Great Beasts

The Great Beasts are a group that features in Marvel Comics.

History

The Great Beasts in Alpha Flight v1 #38.

The Great Beasts were said to had came from an age long before humanity where they existed before the concepts of good or evil. (X-Man v1 #40) It was claimed that the Great Beasts arose a million years ago on a world in a universe outside the main one. From there, they pillaged and conquered thus corrupting the land which they made their own even as they fought one another. Eventually, they came a truce and decided to go forth to conquer new realms. The closest world near their mystical continuum was the one that held Earth and they sought to conquer it leading to their conflict with the Ancient Gods of the North. This saw them stage three ultimately unsuccessful invasions of the planet but each time they were defeated. (Alpha Flight v1 #24) In their conflict with their foes, the Great Gods of the North caused each of the Great Beasts to turn against one another as their hatred for each other was great. (Alpha Flight v1 #24) A thousand years ago, the Last Battle was waged against seven of the Great Beasts whose endless wars would have destroyed the Earth but the old gods of the Northern lands sacrificed themselves to banish their ancient foes. (Alpha Flight v1 #6) In those final moments, the Great Beast Tundra made a counter-plan where he created a magical vortex that struck their enemies as well thus imprisoning both sides in the dimension of the Realm of the Beasts. (Alpha Flight v1 #24)

A century ago in Calgary in 1884, an outlaw named Zebediah Chase and his young charge Lucas Stang came to learn of the existence of the Seven Great Beasts. After being given a magic nullifying necklace, he forced a native shaman to cast a ritual to summon Ranaq the Devourer to the mortal plane. The Beast was unable to harm Chase due to the necklace with the outlaw attempting to command Ranaq to give him a beautiful woman and riches with his magic. The cunning Devourer crafted illusions stating that they were real but that his necklace prevented him from touching his prizes. Thus, Chase removed it and was then possessed by Ranaq allowing him to be free from his imprisonment to walk the Earth once more. However, he was thwarted by a band of time travellers from the future. (Alpha Flight v1 #19)

Years ago, Dr. Walter Langkowski tried to replicate the gamma experiments of Bruce Banner which had turned him into the Hulk. These were conducted under controlled conditions in an isolated region to the north of the Arctic Circle. This sundered the mystical barrier between Earth and the realm holding the Great Beasts allowing a fragment of Tanaraq to enter into Langkowski’s body. The part of Tanaraq formed a symbiosis with the mortal Langkowski allowing him to transform into Sasquatch. Initially, it was believed that Dr. Langkowski was a gamma mutation similar to the Hulk with no one aware that Tanaraq resided within him and slowly sought to take control over his mortal host. (Alpha Flight v1 #23)

During the Chaos War, Sasquatch gives Tundra, Kariooq, Somon, Kolomaq, and Tolomaq access to Earth so they can kill Amatusu-Mikaboshi. After Snowbird freezes them, the Great Beasts are impaled by Mikaboshi's tendrils and killed. However they are resurrected after Hercules defeated Mikaboshi and used all of his power to restore what Mikaboshi had destroyed.

As the result of the Wendigo curse, large numbers of humans were transformed into rampaging Wendigos with Tanaraq tapping into this power to become stronger. Tanaraq along with his hordes of Wendigos then waged war against the other Great Beasts allowing them to conquer the Spirit Realm with the intention of conquering Earth. (Amazing X-Men v2 #11) He managed to defeat his kin who were imprisoned and even defeated the X-Men along with Alpha Flight who sought to stop his emergence on Earth. Tanaraq then attempted to manifest on Earth alongside his Wendigo but was stopped when the freed X-Men were empowered by the other Great Beasts to stop their kin who had betrayed them. The mighty Tanaraq was slain by Guardian whereupon the other Great Beasts decided to rectify his betrayal as they felt they had a debt to mortals by undoing the damage he had caused to Earth. (Amazing X-Men v2 #12)

The Great Kolomoq managed to trick a mortal into finding and wearing one of his masks. This allowed him to possess the human and manifest on Earth leading to a confrontation with Alpha Flight and Captain Marvel. Together, they managed to remove the mask allowing the mortal host to return to normal. (Captain Marvel v9 #9)

Overview

They were also known as the Old Beasts of the North. (Immortal Hulk v1 #4) Another name given to them was the Gods of the Elder Night. (Chaos War: Alpha Flight v1 #1) It was noted that each of the Great Beasts hated one another which at times overwhelmed their hatred of mankind. (Alpha Flight v1 #24) They were regarded as creatures of chaos and carnage that lacked a conscience. Instead, they served as brutal, savage and unrelenting forces of nature yet were entirely unnatural to Earth. The Great Beasts were living breathing storms of mystical energy that consumed everything in their path without remorse or restraint. (X-Man v1 #40) It was claimed that there was no one that could truly harness and control a Great Beast. (Alpha Flight v1 #19)

On the mortal plane, a human was capable of conducting a rite to summon one of the Great Beasts allowing them to manifest back on Earth. This involved a ritual whereupon the summoner was possessed by the creature who leeched off their life force till nothing of their mind remained behind. (Alpha Flight v1 #1)

The Great Beasts had mystical offspring in the form of Shilohs who held no darkness and existed solely to love their makers. These creatures resembled white bipedal wolf-like beasts that thrived in the cold which was capable of reviving them. (Amazing X-Men v2 #11)

After their banishment, the Great Beasts were trapped in an otherworldly realm known as the Realm of the Beasts. It was located in a dimension outside of human experience where it was once a world similar to Earth. Upon the Great Beasts arrival, the creatures plundered and pillaged the planet as they moved forward for other places. An area that could access it on Earth was a place called the Eye of the World where a special key could breach the barrier allowing others into that realm. (Alpha Flight v1 #24)

Members

• Kariooq, The Corruptor - Kariooq appears in Alpha Flight (vol. 1) #24. He resembles a giant rotting corpse with green skin, similar to the Inhumanoid named D'Compose. (The two were created around the same time period). Kariooq as a character is never "fleshed out" other than his weakness to ice ("the preserver") and his enmity with Tundra as a rival. It can be assumed however that his power might be that of decay and corruption or even control of the dead.
• Kolomaq, The Beast of the Snows - Kolomaq appears in Alpha Flight (vol. 1) #6. He appears during oil drilling in an unrevealed location of Canada. His appearance destroys the oil well and catches the attention of the Inuit demigod Snowbird. Kolomaq possesses energy welding powers but his main ability is to create blinding snowstorms. Seven pages of Alpha Flight issue 6 are white panels captioned with dialogue and narration. Kolomaq is described as the most ferocious of the Beasts and enemy to Tundra the Land Beast. He is also capable of conjuring sharp icicles. Snowbird tricks Kolomaq into triggering a landslide which either kills or imprisons him. Kolomaq appears as a white Yeti-like creature with an angry totem mask as a face.
• Neooqtoq the Ravager - Called the deadliest of the Great Beasts, Snow Bird assumed its form during the Secret Invasion to battle off the Skrull Gods army of enslaved alien gods. It resembles giant brittle star whose arms are covered with fanged maws.
• Ranaq, The Devourer - Ranaq appears in Alpha Flight (vol. 1) #18 but his origin is expanded upon in issue 19. Ranaq appears as a floating shape of blob-like energy or corrupted flesh marked by evil red eyes and grotesquely large yellow teeth. He is summoned by a shaman in 19th-century Calgary, the summoning forced by fortune-seeker Zebediah "Zeb" Chase and his young cohort Lucas Strang. The two hold the shaman's granddaughter hostage and force the shaman to summon the Devourer. Zeb and Lucas use magical talismans to protect themselves from Ranaq but these same talismans prevent them from touching the treasure and prostitutes that they force Ranaq to conjure. It is unrevealed as to whether these treasures and women are real or merely illusions. When Zeb removes his talisman to embrace a prostitute, the woman's face turns into a gigantic maw that consumes Zeb, allowing Ranaq to possess the man. According to the shaman, this need for a human body makes Ranaq the weakest of the Great Beasts. Lucas Strang turns his talisman into a magic bullet and kills Ranaq in mortal form; he is cursed with a 100-year lifespan until Ranaq's soul is released after Zeb Chase's grave is disturbed in the year 1985. Ranaq is able to use a form of energy to attack his opponents which he does on two occasions Alpha Flight (vol. 1) #18. His attacks can be thwarted by charms or spells that inhibit magic. It would appear that Ranaq needs to inhabit a human body in order to interact on earth, however, this has not been verified.
• Somon, The Great Artificer - Somon appears in Alpha Flight (vol. 1) #24. He is an old looking humanoid depicted with long arms and a bull-horn headdress. He uses a powerful staff as a weapon and can control the other Great Beasts. The very land where the Great Beasts dwell responds to Somon's control. He is also capable of some sort of astral projection that allows him to kill by stabbing his victims with his astral fingernails. Somon is the most intelligent of the Great Beasts, known for his malevolent trickery. He, like Ranaq, is physically weak despite his great magical power. Snowbird mortally wounds him but he returns in perfect health at later dates.
• Tanaraq - Tanaraq appears in Uncanny X-Men #120 as the superhero Sasquatch but his origin is expanded upon in Alpha Flight (vol. 1) #23. He is comparable to Sasquatch at his original sasquatch form but with white fur. When Dr. Walter Langkowski bombarded himself with gamma radiation, the experiment did not go as planned, as he had unleashed for a fraction of time enough physical energy to break the mystical barrier that held the Great Beasts in their prison. A mystical symbiosis was formed between Walter and Tanaraq, which didn’t allowed Walter to transform into Sasquatch, like everyone thought, but to summon Tanaraq and control him. Whenever Walter turned into his Sasquatch form, he was actually trading places with Tanaraq. Eventually, Tanaraq was able to take control of his body in this realm. Snowbird realized this and attacked Tanaraq, slaying him, stranding Walter's soul in the Realm of the Beasts forever. He is also the responsible for the Wendigo Curse and acts as the "father" of the Wendigo. Tanaraq has demonstrated superhuman strength and resistance to injury as demonstrated when Langkowski assumes his form.
• Tolomaq, The Fire Beast - a minor Great Beast, Tolomaq first appears in Alpha Flight (vol. 1) #24. His character is never fully developed. He appears as a shapeless column of fire.
• Tundra, The Land Beast - first appearing in Alpha Flight (vol. 1) #1, Tundra is the first of the Great Beasts that Alpha Flight confronts. Tundra is summoned through a mystic ritual in which a vagabond (who is actually the father of Snowbird ) traces a gigantic human shape in the barren land of Canada's Northwest Territories and then dons a metallic crown that summons the spirit of Tundra. The vagabond's corpse animates, the land mimicking the corpses movement until Tundra rises in the shape of a humanoid mass of earth. According to Shaman, Tundra is supposed to be controlled by the mind of the human who summons him but because of the weakness of the vagabond summoning Tundra, Tundra's real personality quickly takes over. Tundra's powers stem from the land itself. He can summon mosquitoes, hurl boulders from his body, increase his size by absorbing land mass, and is connected to the land so if he is injured, earthquake-style upheavals occur in the surrounding area. He was defeated by natural erosion after Northstar and Aurora created a whirlwind around him using their superhuman speed and Marrina created a water spout that Shaman uses to create a torrential downpour. Tundra is arch-enemy to the Great Beast Kariooq, the Corruptor.
• Herateq : (Marvel Heartbreakers v1 #1)
• Tiamaq : (Marvel Heartbreakers v1 #1)

Notes

• The Great Beasts were created by John Byrne with them making their first appearance in Alpha Flight #24 (July, 1985).
• In Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe v3 #3 (1989), the Great Beasts received an entry in the guide book.

In other media

Video games

• In Marvel: War of Heroes, the Great Beasts were referenced in the card game where they were mentioned in the backstory of [Great Beast] Sasquatch.

Appearances

• Alpha Flight v1:
• X-Man v1:
• Amazing X-Men v2:
• Captain Marvel v9:

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