Kitty Pryde
Katherine Anne Pryde
Biography
Piotr Rasputin grew up on a Siberian collective farm, driving tractors and drawing everything he saw. His mutation announced itself when he transformed to stop a runaway vehicle from crushing his sister, and Xavier arrived days later with an offer. In organic steel he is roughly seven feet of nearly indestructible metal, strong enough to trade blows with the Juggernaut and patient enough to let Wolverine do the killing. Off duty he is a painter with a soft voice and a habit of apologising. That gap between what he can do and what he wants to be is the whole character.
Loss is his job description. He loved Kitty Pryde and lost her more than once, watched Illyana die of the Legacy Virus, and then injected himself with Beast's cure because the serum needed a living body to disperse it. Ord of the Breakworld resurrected him years later. Then he accepted Cyttorak's offer and became the Juggernaut, wearing the helmet of the X-Men's oldest wrecking ball. Krakoa put him in charge of strike teams and then let his brother Mikhail hijack his mind and aim him at his own people. Piotr keeps getting handed the worst version of himself, and keeps walking back.
Vital statistics
- Real name
- Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin
- Also known as
- Peter, Piotr, Colossus
- Species
- Mutant
- Place of origin
- Ust-Ordynsky Collective, near Lake Baikal, Siberia
- First appearance
- Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975)
- Created by
- Len Wein, Dave Cockrum
- Affiliations
- X-Men, Acolytes, Phoenix Five, Excalibur
Power grid
Intelligence3
Strength6
Speed2
Durability6
Energy1
Fighting4
Rated 1–7 on the classic Marvel power-grid scale.
Powers
- Organic Steel Transformation
He converts his entire body into a dense, living metal at will, armour and all.
- Superhuman Strength
In armoured form he lifts in the seventy-to-a-hundred-ton range and punches through reinforced concrete.
- Near-Invulnerability
Bullets, blades, fire and falls from orbit bounce off his steel shell.
- Sealed Physiology
While transformed he needs no food, water or air and ignores extremes of heat, cold and vacuum.
- Avatar of Cyttorak
For a stretch of the 2010s he carried the Juggernaut's unstoppable forward momentum on top of everything else.
Abilities
- Accomplished painter and sketch artist
- Heavy machinery and farm mechanics
- Hand-to-hand training from Wolverine and Cyclops
- Half of the fastball special
- Fluent Russian and English
Weaknesses
- Cannot transform if knocked out or caught mid-change
- In human form he is an ordinary, if enormous, man
- Magnetism turns his own body into a weapon against him
- Sinks like a stone
- Guilt over his family is the lever every villain reaches for
Comics history
Colossus has been the X-Men's steady state since 1975, which is exactly what makes him worth breaking. Claremont paired him with Kitty Pryde and then spent years pulling them apart. Mutant Massacre left him wrecked, Illyana's death drove him into Magneto's Acolytes, and the Legacy Virus arc killed him off in 2001 in one of the few genuinely earned X-Men deaths. Joss Whedon and John Cassaday brought him back in Astonishing X-Men, the Fear Itself tie-ins handed him the Juggernaut's power, and the Krakoa era used his mind as a battleground. Writers keep reaching for Piotr whenever they need a good man to ruin.
Allies
- Kitty Pryde
- Wolverine
- Nightcrawler
- Magik
- Storm
Enemies
- Magneto
- Mister Sinister
- Juggernaut
- Apocalypse
- Riptide
Weapons & equipment
- X-Men uniform
- Sketchbooks and paints
Trivia
- The Rasputin surname is not a coincidence. Marvel eventually tied the family line to Grigori Rasputin himself.
- The fastball special, in which he hurls Wolverine like a javelin, is the only superhero double-team move famous enough to have its own in-universe name.
- Mutant Massacre left him locked in his armoured form and immobile, so he spent months standing in the mansion like a statue.
- When Cain Marko lost Cyttorak's favour, the crimson god picked Piotr instead, putting an X-Man inside the helmet of the team's oldest recurring wrecking ball.
Famous quotes
In Russia we have a saying: the strong man carries. So I carry.
I was going to be a painter. Instead I became the wall my friends stand behind.
Timeline
- 1975
Debuts in Giant-Size X-Men #1, recruited straight off a Siberian collective farm.
- 1986
Mutant Massacre leaves him shattered and trapped in his armoured form.
- 2001
Injects himself with Beast's Legacy Virus cure and dies releasing it into the air.
- 2019–2023
Leads Krakoan strike teams until Mikhail's mind control turns him into a weapon against his own side.
Gallery
Poster art is generated from each character’s signature palette. Drop official art into assets/images/ and set the img field to swap it in.
Related characters
Frequently asked
How strong is Colossus?
In organic steel form he lifts in the range of seventy to a hundred tons, which puts him among the strongest X-Men and lets him go several rounds with the Juggernaut. He is also near-invulnerable in that form, sealed against fire, cold, vacuum and most gunfire. Out of armour he is a very large but otherwise ordinary man.
How did Colossus die?
Beast synthesised a cure for the Legacy Virus that had to be released from a living host, and Piotr injected himself so the airborne cure would spread. It killed him and ended the plague that had already taken his sister Illyana. Ord of the Breakworld later resurrected him, and Astonishing X-Men returned him to the team.
Is Colossus the Juggernaut?
He was, for a stretch of the 2010s. When Cain Marko lost Cyttorak's favour, the Crimson Gem chose Piotr and gave him the Juggernaut's unstoppable momentum on top of his own steel form. He eventually gave the power back, since being an unstoppable force is a poor fit for a man who paints in his spare time.