For being a multi-tentacled cyclopean terror from another dimension, Shuma-Gorath has done all right for himself. He’s battled and nearly bested the likes of Conan the Barbarian, Doctor Strange, and the Fantastic Four, as well as a host of other lesser-known, but nonetheless notable, Marvel sorcerers, shamans, and time travelers. In spite of repeated failures to claim our dimension as his own, Shuma-Gorath’s unwavering gaze is set upon humanity, just waiting for us to blink.
Author Robert E. Howard first mentioned Shuma-Gorath in his short story “The Curse of the Golden Skull,” but left the entity’s motivations and appearance nebulous. The Shuma-Gorath we’ve all come to know and love first appeared in Marvel Premiere #5, manifesting itself through the powerful consciousness of Doctor Strange’s teacher, the Ancient One. Though ultimately Strange routed Shuma-Gorath by killing his own master, the tentacled horror would soon return to plague him.
Over time it is revealed that Shuma-Gorath has been on Earth before, thriving on blood sacrifice during the Hyperborean Age. With the help of the god Crom, Conan the Barbarian drove Shuma-Gorath back to its home dimension where it remained trapped with a bunch of other cosmic jerkstores until the present day.
Thanks to some extra-dimensional scheming, Shuma-Gorath escaped and finally possessed Doctor Strange, forcing the Sorcerer Supreme to take his own life to protect the imperiled Earth. Fortunately, someone owed the good Doctor a favor and he was reincarnated in time to save the day. Shuma laid relatively low after that defeat, no more than a bit player in minor cosmic skirmishes. Then in 2013’s Infinity event, this happened:
Ouch. Get him a giant-sized bottle of Visine STAT.
Severe ocular trauma or no, its hard to keep a good monster down. It’s a safe bet Shuma and that eye of his will be back to stir things up again sooner or later. In spite of limited comic appearances over the years, Shuma-Gorath is recognizable to an entire generation thanks to Capcom’s highly-successful Marvel Super Heroes games. Available in ghastly grape or luminous lime, Shuma added some much-needed weirdness to the normally superhero-centric Marvel side of the proceedings. The strangest part was when he won.
My god — he’s full of stars!
The fact that Shuma-Gorath doesn’t grace our Marvel Legends shelves is baffling. Who does a slimy, one-eyed extra-dimensional monster have to sleep with in this town to get his own action figure? Why, Fwoosh Customizer Supreme RobW, of course! Wait, let me rephrase that…
RobW shows proper respect for the Great Old One, not only providing a suitably eldritch sculpt and paint job, but articulated limbs and eye action as well! Why should Shuma-Gorath just hang there staring blankly ahead when he could be doin’ stuff?
I’m not going to get into the impressive work that went into making this guy — RobW lays it out for you much better than I ever could here. I can rave about the startlingly organic-looking sculpting, the shockingly lifelike paintwork, and the overall alien aesthetic, but it’s the articulation that really makes this custom special. Being able to move the eye and tentacles provides a nice range of expression for something that doesn’t actually have a face. I mean, dig the attitude:
That is one snarky Elder God right there, folks. The ability to fine-tune Shuma’s poses really adds a lot to the overall presentation. While we all want a Lockjaw figure, all that doggie’d really do is stand there. Shuma can actually face-off against a half-dozen figures without breaking a sweat.
And while this guy might seem big compared to recent Build-A-Figures like Jubilee, he’s nowhere near as large as Hasbro’s own Fin Fang Foom. Considering all six tentacles could be built off of one mold, the character isn’t economically unfeasible. Spread out over two series of Doctor Strange figures, Shuma-Gorath would make one monster of a BAF.
While he might look more like something from Mystery Science Theater 3000 than from a modern comic book, Shuma-Gorath is one of those characters we love to read about. Unlike today’s ideologically motivated villains like Magneto or Loki, Shuma is a throwback to a simpler time, when the bad guy could just be a big space booger out to eat us. Though he’s yet to appear in any movies or TV shows, Marvel’s resident cycloptopus’s star is definitely on the rise. Isn’t it time he joined the plastic ranks of Marvelites everywhere? Join me now and let ’em hear it outside: C’mon, Hasbro! MAKE! MY! MORT!
Thanks to RobW for allowing us to feature his figure. Check out more of RobW’s work here. Shuma-Gorath Fhtagn, Rob! You’ll be eaten last!
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