academy mobile game for the same reason - not the 616 versions.

   Talking those other, non-Marvel appearances, a few are of note because they connect with characters that while not strictly Marvel, do have connections to Marvel. Cthulhu clashed with the Doctor in the novel White Darkness, though it wasn't identified as being that specific being until a subsequent book, All-Consuming Fire. Cthulhu has also had several near misses with Godzilla - there were plans for the kaiju to take on the Old One in a 1994 movie, and then in IDW's Infestation2 comic crossover, and the Call of Cthulhu rpg supplement Secrets of Japan includes "Gazera" (anglicized to Gadella in the West) among its new monsters. The pair finally did face off in 2024 in the promotional comic Godzilla vs. Cthulhu: Death May Die, released at San Diego Comic Con as a tie-in to the Death May Die game. Much as I love both characters, this wouldn't have been anything like a fair fight if both had been depicted per their own stories. By far the biggest version of Godzilla, from the anime Godzilla Earth movies, is 300 meters (984 feet) tall, and that version is around three times taller than the next largest, the one from the American Monsterverse movies. Cthulhu is "miles high" so even at the smallest interpretation of this statement he's way, way bigger.

   And since readers will be more likely to have an idea how big Godzilla is, see the image comparison to the right to get the scale of Cthulhu, even if these aren't from Marvel titles. Left is the cover of Godzilla vs. Cthulhu, right is how they'd actually appear alongside one another if depicted at their correct sizes - or correct in terms of biggest Godzilla to smallest Cthulhu!

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Cthulhu has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Moon Knight VIII#191, p14, pan2 (main)
Moon Knight VIII#191, p14, pan3 (headshot)
Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme#1, p2, pan3 (the "Old One" that is NOT Cthulhu)

Appearances:
Avengers I#83 (December 1970) - Roy Thomas (writer), John Buscema (pencils), Tom Palmer (inks), Stan Lee (editor)
Spider-Woman I#5 (August 1978) - Marv Wolfman (writer, editor), Carmine Infantino (pencils), Tony DeZuniga (inks)
Savage Sword of Conan I#41 (June 1979) - Roy Thomas (writer, editor), John Buscema (pencils), Tony DeZuniga (inks)
Savage Sword of Conan I#52 (May 1980) - Roy Thomas (writer, editor), John Buscema (pencils), Tony DeZuniga (inks)
Conan the Barbarian I#141 (December 1982) - Bruce Jones (writer), John Buscema (pencils), Brett Breeding (inks), Louise Jones (editor)
Savage Sword of Conan I#176 (August 1990) - Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz (writers), Tim Truman (art), Craig Anderson (editor)
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme Annual#2 (July 1992) - Roy Thomas (writer), M.C. Wyman (pencils), E.R. Cruz (inks), Mike Rockwitz (editor)
Savage Sword of Conan I#200 (August 1992) - Roy Thomas (writer), John Buscema (pencils), Ernie Chan (inks), Mike Rockwitz (editor)
Venom: The Enemy Within#2 (March 1994) - Bruce Jones (writer), Bob McLeod (art), Danny Fingeroth (editor)
Adventures of the X-Men#4 (July 1996) - Ralph Macchio (writer), Mike Miller (pencils), Dan Panosian (inks), Mark Powers (editor)
Marvel Zombies: The Book of Angels, Demons & Various Monstrosities#1 (September 2007)
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z#3 (July 2008)
Secret Avengers I#31 (November 2012) - Rick Remender (writer), Matteo Scalera (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)
New Avengers IV#4 (February 2016) - Al Ewing (writer), Gerardo Sandoval (art), Tom Brevoort with Wil Moss (editors)
Ultimates III#3 (March 2016) - Al Ewing (writer), Kenneth Rocafort (art), Wil Moss (editor)
Amazing Spider-Man IV#1.6 (September 2016) - Jose Molina (writer), Simone Biachi and Andrea Broccardo (art), Nick Lowe (editor)
Moon Knight VIII#191 (March 2018) - Max Bemis (writer), Jacen Burrows (pencils), Guillermo Ortego (inks), Jake Thomas (editor)
Moon Knight VIII#199 (November 2018) - Max Bemis (writer), Paul Davidson (art), Jake Thomas (editor)
Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality#1 (February 2020) - Peter David (writer), Greg Land (pencils), Jay Leisten (inks), Devin Lewis (editor)
Marvel I#2 (January 2021) - Eric Powell (writer, artist), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Spider-Man: Unforgiven#1 (May 2023) - Tim Seeley (writer), Sid Kotian (art), Annalise Bissa (editor)
Captain America XI#3 (January 2024) - J. Michael Straczynski (writer), Jesus Saiz and Lan Medina (art), Alanna Smith (editor)

First Posted: 10/31/2024
Last updated: 10/31/2024

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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