While the Juggernaut is one of the most well-known Marvel Comics villains in history–from his hulking aesthetic to his personal ties to the heroes he torments–there are many aspects to his character that many fans may not be aware of, primarily all the changes he’s undergone since his first appearance.
Cain Marko aka the Juggernaut made his first appearance in X-Men #12 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In his debut issue, the Juggernaut was a mysterious entity, threateningly looming over the lives of the X-Men as he marched closer and closer to the X-Mansion, with none of its defenses doing anything to stop him. While the Juggernaut himself wasn’t fully revealed until the end of the issue, this comic dove deep into the Juggernaut’s backstory as it related to Charles Xavier. As readers would learn, Marko is Xavier’s stepbrother who had always been jealous of Charles. Throughout their adolescence, Charles would use his mutant abilities to give himself a leg-up in every facet of his life–including school, sports, and anything else he could imagine. Since Charles was better than Cain at everything, Marko grew to hate Charles, so Marko bullied him every chance he got. In of how Marko got his powers, Cain stumbled into a demonic temple while fighting in the Korean War, a temple that belonged to the ancient being known as Cyttorak. Within this temple, Marko found a mystical gem that transformed him into Cyttorak’s unstoppable agent of chaos in the mortal realm–a human Juggernaut.
After getting his powers, the Juggernaut essentially used them exclusively to make Xavier’s life harder. Again, Marko always hated Xavier for being better than him at everything growing up, so now that Marko was arguably the strongest being on Earth, he wanted to rub it in his stepbrother's face. While this status quo remained unchanged for years, the Juggernaut would soon grow bored with being a villain and try his hand at heroism for a change. In New Excalibur by Chris Claremont and Michael Ryan, Juggernaut is shown in a much better light as he s the superhero team. It is during this series that readers learn the truth behind his former villainy. While Cain Marko wasn’t the best person as a regular human, his descent into a murderous villain was all because of Cyttorak’s influence. During New Excalibur, Juggernaut tries to use his powers for good, but because Cyttorak only gave Cain his powers to cause destruction, he was held back from doing so–something that was the first step on Juggernaut’s road to finding a new power source, or at least, a better way of accessing an old one.
Juggernaut Abandoned Cyttorak, but Remained Unstoppable.
In Juggernaut #4 by Fabian Nicieza and Ron Garney, the Juggernaut is able to cut Cyttorak off from his own gem, stating that the gem is of the mortal realm and Cyttorak has no more control over the power it contains, and more importantly, no more control over the person the gem imbues with that power. Essentially, the Juggernaut is no longer withholden to Cyttorak’s whims and can use his unstoppable powers however he sees fit. Now, in the current age of the Krakoan X-Men, the Juggernaut is actually on yet another superhero team–this time a mutant superhero team–called the Legionnaires. While Juggernaut had to make peace with his stepbrother, he finally found a place where he could be happy and put his magnificent powers to good use.
The Juggernaut began his Marvel Comics journey as a deadly villain who destroyed the X-Men and their X-Mansion just to kill his stepbrother, and now he is working alongside Charles Xavier as a hero. So, the biggest ways Juggernaut changed since his first appearance is also the most obvious: he began as a villain and is now a hero–an incredible journey that perfectly tracks the Juggernaut’s heartwarming growth and brilliant character development through the ages.
