One of the essential X-Men may finally be ready to hang up the super suit and return to his roots, even it if takes him away from Marvel’s mutants.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for X-Force #11 by Benjamin Percy, Bazal Dua, VC’s Joe Caramagna and Guru-eFX, on sale now.
The X-Men are stacked with some incredibly strong mutants, and few are more powerful than the one and only Colossus. One of the strongest mutants on the planet, the metallic mutant has gone toe-to-toe with the likes of the Juggernaut and even the Hulk, but the events of the ongoing X-Force series may have pushed his mettle to the limit. Inspiring him to return to his roots as a simple farmer.
The quintessential gentle giant, Piotr Nikolayevich Rasputin has never been fully comfortable with the violent actions his role as an X-Man requires. This is far from the first time he’s backed away from the team, but if his behavior in Benjamin Percy and Bazal Dua’s X-Force #11 is any indication, he expects it to be his last.
Towards the beginning of the issue, Domino visits Colossus and finds him tending a field. As she asks him to return to duty on a different field, she’s shocked to hear him refuse. Considering himself done with active duty, Piotr explains how he’s still haunted by what happened when he last went to Russia to rescue captive mutants in the debut issue of X-Force. He’s also still shaken by what happened to Domino the last time he went with her into the field in X-Force #8. Telling Domino that farming is what he needs now, he makes a pretty compelling case for this claim later in the issue.
Ever since the start of the series, Colossus has been grappling with his place amongst the X-Men, and not for the first time. An ongoing threat in the Dawn of X titles has been Russia’s treatment of mutants and their use of power-dampening technology—a threat to which Colossus fell victim in the series’ first issue. This trauma has stayed with him ever since, preventing him from fully reclaiming his role as the powerhouse of the X-Men.
But when Krakoa is attacked, Piotr realizes he can’t stand on the sidelines. Leaping into action alongside his fellow X-Men, his presence helps turn the tide, but he makes it clear that he isn’t thrilled by the idea of returning to the battlefield. He craves the structure and order—something he feels he sorely lacks when he’s with the X-Men. As a farmer, he has his daily routine, a clockwork schedule. But with the team, he says there is only chaos. With everything the X-Men have been through, it’s hard to disagree with him.
As he says to Domino, farming is in his blood. The second-born of three siblings, Piotr, spent the early years of his life on a Soviet collective farm in Siberia. His uncanny mutant abilities first manifested themselves when he saved his younger sister, Illyana Rasputin, from a runaway tractor and garnered the attention of Professor Charles Xavier.
While the X-Men are Piotr’s family, this is just the latest in a long line of instances in which he’s left behind his fellow Merry Mutants. He took a brief hiatus from the team to recover from the wounds he’d received from the Marauders during the “Mutant Massacre,” and he was also one of the “Outback X-Men” who gained a new life through the Siege Perilous in Uncanny X-Men #250 by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri, and Steve Leialoha. Arriving in New York City with no memory of his past life, he adopted the identity of “Peter Nicholas,” becoming a successful artist until his memories are restored by Professor X in order to save him from the machinations of the Shadow King.
He left the X-Men once again after his younger sister fell to the Legacy Virus, joining their archnemesis, Magneto, and his Acolytes in the hopes of softening their more extreme edges. This sabbatical from the X-Men continued as he left the Acolytes behind to serve as a member of Excalibur alongside Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler, staying with the team until the group disbanded and he returned to the X-Men. Years later, after his death and resurrection, he again briefly left the X-Men, serving as a member of X-Force alongside Cable after the events of Avengers vs. X-Men by Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, and more left him a wanted fugitive with unstable powers. Even the Colossus of Earth-1610, Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, briefly left his team behind after a growing distaste for the violent lives they led—a distaste that his mainstream counterpart currently shares.
Whether Colossus is really with the X-Men or this is another blip in his journey of self-discovery remains to be seen. Farmer or not, it’s clear that the X-Men are going to need all of their most powerful mutants, including their resident strongman if they want to keep their new home, and everyone in it, safe.
