I've missed telling you about the Posthumans, so we're back. One more villain before we discuss some heroes and "neutrals."
Jagannath
Rajkumar Rao is a founding member of the Posthuman Supremacy International Organized Network. He's been with the Red Queen and the BrainSkull since the beginning. He's also married to the team healer, Prasad. With bull-like horns on his head and the posthuman power to become invulnerable while moving, he's the long-time tank of PSION. You will meet (and possibly fight) Jagannath in Issue 10 of POSTHUMAN, and you'll see more of him and his backstory if you choose to join PSION.
Jagannath is, of course, an expy for Marvel's Juggernaut–or is it the other way around? In our own world, British colonists observed the sacred processions of the Odia-Hindu god Jagannath, and reported to have seen attendees crushed beneath the heavy carts of the festivals. From this, the term was anglicized as "juggernaut," meaning an unstoppable moving object or beast that crushes everything in its path. As any thinking person might suppose, to be crushed under the wheel of a supreme, benevolent god means something very different in a religion and context like Hinduism, which revolves around reincarnation and the freeing of oneself from it. But the British turned Jagannath into "juggernaut," an engine of war and destruction, not karmic freedom.
I decided to put the Unstoppable Force back into the context of Odia-Hinduism. I picture him as a proud and righteously angry man who won't let his people (posthumans) be used and abused like his ancestors (the Telugu). He's big and beefy, of course. Visual inspiration here comes from Ultimate Juggernaut, with some inspiration from the revolutionary gang leader Toro from China Mieville's IRON COUNCIL. I also thought about the divine bulls and bull gods of many religions and cultures in the Near East and the Mediterranean region, from Egyptian to Minoan to Zoroastrian in addition to Hindu. I might cast N. T. Rama Rao Jr. from films like RRR and BAADSHAH to play him.
Explore Posthuman: Guardians vs PSION via choiceofgames.com/posthuman or evanjpeterson.com/posthuman.
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