Writer Christopher Yost
Artist Jorge Fornes
Colorist Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer VC’s Joe Caramagna
Once and Future Juggernaut, Part Four of Four
I skipped last issue, but I’m sure we will get caught up fast.
Southeast Asia. A new Juggernaut was chosen. The new avatar of Cyttorak is . . . The Living Monolith! Does Havok get a power boost due to this change? The Living Mononaut is a giant, due to all of the energy he just absorbed. Which is giant unstoppable villain, isn’t ideal. Shame that story will never be told. Are Havok and Living Monolith still connected? Was Living Monolith the strongest he ever was, when Havok was in space? Whatever happened during the time when Alex was in the criminally-never referenced Mutant X dimension.
Cyttorak is not thrilled with his new avatar.
Rockslide comes out of the rumble, and is upset that he isn’t the new Juggernaut. Kurt comments that Rockslide is alive and Northstar makes a very inappropriate comment about how he wishes Rockslide was dead.
Firestar is not impress that none of these X-Men are taking this serious. She claims Living Mononaut is some thousand-foot tall giant. Iceman rebuts her that he is barely 800 feet tall. Bobby is pretty awful in this issue.
Storm tells the team that Ahmet Abdol, the Living Mononaut, once grew to the size of a planet. I wish an editor note came with that comment, as that sounds interesting.
Rachel comments that she can’t read Living Mononaut’s mind.
Storm decides she can’t deal with this and sits down. Which starts my favorite part of the issue. Yost’s character work is pretty top notch.
There is an ad for Atlantic City Boardwalk Con (AC*BC) that was from May 14-17, 2015. The cool thing is that they use a cosplayer dressed as Scarlet Spider.
I wouldn’t mind wearing a Scarlet Spider costume, if someone wants to make one for me or something.
We get some great character interactions for several pages. Storm doesn’t want to fight anymore. Storm has been in a mood lately. Northstar doesn’t miss the opportunity to say that she is horrible, he is totally right. Storm recalls the times that she and Kurt use to dance. He recalls the times when Storm was in her clothing-optional phase.
Rockslide can’t believe that the X-Men are amazingly sitting on their arses. Cain Marko can’t believe this is what he is seeing. I like that Marko is dressed all in black, instead of a Juggernaut redish orange – he isn’t a Power Ranger. Colossus isn’t sitting down either.
Living Mononaut is monologuing when he realizes that his intended audience is nowhere to be found.
Embarrassingly, Firestar asks Northstar what the biggest threat he and Alpha Flight have ever faced. Northstar answers The Great Beasts, which this team (including Firestar) just fought in a previous storyline.
Rachel wants to just ask Living Mononaut what he wants, Bobby dismisses that idea.
Pixie recalls how the New X-Men (I guess they actually called themselves that) fought – Crazy people, future robots, big metal dogs, demons but no giants. Rockslide believes that they could have defeated a giant somebody. Pixie comments that she could just teleport everybody home, they don’t need to sit on the premises of the would-be battle, if they are never going to do anything.
They discuss ways to defeat Living Monolith and the Juggernaut. Thor usually defeats Living Monolith by throwing him into space (which seems to be the worst way to defeat him). Depriving him of cosmic energy, is a better way. Bobby offers that one calls Spider-Man, in order to defeat Juggernaut. Marko is so fast and stating that Spider-Man got lucky. Marko says that psychics are the solution but who can remove the Living Mononaut’s giant helmet?
Storm loses all credibility (again) by apologizing to Colossus, for being harsh to him. Storm didn’t want to bring Colossus along, as he would be tempted to sacrifice himself to Cyttorak, and become the new avatar. Bobby echos the sentiment, going as far as to say that Colossus is very, martyr-prone. If only Colossus was more willing to get himself killed. Colossus wonders if the Avengers are this hard on each other, Firestar reveals that they are. Oh, we need more references of Firestar’s era on Busiek’s Avengers team.
Firestar offers that magic seems to defeat Juggernaut, as it is his power source, in a way. Northstar offers that they call the horrible Scarlet Witch, which Kurt is foolishly trying to get Wanda redeemed. I doubt it will ever happen, but anything that gives us Nocturne, is pretty good.
Colossus offers up that his sister was able to free him of his responsibilities of Cyttorak, which is why I bought this issue.
Pixie offers that she has a soul dagger, but it isn’t the same. Bobby says it harsher than that and hurts Pixie’s feelings.
Colossus asks who brought up asking Living Mononaut what he wants. Bobby is quick to point out that it was Rachel, Colossus says she was wrong, which makes Bobby laugh. He is a real jerk in this issue. Colossus wants to ask Cyttorak what he wants. I guess he senses that Cyttorak must be unhappy. Marko guesses that it is chaos, destruction, pain and suffering. Colossus wonders what comes after that, he wants to change the game. Storm senses that Colossus is going to make Storm fight. He will buy her dinner afterwards.
Colossus stands up, as the others leave to fight Living Mononaut, which is a waste of a good nickname. Colossus shouts for Cyttorak to hear his call. Pixie doesn’t think this is going to work, right when Cyttorak takes control of Rachel and Pixie’s minds. Marko can’t believe that worked, Colossus seems surprised as well.
Cyttorak (I finally learn how to spell it) addresses Marko and Colossus as his avatars (which is why I called them that) and his failures, which I like. Colossus predicts that Living Monolith is going to fail, at some point.
Colossus offers that Cyttorak give Colossus the power of the Juggernaut, with the power, he will fight Cyttorak to the death. Colossus wants even more power than Cyttorak has ever given to anyone. Cyttorak accepts the deal.
Living Monolith loses his Juggernaut powers. We get the new Juggernaut, coming out of the sky and he punches Living Monolith. He shouts, I”m the Juggernaut (no bitch) which is something that wouldn’t work in live action or animation as we would totally know who the new Juggernaut is.
Which isn’t really a surprised as, once you flip the page, you learn on your own that it isn’t Juggerossus. Cyttorak accepted the offer but not the players.
Issue ends with a clear shot of the new design for the Juggernaut. Another odd thing about this issue is that the next issue caption reads, Colossus verses the Juggernaut! But the past four issues have all stated “Part ____ of Four” so shouldn’t they all have stated, Part _____ of Five”? Was Yost given a bonus issue like how Bendis had to do so with Uncanny and All New, due to Secret Wars 2015? Well, for Bendis, it was AXIS. Should this issue have been Four of Five and not Conclusion?
I’m not sure if I will be getting the next issue but this one was pretty good.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 
I have to ask: why do you hate Colossus that much?
Oh Colossus, where to even begin? I suppose the easy answer is that he broke up with Kitty Pryde, and being a huge Kitty Pryde fan, I can’t be a Colossus fan.
First, he cheats on her with Zsaji and the second time, he didn’t heed her advice and became Juggerolossus.
Second, during AvX, Colossus put crab legs on whales (keeping so many whales!) (AvX 9) and he forced Kitty to go on a date with Kitty, by using the threat of killing all of the students unless she went on the date with the Phoenix empowered fool. (Wolverine and the X-Men 18)
Third, he isn’t that great of a character, he doesn’t make other characters better. The best part of him is that he dated Kitty and his sister is awesome.
Fourth, I don’t like how writers keep wanting to pair him and Kitty back up, even though it never ends well. That use to be the constant threat of Colossus.
Fifth, he’s mostly just the muscle, so he can be replaced by a number of characters. What he can do, others can do, and not even by their main power but by an addition of their power.
I will give him points for dating Domino, that’s pretty cool.
Thanks for the question!
Colossus was a victim of character assassination over the past few years. It’s fine if you don’t like him, but don’t you think your assessment towards the character is unfair?
I wouldn’t say so, as Marvel has tried to redeem and make him important but they always seem to be false starts.
Another character, Cyclops, had his character pretty much tarnished (with the entire leaving Maddie and baby Christopher for the lesser woman, Jean Grey) but I was able to come back around.
I left out the part about how Colossus left the X-Men to join Magneto’s side and when he came back, he nearly killed Pete Wisdom (Excalibur 92).
He has had more low points than high points.
Whedon brought him back, as a big shock of a moment but didn’t really do much with him.
Fraction did that good Colossus / Emma story (Love Lorn, Uncanny X-Men 504 – 507) so he can be used well but it rarely lasts.
What he needs is a writer to just go completely bad arse and keep going in that direction. Hopeless tried, with Cable & X-Force – where we first get the pairing of Domino and Colossus – but I didn’t really read that series, outside of issue six.
Plus, at this point, I’m committed to this opinion of Colossus and I have fun with it but I’m willing to give him a shot. Hopefully, Lemire can bring Colossus back to his 80s quality, in Extraordinary X-Men.