Amatsu-Mikaboshi (character)

The gods of Zenn-La, upon detecting Mikaboshi's approach, convene to prepare to combat his spreading darkness. Thrann, Saint of Science, tells them that the

After enslaving the fallen gods of Olympus and using them to attack the newly formed God Squad, even managing to down mighty Galactus himself through Zeus, Mikaboshi and his army erupts from the former Olympian Skyfather's chest after tricking Hercules into piercing the shields concealing the hitherto hidden Throne Room of the Council Elite's Celestial Axis, launching a devastating assault on the divine realms of all of Earth's pantheons and destroying most of the gods, even the various Godheads themselves.^[11] Though the Amatsu-Kami themselves muster their strength and confront Mikaboshi, with their chief sun goddess Amaterasu vowing to defeat Mikaboshi as they did long ages past, Mikaboshi slays her, defeats the remaining members of her pantheon, and enslaves them all against the God Squad, who initially intend to seal Mikaboshi back into Yomi before the Kami betray and attack them.^[12]

Amatsu-Mikaboshi even gained allies in Nekra and a resurrected Grim Reaper.

Amatsu-Mikaboshi relished the slow death of his oldest enemy, the Elder Goddess Gaea, who herself is the fountainhead of creation and the one who birthed the Gods themselves. Amatsu-Mikaboshi sends Athena to attack her brother and the God Squad on an island, who joined him so the Universe could be recreated. Yet Athena ends up defeated by Hercules.[17] Hercules takes his fight to Amatsu-Mikaboshi and the heroes attack him. The Chaos King begins to consume all reality into nothingness, though in reality he has been sealed into the continuity that Cho and Galactus planned to evacuate Earth into.^[18]

Powers and abilities

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Mikaboshi possessed the conventional abilities of one of the Kami, the order of Japanese deities, such as superhuman strength, speed, durability, agility, endurance and recuperative abilities, as well as high ability to wield some form of potent Japanese dark magic, a brand of sorcery that seems especially effective against the Olympian deities. His physical strength, at least in his main incarnation, is considerably less than that of Zeus or Izanagi, and is roughly equal to that of the average Kami,^[19] but Mikaboshi can project energy on a scale at least rivaling that of Zeus and Izanagi. Like the Asgardians, the Japanese gods are extremely long-lived but not truly immortal like the Olympians; they tend to age at an extremely slow rate upon reaching adulthood and are three times denser than normal human beings, although Mikaboshi himself is immortal.

Mikaboshi possesses vast supernatural power, which is apparently inherent within him. He can use this mystical energy for a variety of effects, among which are his ability to alter his form and shape; he also often taken on a female form to appear harmless. He is otherwise almost always represented as a being of black, shadowy energy with a mask for a face. He can reshape his limbs into razor-sharp blades, form tentacles and tendrils to attack enemies, and assume the form of a fire-breathing serpent, which Apollo's fire was unable to affect and which was able to retaliate with a blast of fire powerful enough to harm and strike down even the Olympian sun deity. He has employed powers of flight, teleportation, the projection of mystical energy as force blasts, invisibility, matter manipulation, image projection and the creation of inter-dimensional nexus points among other feats, such as creating "shadow copies" capable of avoiding detection by high-level dark magical entities such as

More akin to a force of nature than a physical being, and having existed as a dark, primordial void that once dominated Earth (and before even that, the Marvel Universe, and before even this, the realities predating the Marvel Universe itself) in its earliest days, Mikaboshi's true form is elusive. He apparently exists as a single golden eye characterized by a slit-like iris. The eye is surrounded by an amorphous mass of dark energy, which Mikaboshi can form into tangible objects of virtually any form he can imagine, such as whip-like tentacles or a humanoid body. He can also assume a comet-like appearance (with his eye serving as the comet's nucleus) and propel himself at incredible speeds. He is immune to most diseases and possesses extremely quick reflexes. Mikaboshi possesses an extremely high intellect rivaling that of genius-level, and is an accomplished strategist, though his preferred tactic is simply overwhelming opponents with the sheer number of his demonic foot-soldiers. His army contains many netherworld denizens, mostly shinma and oni.

As a demonic entity, and the conqueror of Yomi, Japanese underworld of the Kami, Mikaboshi also has several powers enabling him to capture and detain the astral bodies (sheaths of the soul) of recently deceased human beings; on at least one instance, Mikaboshi has been shown capable of releasing a deceased mortal soul back into the realm of the living.

After seizing control over thousands of alien deities of the Skrulls, and using them to tear through worlds and realities to eliminate the gods of countless other extraterrestrial civilizations, such as the gods of the Shi'ar and the gods of Zenn-La, Mikaboshi was able to gather enough power to shed his "Terran form" and emerge as the Chaos King, the primal embodiment of nothingness and primordial chaos that served as a natural opposing power to both Eternity and Death, and a threat to the entire Marvel Multiverse, and all its powered mortals, living or dead, abstract conceptual beings, cosmic entities and lesser divinities.^[20]

Oblivion said that Amatsu-Mikaboshi was merely one aspect of himself.^[21]

Reception

• In 2020,
  CBR.com ranked Amatsu-Mikaboshi 4th in their "10 Marvel Gods With The Highest Kill Count" list.^[22]

External links

• Amatsu-Mikaboshi at The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe