KRAKOA

 

KRAKOA

Real Name: Krakoa

First Appearance: Giant Size X-Men (Vol. 1) #1, May 1975

History: Millennia ago, an unidentified powerful being wielding the Twilight Sword tore the land of Okkara in two, creating two separate islands: Arakko and Krakoa. To end the foe's threat, the mutant External named Apocalypse pushed Arakko through a chasm to the foe's home dimension (Amenth) and sealed shut the chasm. Apocalypse then set four of his agents, the Four (possibly the first of his Horsemen) to guard Krakoa and ensure the foe did not return through the Arak Maw, the portal to Arakko.

In the spring of 1945, an atomic bomb test detonation on Krakoa damaged a nearby plane carrying Sergeant Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos and forced the soldiers to parachute to the island. The bomb awakened Krakoa, after it had apparently spent millennia dormant and in pain. Krakoa tormented the Howling Commandos until Fury struck a deal with Krakoa, who stopped attacking the Commandos in exchange for keeping the island's sentience a secret when they left. Fury believed the atomic detonation granted Krakoa sentience, but this theory remains unconfirmed.

Years later, the mutant telepath named Charles Xavier detected Krakoa and sent his team of X-Men to investigate, believing it to be another mutant. When Krakoa captured the X-Men to use them as sustenance, Xavier contacted his ally (fellow mutant geneticist Dr. Moira MacTaggert) and convinced her to let her send her own four mutant students to rescue them. After only Cyclops was freed (two of the four were killed, while the remaining two were left incapacitated), Xavier gathered an international team of X-Men who rescued the captured team and then cast Krakoa into space. As it left Earth's atmosphere, the portion of Krakoa containing two of MacTaggert's students broke free and remained in Earth's orbit. Krakoa also released spores, some of which grew to sentience as Krakoa's "children". Eventually, Krakoa was found by the enigmatic Stranger, who took it to his laboratory world. Later, Krakoa somehow returned to the Pacific Ocean after Earth's Quasar (Wendell Vaughn) freed the Stranger's captives. Additionally, Dr. MacTaggert's remaining two students were eventually recovered and revived.

Many decades after these events, Professor Xavier, mutant supremacist Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) and Dr. MacTaggert (who was by this point believed dead) joined forces to establish a mutant nation-state. Xavier traveled to Krakoa and telepathically/empathically connected with the island, moving past their former rivalry. Believing the island to be the perfect location for the mutant nation, Xavier recruited his former student, the mutant omnilinguist Cypher (Douglas Ramsey) to help him communicate with Krakoa. Upon arrival, Cypher and his secret companion Warlock of the Technarchy (disguised as a circuitry sheath covering Cypher's right arm) quietly infected a Krakoan plant with a techno- organic virus; the reason for this action and any results from it are unrevealed. After learning of Krakoa's separation from Arakko millennia before, Cypher remained on the island to strengthen their relationship, prepare for the mutant nation and build the necessary interface that would allow mutants to interact with Krakoa.

At some point. Krakoa split a portion of itself off into a 53 square mile set of five islands in the Atlantic Ocean, west of the Canary Islands and south of the Azores, while a 263 square mile main island remained in the Pacific Ocean in the general proximity of the Marshall Islands. Over the next number of months, Krakoa and Cypher bonded, allowing Cypher to finish the interface, which comprised four mutants assigned to different tasks: Sage (Tessa) would use her computer-like brain to track mutants entering and leaving Krakoa; the plant-life-communing Black Tom Cassidy would observe and protect the land; the technopathic Trinary (Shilpa Khatri) would be in charge of secondary and external systems; and the highly intelligent Beast (Henry McCoy) would be responsible for data analysis.

When the mutant nation took residence on Krakoa, Cypher created an autochthonous mutant language, Krakoan not to be confused with Krakoa's native language, which only Cypher (and apparently Warlock) can understand. Resident telepaths imprinted the mutant language into the mind of any newly-arrived mutant, allowing them to read, speak and fully understand the mutant language. The mutant inventor known as Forge built a massive subterranean laboratory where he used Krakoan organic to build biological machines and weaponry. One of the first tenets of this new nation was that Krakoa must be respected as sacred land.

With Krakoa's quidance, the mutant scientist Dr. Nemesis harvested flowers that enabled the new nation to flourish quickly. One bloom for growing gateways provided instant mutant transportation to Krakoa, another bloom produced self-sustaining habitats, which were part of Krakoa's interconnected consciousness, and a third non-naturally occurring flower produced No-Places, habitats outside of Krakoa's consciousness. Moira MacTaggert maintains a private residence and laboratory in one such No-Place under Krakoa, enabling her to help foster the mutant nation while perpetuating the belief that she was dead.

Harvest centers in the prehistoric Savage Land and in a Krakoan habitat on Mars processed three other flowers from the work of Dr. Nemesis. These were used to create the revolutionary drugs L, I and M, which respectively extend human life by five years, prevent diseases of the mind and function as the most effective, adaptive antibiotic the world had ever seen.

When he deemed Krakoa ready, Xavier telepathically addressed the world, offering the life-changing medicines in exchange for Krakoan sovereignty. As the news traveled, the world's mutants flocked to Krakoa through many of the newly opened gates across the globe, swelling the population to nearly 200,000; at some point an exception was made for the human Kyle Jinadu to live on Krakoa with his X-Man husband, Northstar (Jean-Paul Beaubier). After Xavier's address, the United Nations granted Krakoa sovereignty (possibly with some psychic suggestion by mutant telepath Emma Frost) and more than 100 nations accepted the deal, though some nations rejected Krakoa on political and/or ideological reasons. Soon after, Apocalypse arrived on Krakoa, who joyfully recognized him as its savior from millennia before. Hundreds of other mutants who had previously used their gifts for evil joined Apocalypse to accept and submit to Krakoa's laws. The fourteen-member governing body of Krakoa, the Quiet Council, established two tenets of this new nation: Kill no humans and make more mutants.

When a portion of Arakko inexplicably reappeared as a small island it merged with Krakoa, increasing Krakoa's landmass by an unrevealed number of square miles and helping to ease the sadness Krakoa felt from their separation; the portion that reappeared housed the still closed Arak Maw portal to the remainder of Arakko. Shortly after, the environmental group Hordeculture temporarily seized control of a Krakoan gate in the Savage Land by unrevealed means, causing Krakoa incredible discomfort and leading to aggressive wildlife, decreased landmass and headaches for resident telepaths until the X-Men took back the portal. After a tournament between residents of Arakko and Krakoa in the dimension of Otherworld, Arakko and all of its mutant residents were sent back to Earth. However with a massive population of war like mutants, the omega-level mutants of Krakoa decided to terraform the planet Mars and transport Arakko and all of its residents there. While Mars is now the first mutant world, Krakoa continues to serve as the physical nation for mutantkind.

Powers: Krakoa is a living ecosystem, the congregate intelligence of an entire island's flora and fauna linked together in a kind of hive-mind. Although not entirely sentient (the diabolical expositional dialogue it originally spouted was a telepathic ploy by Professor X), it did possess basic reasoning skills, and Krakoa's descendants did demonstrate fully human-like sentience. It could direct the animals on the island to move and attack in unison, cause plant life to become animated, grow at an incredible rate and ensnare its targets, and manipulate the geography of the island. This could be done subtly to rearrange paths and landmarks on the island, or more aggressively like triggering rockslides, seismic tremors, and open fissures in the ground. Krakoa could also create humanoid avatars out of the earth and substance of the island, possessing variable levels of superhuman size, strength and durability. Because the avatars were merely extensions of the island, they could expel large quantities of rock or molten materials channeled up through the ground. Krakoa was also capable of draining mutant bio-energy, siphoning power directly out from the bodies of mutants trapped on the island.

Its largest humanoid form possessed superhuman strength (lifting approximately 100 tons). Krakoa can produce flowers that prolong human life, cure cancer and serve as powerful antibiotics. Other blooms can rapidly grow into self-contained structures, weapons and wormholes that allow mutants to pass through for instant transport. The maximum distance of the portals is unrevealed, but they have been used to travel to the Shi'ar Empire galaxies away and the extradimensional realms of Otherworld and Mojoworld.

Krakoa feeds on mutant energy, requiring consumption of two mutants annually to maintain a stable environment. In the past, Krakoa's feedings would render mutants powerless, and would trap prey using tentacle-like vegetation growth. Now, the population of the mutant nation donates a minimal amount of psychic energy from each citizen to maintain Krakoa's health. Similar mutant energy "vampires" the Black Queen (Selene Gallio) and Emplate (Marius St. Croix) monitor the levels of psychic depletion among the island's population to ensure they do not exceed the minimal psychic draw. Krakoa can block the powers of telepaths trying to communicate with those on the island, and it can survive unaided in space.

The next Krakoa was a second-generation spore from the original island, likely derived from the so-called "Vega-Superior" Son of Krakoa once fought by Nightcrawler. The genetic core of Krakoa was apparently introduced into the land surrounding the Jean Grey School without the X-Men knowing, and Krakoa incorporated itself into the environment. How far Krakoa's influence extends over the landscape is unknown, but he can manifest his mass as a fully mobile humanoid form when necessary. Krakoa can manipulate the landscape to create trees, flowers, rock formations, and other natural features. It can also trigger more disastrous effects like avalanches, earthquakes, and volcanic activity, and create animated humanoid extensions much like the original did.