Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 208. Who is John Proudstar, AKA Thunderbird, in Marvel Comics?

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Ep. 208. Who is John Proudstar, AKA Thunderbird, in Marvel Comics? · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

• 0:11
  Hello Marvel fans, comic geeks, and all the nerds in between.
• 0:13
  My name is Megan with vigilante vibes where I talk all things
• 0:16
  Marvel, MCU, Marvel Studios, Marvel Comics, literally all
• 0:20
  Marvel. And today I have another
• 0:23
  character breakdown that I want to discuss.
• 0:25
  He is a mutant. You would think he's much more
• 0:29
  popular than he is, and I think at one point he was, but I do
• 0:31
  think he's very underrated. Who am I talking about?
• 0:34
  Colossus, Who is Colossus? He first appeared in Giant X-Men
• 0:39
  Number One in 1975 and was created by Len Wine and Dave
• 0:43
  Cockrum. Peter Rasputin, that you know is
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  Colossus, was born on a Soviet collected farm in Serbia.
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  He grew up surrounded by family, his older brother McHale, A
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  celebrated cosmonaut, his little sister Ileana, whom he adored.
• 1:00
  And I think we all know unless we don't.
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  If you don't know who Ileana is, she is magic.
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  And if you want to know more about her, check out my page
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  'cause I have a breakdown of her too.
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  Peter was gentle, artistic, and happiest when he was drawing
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  your painting. When his mutant powers kicked in
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  at 13, turning his body into organic steel, he didn't dream
• 1:22
  of being a hero. He just used them to help his
• 1:24
  family and neighbors. Everything changed when he saved
• 1:27
  Ileana from a runaway tractor. That is what caught Professor
• 1:31
  Xavier's attention. Xavier was assembling a new
• 1:34
  X-Men team to rescue the original X-Men from the living
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  island Krakoa, and Peter agreed to leave Siberia for America.
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  Xavier gave him the code name Colossus, and Peter helped
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  defeat Krakoa alongside Storm, Wolverine, Banshee,
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  Nightcrawler, Thunderbird, and the rest of the new team.
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  When the dust settled, the original X-Men mostly left and
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  Peter stayed behind in the US, training in the Janger Room and
• 2:02
  learning how to fight as part of a team.
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  From there, things escalated very quickly.
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  The X-Men fought Sentinels, Juggernaut, Magneto, the Shi'ar,
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  Imperial Guard, and just about every cosmic or mutant disaster
• 2:17
  imaginable. Somewhere in the middle of all
• 2:19
  that chaos, Peter learned what it meant to live among humans.
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  Awkward apartment parties, strange misunderstandings, and
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  the occasional accidental space adventure.
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  You know, normal human things. While traveling through the
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  Savage Land, Peter saved two women from a tight T Rex.
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  One thing led to another, and without realizing it at the
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  time, he unknowingly fathered a son.
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  That revelation wouldn't fully come back until much, much
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  later. During a battle with the
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  Hellfire Club, Peter met Kitty Pride.
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  He quickly bonded with Wolverine and Nightcrawler, and Storm
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  became like a big sister to him, calling him little brother
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  Kitty. Though Kitty stood out, They
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  were both shy, awkward, and emotionally sincere, and they
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  gravitated toward each other almost immediately.
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  Family remained Peter's anchor, which made things worse when
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  villains targeted it. Arcade kidnapped Ileana,
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  brainwashed Peter into becoming the Proletarian, and forced him
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  to fight the X-Men. Once freed, Ileana came to live
• 3:29
  with Peter at Xsavier School. Soon after, she was abducted
• 3:33
  again, this time by the demon Belasco and trapped in limbo.
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  Time worked differently there, so while only days passed on
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  Earth, Ileana spent years in hell and returned as a teenager
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  with dark magic powers. Peter never stopped blaming
• 3:50
  himself. But it's OK, because she came
• 3:53
  out really cool. Really cool.
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  Colossus struggled with violence despite being built for it.
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  When he fought Proteus, he nearly killed him to save Myra
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  Mctaggart, and it haunted him. The inner conflict followed him
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  for years. Peter and Kitty grew closer
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  after surviving brood attacks and cosmic disasters, eventually
• 4:16
  becoming a couple. During the Secret Wars, though,
• 4:19
  Peter fell for someone else, the healer Zaji, and realized his
• 4:24
  feelings for Kitty weren't as clear as he thought.
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  He broke things off deeply hurting both of them.
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  Things spiralled. Peter drank, fought Juggernaut
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  in a bar, learned Ileana had become the Sorceress Magic, and
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  barely survived reality ending threats like Koolan Goth, Mojo
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  DAG, X-Men. Then came the Morlock Massacre,
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  where Peter snapped and killed Raptied in rage, something that
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  shook him to his core. The injuries left him
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  temporarily paralyzed, and he retreated to Muir Island to
• 4:58
  recover painting as therapy. Of course.
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  Eventually, prophecy and disaster dragged him back in
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  Dallas. The X-Men sacrificed themselves
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  to stop the Adversary, only to be resurrected by the Cosmic
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  Guardian Roma. The world thought they were
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  dead, so the team went underground and later resurfaced
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  in Australia. There, Peter faced another
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  nightmare, Limbo. Again, he saw Ileana transformed
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  into the demonic Dark Child. When Inferno erupted and demons
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  flooded Earth, Ileana sacrificed herself to stop it, seemingly
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  dying in Peter's arms before reverting to her true form.
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  He saved her again, but every rescue cost them something.
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  After crossing the Siege Perilous, Peter lost his
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  memories and became a famous artist named Peter Nicholas,
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  living in New York and falling in love with Callisto.
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  Eventually his memories returned, and with them, the
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  weight of everything he'd lost. Ileana was later kidnapped by
• 6:01
  the Russian government, infected with the Legacy Virus, and
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  eventually died from it. With his family gone and his
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  body damaged, Peter joined Magneto's Acolytes, hoping to
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  find meaning, but even there, he could not belong.
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  He left to find Kitty, only to discover she'd moved on with
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  Pete. Wisdom Heartbroken and angry,
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  Peter attacked Wisdom, then accepted the truth and joined
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  Excalibur. See, all of that is just so
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  unhinged because it's like you dumped her because you found
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  someone else. But you know what?
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  I could go on forever about the scandalous parts of the X-Men.
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  When Beast discovered a possible cure for the Legacy virus, one
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  that required a mutant to die activating it, Peter did not
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  hesitate. He was hyped.
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  He sacrificed his life to save mutant kind.
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  Kitty scattered his ashes back at home in Russia.
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  Except it's comics people, so he wasn't really dead.
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  An alien named Ord had stolen Peter's body, resurrected him,
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  and imprisoned him for years. When Kitty discovered he was
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  alive, they reunited and picked up right back where they left
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  off. Cautiously, painfully, but
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  honestly. From there, Peter's life became
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  a cycle of tragedy and survival. Family conspiracies involving
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  Rasputin bloodlines, prophecies on Breakworld that led Kitty to
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  being fused to a plant killing bullet battles with the Hulk and
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  the destruction of the X mansion, and just so many other
• 7:35
  endless reinventions in the X-Men world.
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  So it's just it just kept going for the poor guy.
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  Ileana return though changed. She was unstable, she was
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  dangerous, but Peter became very overprotective of her.
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  When the serpent threatened Earth, Peter sacrificed himself
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  again, this time by becoming the Juggernaut and taking Cider Axe
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  curse to save his sister. The power nearly destroyed him
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  though, which like he just keeps sacrificing himself.
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  I don't think he minded that much.
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  Then came the Phoenix 5. Peter briefly helped to reshape
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  the world, feeding the hungry, ending wars before it all
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  collapsed. His relationship with Kitty
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  finally broke for good when he admitted that he wasn't safe to
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  be around anyone. Magic ultimately betrayed him in
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  the cruelest way imaginable, by deliberately manipulating him
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  into damnation to prove she wasn't worthy of his love.
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  When she finally freed him, Peter swore to kill her if they
• 8:39
  ever met again. So the tides have changed,
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  Broken. He vanished, hiding, painting,
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  grieving, until Cable dragged him back into the conflict.
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  And that didn't end well either. So eventually Peter returned to
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  the X-Men, survived reality rewrites.
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  Apocalypse. That's a big one.
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  Mutant plagues and global wars. He nearly married Kitty until
• 9:04
  she walked away at the altar, realizing love was not enough to
• 9:07
  fix decades of trauma. And we stand a strong queen on
• 9:13
  Krakoa, Peter tried to live quietly, farming and painting in
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  the Savage Land. He even found love again, until
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  his brother Mikhail enslaved his mind and turned him into a
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  traitor, forcing him to murder the woman he loved.
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  After years under mind control, Peter finally broke free, killed
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  Mikhail, which is his brother, and helped save X Force.
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  Exhausted and done with symbols, he eventually abandoned the
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  Colossus name altogether. After the fall of Krakoa, Peter
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  reinvented himself one last time, operating secretly as
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  Tank, hiding his identity and sealing the reality fractures
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  and fighting not as a symbol, but as a man who had lost too
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  much to ever be naive again. So through it all, war, gods,
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  demons, love, death, rebirth. Peter Rasputin remained the same
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  at his core, a gentle artist who never wanted to hurt anyone.
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  He was trapped in a world that constantly demanded he do
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  exactly that, though. So that is Peter Rasputin.
• 10:22
  That is Colossus. If you're not familiar with
• 10:26
  them, you're probably more familiar with him in the movies
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  like the Deadpool movies and all that, and you don't realize his
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  life is actually really, really tragic, really devastating.
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  But he still stays the kind, gentle, souled artist he is
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  through and through. So I think I don't, I think he
• 10:47
  as a character is underrated, but I think his story and his
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  personality is much more overrated than who he is.
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  Then his name, if that makes sense.
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  It probably doesn't make sense. I'm really tired.
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  I'm like really tired. So sorry.
• 11:02
  But as usual, I have comics for you to check out so you can get
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  to know Colossus even better. We will start with Uncanny X-Men
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  numbers 94 to 251. He is all in there.
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  It is a lot of reading, but is a lot of good, good reading.
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  The Mirror Island Saga, Uncanny X-Men #3O1TO3O2, Fatal
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  Attractions, Age of Apocalypse, Generation Next Omega, Uncanny
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  X-Men #390, Astonishing X-Men number One through 24, and
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  Uncanny X-Men 535 through 544. So that is all I have for you
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  today. That is all I have about
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  Colossus. I hope you enjoyed what all I
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  had to say because I said a lot and I'm very sorry for that.
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  So with that being said, be sure to like and subscribe so you
• 11:54
  don't miss anything else I put out and have a marvelous day.