KOLOMAQ
Real Name: Kolomaq (presumably)
Identity/Class: Extradimensional entity
Occupation: Living embodiment of winter
Group Membership: Great Beasts (Kariooq, Ranaq, Somon, Tanaraq, Tolomaq, Tundra)
Affiliations: Pestilence (F.R. Crozier)
Enemies: Alpha Flight (Aurora/Jeanne-Marie, Box/Roger Bochs, Guardian/James MacDonald Hudson, Madison Jeffries, Northstar/Jean-Paul Beaubier, Puck/Eugene Judd, Sasquatch/Walter Langkowski, Shaman/Michael Twoyoungmen, Snowbird/Narya,Talisman/Elisabeth Twoyoungmen, Vindicator/Heather Hudson), Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers), the Inua, X-Man (Nate Grey), X-Men (Colossus/Peter Rasputin, Firestar/Angelica Jones, Iceman/Bobby Drake, Marvel Girl/Rachel Grey, Nightcrawler/Kurt Wagner, Rockslide/Santo Vaccaro, Storm/Ororo Munroe, Wolverine/James Howlett)
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: "Beast of the snows"
Base of Operations: Unrevealed,
formerly Oil Springs,
Ontario, Canada,
formerly the Canadian Yukon, Canada,
formerly District of
Mackenzie, Canada,
formerly The Shattered Lands
First Appearance: Alpha Flight I#6 (January, 1984)
Powers/Abilities: Kolomaq is the living embodiment
of winter. He can instantly generate and control intense cold, arctic
winds, snow and blizzards. Kolomaq can fire icicles that cut like steel
daggers. Kolomaq can ensnare and take over a human host through a
mystical wooden mask resembling his face.Once the mask is removed the
host returns to normal. In his native dimension, Kolomaq can control the
Shiloh, who feed off his cold. Kolomaq can be stopped by arctic land,
making his fellow Great Beast Tundra his natural enemy.
Height: 6'1" (by approximation)
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Black
Hair: White
History:
Alpha Flight I#24 (fb) - BTS) - A
million years ago Kolomaq and his fellow Great Beasts rose "on a
planet in a universe outside our own". They pillaged and corrupted the
land, taking it as their own even as they fought amongst themselves.
Kolomaq's natural enemy was Tundra, the Land Beast who he would
frequently battle. Over time, the Great Beasts would set aside their
hatred and join forces to conquer other realms.
(Alpha Flight I#24 (fb) - BTS) - Discovering Earth was the nearest
realm in the mystic continuum, the Great Beasts staged three
unsuccessful invasion attempts. During the final confrontation, they
were opposed by the Ancient Gods of the North who beat them back and
sealed the beasts behind a mystical barrier.
(Alpha Flight I#6 (fb) - BTS) - Kolomaq was inadvertently spared this
fate because he was defeated during the altercation. Kolomaq was
covered by and imprisoned in the arctic tundra, which robbed him of
most of his powers. For a thousand years, Kolomaq was trapped
underneath the earth of what would eventually become known as Canada's
North West Territories.
(Alpha Flight I#6 - BTS) - Believing Kolomaq's burial ground to be rich
in oil reserves, an oil company began drilling there despite repeated
warnings of the local natives who told the workers it was a bad place.
(Alpha Flight I#6) - Once the oil rig had drilled deep enough, Kolomaq
managed to free himself, generating clouds of eldritch energies as he
emerged and prepared for a fight with Tundra, his ancient enemy. Alpha
Flight's Snowbird (Narya) sensed the resurgence of the Beast's energies
and flew out to the drill site to investigate. Snowbird confronted
Kolomaq, telling him Tundra had fallen and then showed she herself was a
child of his other ancient enemies: the Arctic Gods. Sensing the truth
in her words, Kolomaq used his control over winter to whip up a blinding
snowstorm forcing the Alphan to engage her enemy sight unseen. Shifting
to her polar bear form, Snowbird tore into Kolomaq and wounded him
during a fierce tussle. Overcome by fear when they fell off a cliff,
Snowbird forced herself to shift from bear to snow owl to save herself.
Once she regained human form, she heard Kolomaq goading her. After
knocking him down, she was caught unawares by a volley of ice daggers
that caused her to bleed. Fighting her fear, Snowbird thought of another
strategy and began to taunt the Great Beast into unleashing even more of
his power. Summoning a massive arctic storm, Kolomaq inadvertently
caused a giant rockslide that wound up burying him once again. His
powers negated by the tundra, Snowbird instructed the stunned oil
company workers they'd best seal off and fortify the site with concrete
lest the Beast would escape.
(Alpha Flight I#38) - The spirit of Kolomaq
and the other Great Beasts were briefly summoned to Earth by
Pestilence (F.R. Crozier) to battle Alpha Flight on his behalf.
Kolomaq was seen protecting the Beasts' vulnerable leader Somon before
Michael Twoyoungmen donned his daughter's mystical talisman and forced
the Beasts' spirit forms back to their native realm.
(Alpha
Flight I#71 (fb) - BTS) - On the eve of the return of the
immensely powerful sorceror Llan, Heather Hudson had a talk with
Alpha Flight's resident mystic Talisman. She was concerned about
the team's recent string of encounters with mystical and
otherworldly menaces like the Great Beasts, Pestilence, and the
Dream Queen. Talisman concluded that these events were a warning
of a greater threat: the world was about to enter a phase of
darkness during which evil gains the upper hand.
(X-Man I#39) - Kolomaq,
Tundra and Somon were able to slip back to Earth when the
immensely powerful mutant X-Man (Nate Grey) unleashed
sufficient psionic energies to briefly weaken the barriers
between dimensions. Kolomaq and Tundra immediately headed
for the nearest outposts of civilization while Tundra
engaged X-Man and his companion Madelyne Pryor
(X-Man I#40) - After dealing with Tundra by scattering his
rocky form, Nate was informed by Madelyne that Kolomaq and
Somon were still a threat as well. The two Great Beasts
were attracted to a recently unearthed artifact of unknown
power, tearing through outposts to reach it. X-Man decided
not to engage them directly. Instead, he telekinetically
interrupted the planet's gravitational pull on the Beasts,
causing them to be catapulted to outerspace.
(Chaos War: Alpha Flight I#1) - Fearing the rise of the Chaos King (Amatsu-Mikaboshi) the Great Beasts summoned Sasquatch to their realm to request his aid in combating this threat. They even used their powers to resurrect his slain teammates from Alpha Flight (Guardian, Marrina, Shaman & Vindicator). The Beasts and Alpha returned to Earth to fight the Chaos King and his demon armies, but ultimately the Beasts were killed by the deity slayer./font>
(Amazing X-Men II#11 (fb) - BTS) - Tanaraq grew
increasingly more powerful after an incident in
Canada led to the creation of hordes of Wendigo (a
murderer had ditched the corpse of his victim in a
meat processing plant, leading thousands of
unwitting consumers to commit cannibalism,
triggering the Wendigo curse). Tanaraq used
this power to conquer the Spirit Realm, openly
warring against Kolomaq and the other Great Beasts.
(Amazing X-Men II#12) - Members of the X-Men and
Alpha Flight traveled to the Spirit Realm in an
attempt to reverse the effects of the curse. They
learned of Tanaraq's conquest of the realm and
witnessed how Kolomaq and the other Great Beasts
tried to fight off the ever increasing Wendigo army.
Kolomaq even summoned the Shiloh, using his cold to
sustain them, but they were all dismissed in the
end. The mortal heroes joined the fray, but were
unable to hold their own against Tanaraq and his
forces. They wound up chained next to the Great
Beasts, but were soon freed by the arriving Iceman
who led the revived Shiloh to aid them. The Great
Beasts begged the mutants to free them as well so
they could deal with Tanaraq. Storm refused
Kolomaq's plea, instead striking a deal that led to
the Great Beasts empowering Storm, Iceman, Firestar
and Rockslide. They fought off Tanaraq's Wendigo
while a furious Guardian wound up killing Tanaraq.
Without his power holding them back, Kolomaq and the
remaining Great Beasts were freed and returned to
their native realm without a fight.
(Captain Marvel IX#9 (fb) - BTS) - Kolomaq dreamed
up a new plan to return to the mortal realms. He
created a mystical mask that would turn any mortal
who wore it into a host body. He made sure it wound
up on Earth by slipping it through a dimensional
crack . Kolomaq exerted his influence through the
mask, mentally luring the schizophrenic Owen LeClerc
to find it near Oil Springs, Ontario. Leclerc put
the mask on and was immediately transformed.
(Captain Marvel IX#9) - Kolomaq faced off against
Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) and Alpha Flight. He
easily held his own against them, announcing the
forever winter was here and forcing Sasquatch to
kneel for him. Inspired by the way Snowbird
originally defeated him, Danvers attempted to bury
Kolomaq. Instead, he summoned another blinding
blizzard but by then teamwork had prevailed: while
Alpha Flight tackled him, Captain Marvel blasted the
mask off of Kolomaq's face, which led to Leclerc
reverting back to human form. Captain Marvel and
Sasquatch covered the rapidly fading remains of
Kolomaq with more ground before catching up with
Leclerc. Aurora took Kolomaq's mask from him,
thereby ending the immediate threat of the Great
Beast.
Comments: Created by John Byrne (writer, pencils, inks)
Kolomaq's appearance in Captain Marvel establishes that Great
Beast needs a human host to function in this reality and that Kolomaq
controls people through a mask. Though this is entirely new information,
it doesn't necessarily contradict what had been established about his
origins. Yes, his initial appearance claims he's been buried under the
earth for centuries, but that might well have been just the mask or he
was simply buried underneath the tundra, host, mask and all. That also
seems more in line with the other beasts' m.o.: their leader Somon
controls all the Beasts, Tundra controls human hosts through a mystical
headband, Kariooq hijacks human bodies and Tanaraq merges his form with
mortals as well.
Kolomaq appeared as part of the Great Beasts
entry in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update '89#3
It is worth noting that since the Wolverine Index came out we've had other confirmed Great Beasts, so there are definitely more than seven. Alpha Flight I#6 mentioned "there were seven Great Beasts involved in Last Battle", which could be interpreted to mean either that there were only seven Great Beasts OR that there were more, but only seven were involved in that final fight. In Alpha Flight I#23, one of the Inua says Tanaraq is "one of the Last Seven, of the Great Beasts" - if not for that comma, that would be a clear statement that there were more than seven, and that the ones we've always counted were simply the last to fall, but even with the comma the comment could be interpreted that way. Apparently Wolverine II#172 and Over the Edge#2 also contain comments or info supporting this. In Incredible Hercules#119, Snowbird took the "forbidden form of the deadliest of the Great Beasts of the North, Neooqtoq the Ravager," and in Marvel Heartbreakers we meet another two Great Beasts, Tiamaq and Herateq. And Kimara the Cloudstalker was identified as a Great Beast; there were only two reasons to argue against this claim afaik, the first being there were only seven GB (now disproved) and the second that since he appeared in a gaming module that he wasn't canon (countered by his being confirmed in 616 via handbook entries).
--Loki
Profile by Norvo.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Kolomaq should not be confused with
images: (without ads)
Alpha Flight I#6, p4, pan5 (main image)
Alpha Flight I#6, p8, pan3 (closeup)
X-Man I#40, p22, pan1 (banished from Earth)
Astonishing X-Men II#12, p18, pan4,5,6 (arguing with Storm)
Appearances:
Alpha Flight I#6 (January, 1984) - John Byrne (writer,
pencils, inks), Linda Grant (editor)
Alpha Flight I#38 (September, 1986) - Bill Mantlo (writer), David Ross
(pencils), Gerry Talaoc (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
Alpha Flight I#71 (June, 1989) - James D. Hudnall (writer), John
Calimee (pencils), Mike Manley (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
X-Man I#39 (June, 1998) - Terry Kavanagh (writer), Mark Pajarillo
(pencils), Bud LaRosa (inks), Glenn Greenberg (editor)
X-Man I#40 (July, 1988) - Terry Kavanagh (writer), Richard Pace
(pencils), Bud LaRosa (inks), Glenn Greenberg (editor)
Chaos War: Alpha Flight I#1 (January, 2011) - Jim McCann (writer),
Reilly Brown (pencils), Terry Pallot (inks), Joe Quesada (editor)
Amazing X-Men
II#11 (November, 2014) - Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost
(writers), Carlos Barberi & Iban Coello (pencils & inks)
Mike Marts (editor)
Amazing X-Men II#12 (December, 2014) - Craig Kyle
& Christopher Yost (writers), Carlos Barberi & Iban Coello
(pencils & inks) Mike Marts (editor)
Captain Marvel IX#9 (November, 2016) - Christos N. & Ruth Fletcher
Gage (writers), Thony Silas (pencils & inks), Sana Amanat &
Charles Beacham (editors)
First Posted: 10/30/2018
Last Updated: 01/06/2019
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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