In the Age of Apocalypse, one of the deadliest versions of the Juggernaut died in the last way that fans would expect. Although he's living by a different set of rules today, Cain Marko aka the unstoppable Juggernaut was a sworn enemy of the X-Men, led by his despised stepbrother Charles Xavier. Cain's history with the X-Men was full of victories and losses, but everything changed when Charles' death caused an extreme change in Marvel's timeline, creating a world where the immortal mutant supervillain Apocalypse reigned with little resistance. The Juggernaut became Cain, a gigantic muscular monk who lived a life of non-violence until the pressure to act was too much to take.
The Age of Apocalypse was created when Xavier's unstable son David aka Legion traveled back in time to kill Magneto before he could commit any of his crimes against humanity or become an enemy to his father's beloved X-Men. The younger version of his father died trying to protect his friend, causing David to disappear and a new timeline to appear in its place. Apocalypse awoke ten years earlier than he did previously and launched his plans for world conquest with limited resistance from the world's heroes, which included Magneto's X-Men. Years later, America became a twisted version of itself as Apocalypse continued to threaten the rest of the world. One refuge was Avalon, a hidden place where mutants and humans lived in peace away from Apocalypse's influence.
In X-Calibre #1 by Warren Ellis and Ken Lashley, Cain is the guide for travelers who have paid and suffered their way to paradise, trading in his signature helmet for modified monk robes. He appears traumatized by his stepbrother's death but retains the same powers that protect him from both damage and the harsh weather leading up to Avalon. His time as Avalon's guide and protector begins to end when the prophetic Destiny foretells the destruction of Avalon from Apocalypses' forces right around the time Nightcrawler is asked by Magneto to find his mother Mystique. In order to corroborate time-traveling X-Man Bishop's claims about an alternate version of the world, they need them to go to Avalon to find and convince Destiny to return. Although Cain helps Raven and Kurt get to Avalon in X-Calibre #3, they are just in time for its destruction. Cain wants to protect his home and friends, but this desire for violence conflicts with his pacifist lifestyle. The indecision grows so great that it causes him to suddenly drop dead.
At first appearance, the Juggernaut is the direct opposite of the villain fans have come to know, a considerable, non-violent tank of a man who seeks peace instead of death and destruction. Sitting around a campfire, he reveals to Mystique and her conflicted yet honorable son that he once used his abilities for murder, resulting in hundreds of lives taken whose memory still haunt the killer who chose to renounce violence. Instead of having an outlet for his anger and power in the form of Xavier and the X-Men, Cain tried to reclaim his humanity by helping others find peace. Although Charles is the most prominent of Cain's ghosts, he remains steadfast in his vow until the destruction of Avalon. Nightcrawler's insistence to act is the last straw that essentially breaks the Juggernaut. Mystique explains, "Drive an almost psychopathic need for peace up hard against a deep-seated lust for violence," concluding he had an aneurism due to the unbelievable strain on his mind.
The death of this version of the Juggernaut is an anti-climatic moment for a version of a classic X-Men villain who may have been more destructive than the original but remained much more broken and lost without Charles Xavier. Although Nightcrawler and Mystique are successful in retrieving Destiny safely, the death of Juggernaut in the Age of Apocalypse is a clear example of how Xavier's untimely demise led to consequences that forever changed Marvel and its multiverse, even after everything was changed back.
from ScreenRant - Feed https://ift.tt/3yK1Iez
0 Comments