JU-LAK

Real Name: Ju-Lak

Identity/Class: Human magic user (Pre-Cataclysmic era)

Occupation: Shaman

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: A tribe of Man-Beasts

Enemies: Brule, Kull, Spider-Man (Parker)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Ju-Lak the God, Ju-Lak the Living Spider, "Wood-Face" (by Spider-Man)

Base of Operations: Pictish Mountains, Atlantis

First Appearance: Marvel Team-Up I#112 (December, 1981)

Powers/Abilities: Ju-Lak is a shaman who can perform various feats with black magic. He briefly possessed the abilities of Spider-Man, allowing him to use Spider-Man's strength, agility, endurance and reflexes.

History: (Marvel Team-Up#112 (fb)-BTS) - <approx. 18,500 B.C.> Ju-Lak was a shaman who was exiled from the Pict civilization for practicing dark magic.

(Marvel Team-Up I#112) - In the current day, Spider-Man was bitten by one of the ancient Serpent-Men, and the venom threatened to kill him. Doctor Strange sent Spider-Man's astral form back roughly to the year 18, 500 B.C. and the land called Valusia, where he would find the antidote (as no modern book still held it, and Strange knew the time period was ripe with Serpent-Men).  There, Spider-Man's astral form possessed Kull's ally Brule and asked for aide in finding the antidote. Though Kull knew of no such potion, Brule (once Spider-Man's spirit left him) did. He told his friend about Ju-Lak.

    Indebted to Spider-Man's spirit for saving his life earlier against an assassin while possessing another body, Kull and his followers set off to the Pictish Mountains in search of Ju-Lak.  However, Ju-Lak knew of their arrival and sent Man-Beasts to kill them. Spider-Man entered the body of one of Kull's soldiers and helped dispatch the creatures. Ju-Lak, wishing to possess this spirit, cast a spell that caused the air around the men to disperse, and they passed out.

    When Kull awoke, Ju-Lak had placed Spider-Man's astral self into a container that rendered it partly visible, and offered Kull a chance to live should he defeat the sorcerer. Ju-Lak forced Spider-Man's spirit into himself, using its power to battle Kull.  With the added power, Ju-Lak easily defeated Kull, but Spider-Man began to assert himself within the shaman, giving Kull a chance to fight back.  Kull defeated Ju-Lak, and offered to let him live he released "the Spider-Spirit" (as Kull and the others had come to call him) and relinquish the antidote. Ju-Lak relented and concocted the potion. Spider-Man entered Kull's body as Kull drank the cure, allowing Spider-Man's form to return to his body in the current time. Spider-Man was cured, and only remembered the events as a fever dream. What became of Ju-Lak after this is unknown.

Comments: Created by J.M. DeMatteis, Herb Trimpe and Mike Esposito.

    Hmm...Dr. Strange mentions that Spider-Man reacted to the Serpent-Men's venom because he had "a lot in common" with the Serpent-Men's enemies, the Spider People. Maybe all this recent stuff in JMS's run has been foreshadowed longer than we thought?
    Definitely. I wish they would do more with the ties to Omm and the Spider People...and then there's the Spider Clan of Peru...
--Snood

Profile by Madison Carter

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