Shuma-Gorath
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Shuma-Gorath is a fictional character, a demon and Lord of Chaos appearing in the Marvel Universe. It first appeared in the pages of Marvel Premiere, and is better known for also being a playable character in the Marvel vs Capcom video games. It is likely that it was inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos, having the squamous and tentacular physique typical of Cthulu.
Speculations that Shuma-Gorath is based on Eddy C. Bertin's Cyäegha do not take into account that the Marvel character's first visual depiction was in 1973, three full years before the publication of Bertin's "Darkness, My Name Is".
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[edit] Character biography
[edit] Original character
Shuma Gorath appears first in Robert E. Howard's short story "The Curse of the Golden Skull", which takes place in Lemuria during the pre-Cataclysmic Age of Kull of Atlantis. Rotath, a dying magician, invokes Shuma Gorath's iron bound books in a curse against humanity. Judging from Howard's other authors of iron bound books--such as Vathelos the Blind and Skelos--, we may deduce that Shuma Gorath was a human(oid) sorcerer.
[edit] Ancient origin
Shuma-Gorath resembles a giant green eye with tentacles. Although his true origins are unknown, before the arrival of the First Host of the Celestials, Shuma-Gorath ruled the Earth and commanded human sacrifice, until the time-travelling sorcerer Sise-Neg banished him. He managed to return and set himself up as a god during the Hyborian Age, again commanding bloody sacrifice, but slaughtered those who sought his favour. Eventually, the power of Crom imprisoned him within a mountain. Even from that prison, he could interact with Conan the Barbarian, Kulan Gath, and many others, before Crom banished him back to his home dimension.
[edit] Modern age
When Shuma-Gorath tried to return to Earth through the mind of the Ancient One, he forced Doctor Strange to kill his master to prevent the powerful creature from arriving on Earth.
Years later, Strange was forced to destroy the talismans keeping the chaos demons at bay, to keep them from falling into the hands of an evil sorcerer. Strange was then forced to travel to Shuma-Gorath's dimension and fight it there to prevent the demons from invading Earth. To do so, Strange had to absorb the chaos magic into himself, gaining enough power to destroy Shuma-Gorath. However, he started to transform into a new Shuma-Gorath himself as a result, so he committed suicide to prevent that from happening. Fortunately, an ally of Strange was able to purify him on his way back to the living. Shuma-Gorath resurrected himself not long after from the remnants of the chaos magic.
Recently, he was summoned to Earth by the sorcerer Nicholas Scratch, who offered his services in return for "[his] life and Barbados". However, the demon was driven back by the combined efforts of the Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, the Salem's Seven, and Diablo.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Shuma-Gorath is a powerful and ancient demon of the highest order and possesses vast supernatural powers. He is essentially invincible to anything but the most powerful magic. He has superhuman strength and endurance which, being magical in nature, are incalculably high. Because of his body's unique form, he has the ability to shapeshift and even liquify himself. He also has the ability to generate several forms of energy attacks, mostly forming from his one eye. One attack not generated from his eye is when he forms a ball of pure energy that can shatter realities using all of his tentacles to generate the ball above himself. He can also teleport and phase at will and levitate (which is just magically flying).
He can enter and leave different planes of existence and dimensions at will and has reality warping powers. He can also summon demons and other supernatural creatures to do his bidding.
His intelligence is nearly immeasurable; approaching omniscience.
[edit] Appearances in other media
[edit] Video games
Shuma-Gorath was colored purple for his primary color palette in his first non-comic appearance in Marvel Super Heroes. As such, he appears purple in his ending as well. Actually, in his first on panel depiction in Marvel Premiere #10 he was purple. He was also purple in Marvel Premiere issue #14. This was changed for his subsequent appearances in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (he was still purple in his cameos in X-Men vs. Street Fighter, where he appears in the endings for Storm and Dhalsim).
