KAOK
(see comments)

Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Sominus) demon (Class III)

Occupation: Demon-Lord

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: The Dark Lords (Eeyod, Hemuth, Koth, Zepharr), the (Death) Guild (Delfine Jones/Hemuth reincarnation, Colleen Mulgrew, Taro, Tong, others unidentified; formerly David Trepper/Koth reincarnation)

Enemies: Ath'Agaar and his reincarnations (an Amerindian warrior, a Samurai, a Hun, a Visigoth, and a whole host of other warrior-types, earthly and otherwise), Cosima, Linette Cumpston, Jhagur, Raka (Rachel), Ren, Amanda Tower, and thousands of others (half of the young men and young women in the five citadels still under their rule) sacrificed by the Dark Lords for power from Kaok 

Known Relatives: Zhered-Na may be the literal or figurative daughter or granddaughter of Kaok

Aliases: Lord of Sominus

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
    last seen in the Void Indigo astral plane;
    at least formerly Sominus

First Appearance: (Referenced/behind-the-scenes; Eye of Kaok seen) Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo (1984)

Powers/Abilities: Kaok is a demon-lord of great power. Able to grant great power to others and sometimes doing so via human sacrifice, Kaok's abilities are undefined.

    Kaok spoke to the Dark Lords through and was the power source behind the Eye of Kaok, the destruction of which obliterated all traces of the Nine Citadels.

Height: Unrevealed
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Red (no visible pupil)
Hair: None

History:

(Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo (fb) - BTS) - Kaok was the lord of the demonic realm Sominus. 

(Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo (fb) - BTS) - The seed of Kaok spawned Zhered-Na in the world's black womb (see comments).

(Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo (fb) - BTS) <Some time prior to 10,000 BC> - Nine gleaming citadels arose from desert stone and sand. Each was a kingdom unto itself, at war with all the others

(Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo (fb) - BTS) - The Dark Lords (Eeyod, Hemuth, Koth, Zepharr), alleged survivors of Atlantis, who worshipped the demon lord Kaok, conquered all nine mighty armies with their mystic powers. From the ebon towers of their stronghold, Kur, they ruled for 1000 years.

(Void Indigo#2 (fb)) - Kaok spoke to the Dark Lords through the Living Orb. 

After the Living Orb's destruction, what energy remained of Kaok's link to the material plane smoldered in the jeweled spike, waiting for the day the Dark Lords would rule again, when the soul of Ath'Agaar would be slain, and when Kaok would rise from the beyond-world to proclaim the Earth his kingdom.

(Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo (fb) - BTS) - Barbaric tribes from the "glaciated Northlands" led by the chieftain Ath'Agaar pillaged and conquered some of the enslaved cities. 

(Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo (fb) - BTS) - Considering that they had weakened with age and that Kur might fall next, the Dark Lords began sacrificing their followers to Kaok: They decreed that half of the young men and young women in the five citadels still under their rule were to make a pilgrimmage to Kur. With each sacrifice, the wizards regained some small measure of their lost vigor, but they ultimately found it to be not enough, even after sacrificing thousands. 

    The Dark Lords subsequently ambushed and tortured Ath'Agaar and his mate, Ren. They ultimately slew Ren, but Ath'Agaar revived despite a jeweled spike having been driven into his brain, after which he shattered the Dark Lords' mystic Living Orb, aka the Eye of Kaok, which unleashed a mystic vortex that destroyed the Dark Lords, Ath'Agaar, Kur, and then the nine citadels. 

    The jeweled spike artifact that had destroyed the Living Orb was carried away almost 1000 miles, "nearly to the sea," and ending up in what is now New Mexico.

(Void Indigo#2 (fb) - BTS) - The (Death) Guild -- led by Taro -- sought to gather the reincarnations of the Dark Lords and summon Kaok to the mortal realm. 

(Void Indigo#3 (unpublished, from Gerber's script) "SISTERS and ASSASSINS") - David Trepper -- gold medalist pentathlete and the reincarnation of the Dark Lord Koth -- was a member of the (Death) Guild/Cult associated with Taro, but he split the cult just before his myasthenia gravis gravis entered the terminal phase.

(Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo - BTS) - In recent years, Jhagur -- an extraterrestrial reincarnation of Ath'Agaar who had been led to Earth by the Dark Lord Koth in hopes of ending his existence -- had taken the human identity of Mick/Mike Jagger and was working as a foreman in Santa Monica, but he went berserk when his worker Pete Mulgrew unearthed the jeweled spike; attacking Pete, "Mick" had to be beaten into submission. 

(Void Indigo#1 - BTS) - The daughter of Pete Mulgrew, Colleen mystically sensed the jeweled spike, which gave her knowledge of Kaok and Zhered-Na and affected her behavior. Colleen eventually tapped into the spike's power, explosively destroying her family's house and taking on a winged form that then assaulted Jhagur. Noting itself to be of the "Beyond-World" and to be the living will and power of Kaok, the transformed Colleen leapt into Jhagur's sword, vowing to destroy him first with ecstasy and then with flame.

(Void Indigo#2 - BTS) - As Jhagur fought back against possessed Colleen, the jeweled spike pierced the nearby drug addict Peace Barwick's neck and claimed his right eye, transforming it into a new Living Orb/Eye of Kaok, and using it to blast Jhagur before vanishing with Colleen.

    Taro met with the rest of the Death Guild, telling them that Kaok was free on Earth once more and had already selected his winged messenger and that soon the souls of the Dark Lords would reawaken, and the Great War would begin, the battle for dominion over Earth. He advised them that this was the last day of the their lives as ordinary men and women and that that night they would undergo the ritual of mortification, and the work of the Death Guild would begin in earnest.

(Void Indigo#3 - scripts) - At Taro's home, the cult members underwent the ritual that officially initiated them as disciples of Kaok. At the culmination of the ritual, the giant Eye of Kaok appeared and enveloped them. Inside the eye, they found the transformed Colleen seated on a throne of fire, and she gave them Kaok's instructions: Certain persons must die in order to awaken the souls of the Dark Lords. Amongst those people were Amanda Tower and Linette Cumpston, both of whom had established relationships with Jhagur.

4 (unpublished, from Gerber's script "JOININGS AND AWAKENINGS" - BTS) - The cultists embarked on the program of assassinations that was supposed to reawaken the souls of the Dark Lords. Each death set into motion a chain of events that led to one of the three remaining Dark Lords -- minus Koth -- regaining knowledge of his former existence.

    Back in North Hollywood, one of these assassins perhaps mortally wounded Linette, who collapsed over her friend Delfine Jones, and some of her blood spilled into the fat woman's mouth, causing Delphine to realize that she was the current reincarnation of the glutton Dark Lord HEMUTH. 

    Linette's connection to Amanda saved her, and the two merged into one being after Taro's assassin squad slew Amanda's body while Amanda was astrally projecting to Linette.

    The psychic Raka and Amanda's daughter Cosima traveled into the Beyond-World and found Colleen Mulgrew, who didn't want to be saved and instead turned them over to Kaok's minions as captives.

    The Eye of Kaok again rose in the sky over Los Angeles.

(Void Indigo #5-6 - scripts: "DOMINION AND REBELLION") - Over the next several days, as the Eye floated ominously over the city, the cultists arranged the reunion of the Dark Lords.

    Kaok demanded, through Colleen, that a fourth be chosen as Koth had departed. The other three choose Tong, passing over Taro for someone less ambitious. The Dark Lords and their acolytes departed on a pilgrimage to the New Mexico desert, the site of their ancient fortress, to perform the ritual that would trigger Kaok's ascendance to Earth -- and to annihilate the soul of Ath'Agaar. 

    As Amanda controlled Linette's body, Raka and Cosima visited Linette in her nightmares, noting that they were imprisoned in the Beyond-World and that Linette could help if she, too, became a dream. Linette subsequently separated a form from her physical body.

    In the Beyond World, Linette's presence has a profoundly disturbing effect on Colleen. Colleen had met her when Mick (Jhagur) and Colleen's father had worked the same construction site a while back. This is what Raka wanted and hoped for: The seeds were planted for another rebellion, this one "inside" the very Eye of Kaok.

    The final clash took place on the desert, with Jhagur first taking down the cultists and then finally confronting the Dark Lords. His sword and his eye-blasts were pitted against their magic, while the Eye of Kaok loomed overhead.

    When the Dark Lords carried Jhagur up into the Eye, into the Beyond-World, all seemed lost. But they had reckoned without Linette's effect on Colleen, without Raka's powers, without little Cosima's ferocity, and without Jhagur's knowledge -- however incomplete -- of the power of his "Ninth Sight." Peering past the horizon of the mortal world, Jhagur saw and called upon all the past incarnations of his soul to aid him in his battle: Ath'Agaar, an Amerindian warrior, a Samurai, a Hun, a Visigoth, and a whole host of other warrior-types, earthly and otherwise, whose lives he had lived. Jhagur was now living -- or reliving -- all these lives at once.
    Together they battled their way past the Dark Lords and down into the den of the demigod himself.

    At last, we see Kaok in all his monstrous glory. Kaok, of course, can't be defeated with a sword. Or a thousand swords. Jhagur tackles him bodily, directing his eye-blasts at the creature. And they tumble out of the creature's den, through several dimensional planes, to the Void Indigo itself.

    Here Kaok is very vulnerable, not only to Jhagur's attacks but also to the psychic assault of all the hundreds of thousands of souls whose lives he had cut short those 11,000 years ago. That is how Kaok met his end: torn limb from ectoplasmic limb by a million psychic fingers from beyond, delivered to those fingers by Jhagur.

    Upon Kaok's death, the Eye exploded again, spewing its substance over the desert, depositing Raka, Cosima, the surviving cult members, etc., on the sand. Jhagur's other incarnations had vanished, as had Linette.

Comments: Created by Steve Gerber (and Val Mayerik, see below)

    The script for Void Indigo#5-6 has Gerber describing Kaok thusly: I intend to describe him in such a way as to make him the most repulsive creature ever to appear on the page of a comic book. It'll be up to you, Val, to carry off the visual. But the story was never published, and thus the artwork was never done.
    Thiry-eight years later, I commissioned Val to draw Kaok as per the script guidance, and this nasty-looking demon is what he drew. As Val if co-creator of the Void Indigo series, if anyone can design the character, Val can! Until it's published in a Marvel comic, handbook, etc., it's not official, but it's good enough for the Appendix!
   

    The Eye of Kaok is next on the list for a profile from the Void Indigo series...

VOID INDIGO

• The Void Indigo stories -- creator-owned by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik -- referenced Zhered-Na and Sominus, both creations of Gerber and Mayerik back in the (Adventure into) Fear series.
• Marvel Graphic Novel#11 / Void Indigo has the aged Dark Lords Eeyok, Hemuth, Koth and Zepharr invoke "Kaok, lord of Sominus, whose seed spawned Zhered-Na in the world's dark womb" and call upon his power via blood sacrifice. They sacrificed thousands of young men and women from their five citadels under their rule, regaining some small measure of their lost vigor. Seeking greater power, they then tortured and sacrificed the barbarian chieftain Ath'Agaar and his lover Ren for greater levels of power.
• The graphic novel Void Indigo references Atlantis and the Great Cataclysm (with the Dark Lords being survivors of pre-Cataclysmic Atlantis) and the above conflict took place circa 9000 BC, fitting in with the Hyborian era. An artifact from the conflict was mystically borne nearly 1000 miles away (almost to the sea), ending up in what is now New Mexico. The region that is now North America was known as Novum Terra in the Hyborian era and was minimally referenced in the Conan stories.
• There was a six issue follow-up Void Indigo series planned, but it was cancelled after only two issues. The scripts for issues #3-6 can be found here.
• The modern portions of the Void Indigo story does not reference other modern aspects of Earth-616.
• Ultimately, there is no official ruling on Void Indigo...for whatever reason, I didn't review the series until someone told me in March of 2022 that Zhered-Na was referenced in it, which led to my appreciation of all of this material. I was therefore unaware of this information when I wrote the Zhered-Na profile for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.
• Having reviewed the Void Indigo graphic novel and series/scripts, it my assessment is that there are elements of Reality-616 present in this storyline, which would either make them the same reality or just a reality with common elements. However, there is nothing to exclude it from being Reality-616, and when that's the case, I would certainly not err on the side of exclusion. I think it would add nicely to the tapestry that is Reality-616.. 
• I think it would fit perfectly -- even if likely not what was intended at the time of publication -- to have the modern Void Indigo stories locked into 1984, the time in which they published, rather than being part of the sliding timescale. That would have them taking place decades before the Fantastic Four's space flight. 
• Regardless, it is interesting to consider Zhered-Na's connection to Kaok and Sominus. 
• Specifically, it says that Kaok's seed spawned Zhered-Na in the world's dark womb. That would seem to make him her father, although "seed" could also refer to his child, making Zhered-Na his granddaughter. 
• The world, presumably being Earth, may involve the Elder Goddess Gaea, so perhaps Gaea had a relationship with Kaok or the spawn/seed of Kaok, and the result was Zhered-Na?
• Or perhaps it was more of a figurative relationship, where Kaok or his spawn somehow influenced the development of Zhered-Na into the sorceress that she became.
  
• Sominus being a realm of demons puts an interesting spin on Zhered-Na, who was a benevolent sorceress worshipping the god Valka. 
• However, it is also relevent that at the time of the Void Indigo series, Zhered-Na had only appeared in (Adventure into) Fear#15 and Marvel Spotlight I#17. She was just a pre-Cataclysmic Atlantean sorceress at that time.
  
• Clearly there's more to the story, but tragically, Steve Gerber passed years ago, and we can't ask him. 
• I talked to Val Mayerik, but unfortunately, he doesn't remember the details. But, I'm hoping that doing these profiles may jog his memory...

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Kaok should be distinguished from:

• KAO - World War II, Chinese guerilla, ally of Red Fox, mistaken for Japanese and slain by Sgt. Yates--Captain Savage and his Battlefield Raiders#15
• KAO-GOTO-SURU - see FACE THIEF--Iron Man Annual#14
• other "Kao" characters

Appearances:
Marvel Graphic Novel#11: Void Indigo (1984) - Steve Gerber (writer), Val Mayerik (artist), Laurie Sutton (assistant editor), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Void Indigo#1 (November, 1984) - Steve Gerber (writer), Val Mayerik (artist), Laurie Sutton (assistant editor), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Void Indigo#2 (March, 1985) - Steve Gerber (writer), Val Mayerik (artist), Laurie Sutton (assistant editor), Archie Goodwin (editor)
unpublished scripts for #3-6 (November 8, 1984) - Steve Gerber

First posted: 06/20/2022
Last updated: 08/22/2022

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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