Kalibak

Publication history

Created by Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in New Gods #1 (February 1971).

Fictional character biography

Kalibak is the first-born son of Darkseid and Suli. His mother Suli is killed by Desaad, acting under orders from Kalibak's grandmother Queen Heggra. Kalibak becomes a legendary warrior, and often serves as Darkseid's second-in-command. After Darkseid breaks the pact of peace with New Genesis, the rival planet of Kalibak's home Apokolips, he aids his father in the resulting battles.

Kalibak is often pitted against Orion, and after numerous clashes they learned that they were half-brothers. This fuels Kalibak's hatred of Orion to new levels, for Darkseid clearly values Orion over his first-born. Unlike Orion, Kalibak secretly craves the love and respect of his father - something neither he, nor anyone else, can ever hope to attain - and it has been shown that he has a gentle side which is completely submerged under his brutish exterior, and which he consistently and fearfully keeps hidden for any sign of weakness is, on Apokolips, subject to the cruelest punishment.

For his part, Darkseid is more lenient towards Kalibak's failures than those of his other servants; having slain him, he always returns him to life. It is implied this is because his eldest son is the offspring of the one person Darkseid truly loved.

At one point, Kalibak is desperate enough to confront Orion without Darkseid's consent. Kalibak's scheme fell apart and he kills his accomplice Desaad, also a servant of Darkseid, to cover his tracks. Darkseid was not pleased when he finds out and reduces his son to a pile of ash. After enough time had passed Darkseid resurrects Kalibak, hoping the boy had learned a lesson.

Kalibak later spends some time in an Apokolips prison, on Darkseid's orders. In Orion #1, (June 2000), Darkseid is on Earth when Orion invades Apokolips. Justeen, a servant of Desaad, releases Kalibak to battle Orion yet again. Kalibak is swiftly subdued, but does not care much as Orion leaves to battle Darkseid and Kalibak hopes to gain power as a result.

During the universe-wide Genesis incident, Apokolips forces, including Kalibak, invade Earth. In Young Heroes in Love #5, Kalibak and his small squad of Parademons are defeated by the leader of the Young Heroes, the telekinetic and telepathic Hard Drive.

Kalibak is slain by his uncle Infinity-Man, who has been murdering the residents of Apokolips and New Genesis as an agent of the Source Wall in Death of the New Gods.

In Final Crisis the new Fifth World and human version of Kalibak appears alongside Darkseid (calling himself Dark Side) seemingly reborn in a new form alongside his father and a human Kanto. This form is later replaced with a humanoid tiger-like form, engineered by Simyan and Mokkari. He is seen devouring a Green Lantern named Opto. He leads a regiment of tiger soldiers against the heroes in Blüdhaven, but he is killed in combat with Tawky Tawny. Before he dies, he begs his soldiers to help but they refuse as they only follow the strong. They then bow to Tawny as Kalibak dies.

In The New 52 (a reboot of the DC Comics universe), Kalibak is a loyal follower of Darkseid, backing him up in a war against the Anti-Monitor. He does have a problem with slaying Apokolips soldiers that literally get in the way between him and the enemy.

Powers and abilities

Kalibak possesses incredibly high levels of superhuman strength, endurance, and durability. Despite his great size, Kalibak is actually fast and agile. Like all beings of the Fourth World he is immortal. Kalibak is a highly trained hand-to-hand combatant known on Apokolips for his savagery. He is armed with a Beta-Club, a weapon that fires force bolts or nerve beams that causes living beings agonizing pain beyond comprehension. It is nearly indestructable, though Orion once destroyed it with some assistance from Lightray. He can also summon and use aero-disks which allow him to fly. Kalibak also has access to high-tech weapons of mass destruction. Physically, Kalibak is one of the strongest gods on Apokolips, and the most loyal to Darkseid. This is what makes Kalibak an indispensable member of Darkseid's Elite. Kalibak possesses incredible levels of superhuman strength almost on par with Superman, Orion, and even Darkseid himself. Once he had been augmented by his father in an effort to secure the Life-Equation from an elemental wielder; Darksied had bestowed his son with vastly augmented might and menace enabling him to physically overpower his once far stronger brother Orion in combat, even granting him the ability of psi-beams which are an Omega effect like psionic blast which spikes individual minds with blinding amounts of mental agony.

Television

Film

Video games