Juggernaut part 1

Now, I wasn't really reading comics weekly when Grant Morrison had his run on X-Men, I started picking them up by the time it had changed to Astonishing (and even then didn't pick up Astonishing until post House of M), but I still occasionally picked up volumes, and some of my favorites were, bear with me here, the Uncanny X-Men run by Chuck Austen during Grant's run. Now, I could, and probably will at some point, rant about Grant Morrison and his run on X-Men, but this is about Juggernaut.

I've always liked Juggernaut as a villain. I'm not sure when it started, but he's been my favorite villain for a while. Maybe it was when I was still a big Spider-Man fan (while still young enough not to weekly get comics) and Spider-Man was at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for people to take pictures and get comics. I got an issue of Peter Parker: Spider-Man, issue #84, where Juggernaut is in it fighting Spider-Man. It's a great issue that I love because it shows off Juggernaut at his finest. Spider-Man, who has faced Juggernaut a few times before, sees him and realizes that he shouldn't be fighting Juggernaut. A lot happens, but basically, it all boils down to Juggernaut selling a ridiculously valuable sword in order to help pay for Black Tom Cassidy's medical bills. One of my favorite parts is when he lets Spidey know how valuable the sword is by telling him that he could have busted a whole bunch of banks to get the money, and he could have done it (Spidey believes him), but this is easier. A kid tries to stand up to Juggernaut because Juggernaut's the villain, but Spidey tracks him down and convinces him to give Juggernaut the sword back, because you don't want to mess with Juggernaut.

Basically, this is the back-story for Juggernaut. Professor X's step brother, Cain Marko, was kind of a jerk and they never got along. When they were fighting together in Korea, Cain hides in a cave. Xavier follows him in and sees him in front of an altar where there's a ruby. Xavier warns Cain away, but Cain ignores him, picks up the ruby and recites the words engraved upon it, triggering a cave collapse, trapping him inside, but Xavier escapes. Eventually, Cain, now with the demon Cyttorak's power behind him as the Juggernaut, surfaces to get revenge on his step brother. Juggernaut's powers are his insanely power super strength, with a ridiculously high upper limit of strength, a degree of invulnerability, but also an insane healing factor if you are able to actually injure him, something not often shown. He also is capable of generating a powerful force field around him to shield him from harm. He also doesn't need to eat or breathe, being capable of walking along the ocean's floor just fine without any support or being trapped in concrete for a while and when he eventually breaks out, doesn't need food. His power level has fluctuated over time, most notably when he is a good guy he has been weaker (like most comic book villains).

Next part, I'll talk about Chuck Austen's run and why it made Juggernaut even better a villain for me than before.