Kulan Gath (Dynamite)

In case you’re wondering

The following analysis focuses on the feats and abilities of Kulan Gath under his publication in Dynamite Entertainment. While there are multiple statements and references suggesting Dynamite and Marvel’s Kulans are one and the same, feats from those stories (outside of Spider-Man/Red Sonja) won’t be included since they’d take up too much space and there’s already a blog for that version.

Background

Kulan Gath

Real Name: Gath

Aliases: Borat-Na Fori, Kukulkan, The Supreme Gath, Henry “Hank” Gault, Hank Gault II, Hank Gault III, The Destroyer of Kingdoms,

Height: 5’8

Weight: 150 lbs

Occupation: Sorcerer, conqueror

First appearance: Red Sonja (2005) #12 (July 26, 2006)

Likes: Power, conquering, wine, torture, wrath, symbiotes

Dislikes: Scathach, Red Sonja, being called “Gath,” Spider-Man, social media, millennials, being flipped off

Backstory

Long ago, on the paradise-like island of Seabreak, there lived two lovers, a man named Gath and a woman named Scathach. Though their lives were relatively peaceful and quaint, Gath was a naturally curious man, and in his search for knowledge he discovered the art of magic. Disturbed by his discovery, Scathach grew fearful of her husband and forced him away, though her own curiosity would lead her to discover the power of light magic. With Gath gaining an intense lust for power and destruction, he used his power to reduce Seabreak to a barren wasteland. After striking her husband and forcing him to leave, Scathach combined Gath’s blood with the shavings of a tree’s heart, and through her magic, she gave birth to her ultimate tool for revenge: Red Sonja.

As his ex-wife planted the seeds for his downfall, Gath, now taking the title of Kulan, grew in power, but everywhere he went, Sonja continued to hound him. During one of these encounters, his amulet was split in two, sending him to 632 AD, where he tricked the Mayans into believing he was a god. Though Sonja managed to follow him, he successfully empowered his sacrificial knife through an unwitting accomplice, giving him the power to travel to the end of the world. Despite Sonja trailing him once again, Gath held her and her new companions off with his arcane summons. Unfortunately, his plans for world domination would be undone when Sonja- now a vampire- used his magically-empowered knife to stab him to death.

However, Gath would continue to live on through his amulet and eventually resurrect himself, though his lust for power eventually resulted in a fatal error that trapped him between dimensions.

Seeking an escape from this strange limbo, Gath used his magic to manipulate many into becoming his followers, chief among them a child who would grow up to become the cannibalistic warlord Borat Na-Fori. Under Borat’s command, Gath’s men would carve a path of blood through many villagers, killing any who stood in their way in order to revive their master.

However, the vanguard of his freedom would come from an unexpected place. Seeking revenge for what Gath’s men had done to her family, a reincarnated Red Sonja slew Borat, with his blood acting as a necessary sacrifice to free the sorcerer.

Gath celebrated his newfound freedom by spreading his influence and amassed an army with the goal of conquering the world. Under his growing rule, innocent villagers were forced to butcher their own neighbors, and even a moment’s hesitation to swear allegiance was punished by death. But even with his growing reign, Sonja brought together an army of rebels to stop him.

Their conflict would reach its climax on Seabreak, where the two finally confronted each other face to face. Though Gath proved successful in turning Sonja against her goddess, he was unable to kill her, as she instead sacrificed herself to kill him. With the sorcerer dead, mankind was able to usher in an era of peace. But it wouldn’t stay that way forever.

Even after his soul was condemned into the River Styx, Gath managed to escape from the underworld and battle Sonja’s latest incarnation, using his magic to scatter himself and Sonja across time. Landing in 1893, he adopted the identity of businessman and philanthropist Hank Gault and established a successful industry, slowly purchasing property in New York until he practically ran the town. But after three generations of climbing the corporate ladder, “Hank Gault III” would meet his end when Sonja was deposited into New York on January 2017. After a failed attempt to kill them with the Beast of Khauran and being abandoned by it, “Hank” took matters into his own hands and challenged Sonja and her partner Max. This confrontation would end with Gath being decapitated and his “immortal” body being tackled by Max back into ancient Hyrkania. But thanks to his devoted followers, Gath was soon revived and began plotting revenge, eventually sending his forces through the portal that was meant to send Sonja home. However, Sonja and Wallace- or rather, duplicates of them created by Wallace’s spell- would end up tackling him back into their original time, with the real Sonja following through. While Gath’s magic corrupted the location they wound up in, the displaced Hyborians wasted no time in tracking him down.

Meanwhile, Gath resumed his power hungry ways by taking over Shamballah and having it rebuilt in his image. With Max’s unwilling aid, Kulan was able to usurp the seven cities and absorb their magic for himself, then coerced Sonja’s duplicate into joining him with the promise of giving her a real life. But when the real Sonja into the fortress, everything went downhill. Aided by Wallace and a reformed Beast of Khauran, Sonja ended Gath’s reign once more, with the sorcerer being incinerated by the fiery breath of his former servant. However, his amulet would be secretly taken up by Lera, who hoped to sell it while traveling with Sonja. When this betrayal was discovered, Sonja and her copy battled once again, with the original using Gath’s amulet to bait the clone into falling to its death.

While her clone may have died, the same couldn’t be said for Kulan. Once again he and Sonja would cross paths, ending their encounter with his death and his amulet cast into the ocean so it could never be found. Though this seemed like a good idea at the time, it wound up ensuring doom for the entire world as Mistress Hel, goddess of the underworld, used the amulet’s power as incentive for many other beings to spread chaos and destruction, eventually culminating in the amulet being destroyed and the timeline going with it. Hoping to prevent this, Sonja and the modern day dhampir Chastity teamed up to retrieve the amulet and begrudgingly revive Kulan. And thanks to the carelessness of Evil Ernie, Gath was revived using the succubus Purgatori as his host. Though they initially struggled against Gath, Ernie was able to transfer the last of his power to Sonja’s sword, allowing her to injure Gath enough for Purgatori to reclaim control of her body. However, Gath would still be revived when Sonja placed his amulet on a nearby corpse, leaving him weaker than ever and restoring the timeline. But this time, rather than kill him, Sonja allowed Gath to leave on foot, challenging him to regain his full power if he managed to survive the desert. Then she would kill him.

Personality

Gath is extremely cruel, enjoying the worship of others and the slaughter of those who oppose him. He also enjoys taunting his captives, is not above threatening them with rape and torture, and regularly kills people to fuel his necromancy.

He seeks to remold the world in his image, viewing himself as a force of nature and his rule as the natural order. This massive ego makes him a bit theatrical when encouraging his men, and it’s shown in the Valentine’s Day one-shot that he loves hearing minstrels sing about him.

There are only a few things he hates: being called Gath due to viewing his past self as weak, and Red Sonja. He hates Sonja so much that he refuses to let anyone else kill her, which is a bit surprising since he didn’t have any ill will toward her when they first met. He was more curious why she hated him and found her dedication to Scathach amusing. It was only after she killed him that he began hating her, especially after she refused to rest in the Underworld and led to him being drowned in the River Styx.

One of his recurring traits is how weirdly petty he is. He’s ordered his men to steal a shopkeeper’s belongings and roast her chickens just because she might be lying to him, swapped a minstrel’s head with a chicken’s for correcting him, killed a seer for speaking rudely to him, and crushed one of his men to death for asking what they were going to eat. Even something as minor as being told “fuck you” and given the middle finger makes him want to kill the one responsible and burn an entire country to the ground.

During his time as Hank Gault he tempered his previous goals, switching out his desire to rule the world to just taking control of New York, deliberately purchasing half of the city while plotting to have it destroyed and rebuilt as New Gath City. In the three generations he spent on this plot, he also became annoyed at things like social media and millennials.

In the Valentine’s Special it’s revealed that Gath is surprisingly open to the idea of having children and wants to have 400 of them, 394 boys and 6 girls. Though it’s debatable how much of this is him being genuine since he was under the effects of a love potion at that time.

Torunn Gronbekk’s run establishes that he’s a cannibal, and now he’s more in line with the 2005 run, right down to not really caring about Sonja’s vendetta toward him. He also doesn’t trust anyone.

Experience

Gath has existed for thousands of years, and in his first appearance is described as an ancient evil that has seen worlds rise and fall, with Atlantis explicitly mentioned as one of them. He’s casually slain multiple armed men at once and done the same to rival sorcerers.

He’s incredibly manipulative, having convinced a clone of Sonja to to join his side, and successfully tricked the god Erlik into giving him control over a legion of recently deceased souls.

Strength

Red Sonja (2005) #22:

Destroys a table.

Red Sonja (2005) #24:

Splits a table in half by slamming his chalice against it.

Red Sonja (2005) #25:

Stabs a man to death.

Red Sonja (2005) #26:

Chokes Scathach and stabs her.

Spider-Man/Red Sonja #1:

Throws a fat guy out of a museum.

Telekinetically chokes J. Jonah Jameson and throws Red Sonja’s sword through a roof.

Spider-Man/Red Sonja #5:

Knocks Spider-Man and Sonja away with a blast of magic.

Red Sonja (2005) #29:

Chokes a demon and rips it in half.

Grabs Sonja’s wrist and twists it.

Prophecy #1:

Stabs a sacrifice through the chest and rips out his heart.

Prophecy #5:

Stabs a man to death.

Prophecy #6:

His magic threatened to cause the Mayan prophecy, which would cause time to devour itself, tear Earth apart, and give him the power to remake the world.

Queen Sonja #15:

A myth says he covered all the lands in darkness.

Pathfinder: Worldscape #4:

Blasts a sorcerer through the chest.

Red Sonja (Vol 4) #1:

Sonja says Gath has used his magic to create entire worlds.

Red Sonja (Vol 4) #4:

Stabbed Max in the side.

Red Sonja (Vol 4) #14:

Backhands Max some distance.

Red Sonja (Vol 4) #15 & 16:

Burns Wallace’s clone alive, reducing it to a skeleton, then blasts Max.

Red Sonja: Age of Chaos #2:

Destroying his amulet would break time and consume the entire timeline.

Red Sonja: Age of Chaos #3:

It’s repeated that Gath’s amulet broke time.

Sonja admits Gath is more powerful than her.

His amulet can restore Purgatori’s lost power and enhance it further.

Red Sonja: Age of Chaos #6:

(Purgatori)

Chucks Evil Ernie into the ground.

Red Sonja (2023) #16:

Kills a group of attackers with the tendrils of his robe.

Speed

Red Sonja (2005) #29:

Grabs Sonja’s wrist mid-swing.

Red Sonja (2023) #12:

Stops Sonja before she can swing her sword.

Durability

Red Sonja (2005) #27:

Endures being burned alive.

Red Sonja (2005) #29:

Sonja’s sword breaks on contact.

Spider-Man/Red Sonja #3:

Slammed into a wall and scratched by Venom.

Red Sonja (2005) #34:

His soul endures being stabbed by Sonja.

Prophecy #6 & 7:

Bitten on the neck by a vampire Sonja and gets a chunk ripped out.

Thrown into a pillar by Sonja.

Pathfinder: Worldscape #6:

Takes a punch from Tarzan and has his arm severed, but is only angered.

Is still alive after being shot in the head.

Red Sonja: Age of Chaos #6:

(Purgatori)

Stabbed by Evil Ernie.

Red Sonja Valentine’s Special One-Shot:

Punched by Sonja hard enough to knock out his teeth, then gets beaten up offscreen.

Red Sonja (2023) #10:

Kicked by Sonja hard enough that he spits blood.

Scaling

Red Sonja

Strangely enough, despite Sonja killing him on multiple occasions, she’s admitted that Gath is more powerful than her, so he should be above her in strength and at least comparable in speed.

Has cut Thulsa Doom in half, sliced him across the chest, and decapitated him.

Thulsa Doom was unharmed while at the epicenter of an explosion that incinerated Atlantis (15.05 gigatons) and later absorbed the power of the god that was responsible.

Cuts Spider-Man with her sword and draws blood, then beats him with physical blows.
Kicks Venom in the face, slices his back open, then cuts him across the side.
Defeated a bloodlusted and pissed off Vampirella despite admitting Vampi had a physical edge over her, killed her in their rematch while Vamprella was amped, and defeated her when Sonja was briefly turned into a vampire.

Vampirella pushed the Lincoln Memorial, which weighs 175 tons counting the pedestal, and is a casual bullet timer.

Spider-Man

Kulan has fought Spider-Man before.

Spider-Man pushed Hulk out of the way of an antimatter bomb (1.2 kilotons and Mach 409.51).
Survived a mountain exploding (606 kilotons).
Fought Luke Cage and matched his strength, to the point he was worried they’d wind up killing each other.

Luke survived an explosion from Ultron’s sentries that destroyed Manhattan (54 megatons).

Survived being hit with enough electromagnetic energy to destroy a city (10 megatons).
Tanked a blast from the Scepter of the Manticore, whose energy could power the Sandman, which requires 1 exajoule of energy (239 megatons)
Has regularly beaten Electro, who could power a Quantum Particle engine that would destroy New York (316.5 megatons) and once absorbed all the energy in New York City (754 megatons).
Dodged Lightmaster's light beams.
Has dodged lasers explicitly stated to be light speed.
Blitzed Daredevil, who could barely track Spider-Man with all his speed and reflexes.

Daredevil can react in a nanosecond and attack within that same timeframe (5.6 c).

Venom

Kulan has fought Venom and wielded the symbiote’s power before.

Venom has been consistently shown as stronger than Spider-Man, even with just the symbiote, and Peter’s admitted Venom could easily kill him. Venom’s also shown to be way faster, and has stated Spider-Man’s movements are in slow motion to him.
While weakened, Venom lifts up a collapsing ferris wheel, and was confident he could have supported its weight without Spider-Man's help.

The average ferris wheel can weigh between 32-35 tons.

Venom should be superior to other counterparts such as Ultimate Venom, who caused damage on a city block described as a casual stroll (27.43 tons of TNT), and Mac Gargan Venom, who survived an explosion (1.83 kilotons).
Tanked a sound blast that broke windows for 10 miles (47.4 - 106 kilotons).
Fought Jack O’Lantern, who can harm suits capable of withstanding 50 megaton nukes.

Intelligence

Spider-Man/Red Sonja #1:

Manipulates Red Sonja into fighting Spider-Man..

Spider-Man/Red Sonja #2:

Brainwashes Venom into trying to kill Spider-Man and Sonja, then prepares to kill all redheads to prevent Sonja from possessing someone else.

Red Sonja (Vol 4) #15:

Manipulates a clone of Sonja into joining his side.

Red Sonja (2023) #12:

Tricks Erlik into giving him control over a legion of recently deceased souls.

Equipment

Amulet

An indestructible amulet and the source of Gath’s power. It’s unable to be destroyed by fire and can cast an invisible shield to protect him from attacks, though destroying the amulet’s jewel will dispel it. It also houses his soul (or a portion of it) upon death, allowing him to persist by possessing his corpse. Should his body be unavailable, he can instead manipulate those nearby into picking it up to possess them instead.

But it’s not just limited to strengthening Gath. The amulet’s power could even restore the lost power of Purgatori and improve her strength.

Staff

Gath’s main weapon of choice. Usually disguised as a walking stick, he can channel his magic through it to unleash arcane energies with devastating effects.

Crystal Ball

A glass orb that Gath can use to view events from faraway locations and even thousands of years into the future.

Sacrificial Knife

He uses it to gut innocent villagers for his scrying ritual.

Mayan Knife

Another sacrificial knife that Gath obtained during his brief time in 632 AD. It’s been bathed in so much blood that it absorbed the Mayans’ natural affinity for magic. These magical properties can be awakened via a blood sample (either the user’s or an unwilling victim’s), allowing Gath to time travel to any point he wishes or teleport himself and others across continents.

Sword Cane

During his time in the modern day as Hank Gault, Kulan used a walking cane with a concealed sword.

Body Armor

While in the modern day, Gath began wearing body armor, which is strong enough to shrug off strikes from Red Sonja’s sword.

Bone Dragon

While this version of Gath hasn’t used it extensively, he has summoned it to prevent Scathach from escaping, and his Prophecy profile lists the Bone Dragon as his main method of long distance transportation.

Demon Beast of Khauran

A giant, demonic, fire-breathing monster that’s subservient to Gath and can be summoned in battle. Unfortunately, she can also choose to ignore his orders and leave if she gets homesick or even turn against him.

Dragon

A massive gray animal that Gath rides in the Valentine’s Day special.

Wolf

During the war between the gods, Gath’s choice of transport was this large, undead wolf.

Venom Symbiote

After seeing Venom in action and growing interested in his power, Kulan stole the symbiote for himself and bonded with it, transforming him into Kulan Venom.

While bonded with it, Kulan gains the symbiote’s abilities, which include:

Statistics Amplification: The symbiote greatly enhances its user’s strength, speed, and durability.

Shapeshifting: The symbiote can alter itself to pull off intricate disguises, stretch parts of its body, and transform its limbs into blades, claws, shields, or wings.

Wall-Crawling: Self-explanatory.

Webbing Generation: Can fire webbing to let a host swing from his surroundings or restrain others. This webbing can be controlled by the symbiote and manipulated to extract air from opponents.

Regeneration: The symbiote has allowed users to heal from bullet wounds, being impaled, having their limbs severed, and getting their heads blown off.

Genetic Memory: The symbiote can recall information from previous hosts and pass them on to new ones.

Empathic Empowerment: The symbiote can further boost a host’s abilities by feeding off their negative emotions.

Digital Immersion: The symbiote somehow once entered the Internet to fight Carnage.

Immunity to Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense: Because it was bonded to him, the symbiote is unable to be detected by Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense.

Abilities

Pain Tolerance

Aside from his tenacity and immortality, the main thing that’s allowed Kulan Gath to endure as long as he has is his pain tolerance. He’s been burned alive, had his hand severed, been shot in the head, yet could continue to fight in one way or another.

Stamina

While not shown often, Gath’s stamina is impressive, letting him wage wars against the gods for 9 days straight without food or sleep.

Powers

Enhanced Senses

Can smell the presence of magic in other beings.

Non-Physical Interaction

Can physically separate incorporeal spirits from their hosts.

Immortality

After being decapitated he was able to get back up and continue acting without his head. His severed head is also shown to still have sentience, and it could merge with one of his decapitated cherubs.

Intangibility

By traveling through the shadows of the world, Kulan can turn intangible, though he can still attack others in this state

Memory Absorption

By cannibalizing someone, he can absorb their “essence” and gain access to their memories.

Energy Manipulation

Gath is able to create balls of energy from pure magic.

Scrying

Gath can view events occurring in other locations through different mediums, including crystal balls, fire, wine, blood, tearing through time and space, or using his own body. This can be done even from other dimensions. He can use this ability to see into the future, whether it’s his own death or thousands of years into the future, though he admits what he sees is only a possibility and isn’t set in stone. However, it can be blocked by fellow magic users.

Telepathy

Gath can mentally broadcast his thoughts to others. He’s used this to convince entire armies to join him.

Telekinesis

Used it to open some doors from afar and crush one of his men.

Transmutation

Kulan has used transmutation during battle and for really petty antics. He fended off Dorian Runebinder by transmuting his snakes into sand, transmuted one of his men’s blood into a rage-inducing mist, and once turned a bag of gold coins into dead leaves to scam a sorceress. He’s even transmuted other sorcerers without needing to be in the same area.

Pyrokinesis

Gath can manipulate flames, either creating a floating ball, a massive pillar, or a precise stream.

Electrokinesis

Gath can fire bolts of lightning from his hands or his staff. This ability has also been shown by his statues, which are exertions of his own power. These bolts are strong enough to melt skin and muscle and can target specific organs, letting him rip out hearts.

Aerokinesis

Kulan can fire gusts of wind strong enough to blow back entire groups of people.

Hemokinesis

Gath can force the blood to leak from a man’s face, killing him in seconds. He demonstrated this on a priest that was being rude to him.

Zookinesis

Forced a den of snakes to restrain Sonja.

Necromancy

Through black magic, Gath can revive the dead as his obedient servants. He’s used this to create an undead army.

Weapon Creation

Gath can use his magic to form swords out of thin air.

Avatar Creation

Gath can create avatars that he can act through from afar. The avatars are self aware, possess all of his magical knowledge, and are just as cruel as he is. They can survive being stabbed through the chest, regenerate their eyes and arms, and will self-destruct if decapitated.

The Groenbekk run introduces a different version of this ability where Gath brainwashes others through eye contact, then combines it with his scrying to speak through them.

Soul Manipulation

Has claimed he can eat souls and bind them to patches of ground. In terms of actual showings, he can expose the true form of a soul and force it to submit to him, claiming ownership of it.

Death Manipulation

His presence rotted an apple, and his concentrated magic reduced an entire island to a barren wasteland.

Exorcism

Can pull a demon out of its host.

Smoke Manipulation

Can manifest blindingly thick clouds of smoke.

Teleportation

Can teleport himself and others to different locations.

Battlefield Removal and Perception/Time Manipulation

When Scathach began irritating him, he used his magic to send her to a far off cave and dilated her perception of time so every heartbeat in the outside world was equivalent to 1000 years. While condemned there, she was unable to die of natural causes or mortal wounds, leaving her to wither away into a mad crone until Sonja finally killed her via decapitation.

Time Travel

In the first arc of Red Sonja volume 4, Gath kicked off the plot by using his magic to send himself, Sonja, and Max into the future, though they all wound up in different time periods because “Time is relative, not precise.”

Head Swapping

One of the more bizarre powers at his disposal. Gath can casually swap the heads of nearby beings without moving a finger. He used this to punish a minstrel by swapping his head with a chicken’s for speaking out of turn.

Possession

As mentioned above, Gath’s amulet houses his soul upon death, allowing him to persist by possessing his corpse or manipulating others nearby to pick it up and possessing them instead

Torunn Gronbekk’s run buffed this ability even further. Now he can freely possess multiple victims at once without needing to die first. He can use this to talk through his victims or force them to commit self-immolation and dogpile his enemies. However, dousing the possessed in holy water will forcibly exorcise him, and taking the oath of high priest Thord Varg will render anyone immune to his possession, including former victims.

Forms

Kulan Venom

After separating the symbiote from Eddie Brock, Kulan bonded with it and gained all of his abilities.

Purgatori’s Body

When the succubus Purgatori claimed his amulet, Gath was able to resurrect by possessing her. Despite controlling her body, Purgatori’s subconscious is fighting his influence, and she eventually regained control by removing the amulet.

This form gives Gath the following abilities:

Flight

Fire breath

Enhanced hearing: Could hear Sonja trying to sneak up on him.

Barrier Creation

Regeneration: After removing his amulet, Purgatori regenerated her severed hand.

Feats

Became a proficient magic user
Reduced Seabreak to a barren wasteland
Successfully manipulated Borat Na-Fori into amassing an army of followers for him
Tricked Red Sonja into freeing him
Convinced Sonja to renounce her faith to Scathach
As Hank Gault, he became a successful businessman to the point of owning and running half of modern day New York
Took over Shamballah and amassed a cult of dedicated followers
Actually managed to kill Sonja (albeit temporarily) in Torunn Gronbekk’s run

Weaknesses

While Kulan Gath may be one of the strongest mages of his time, he isn’t unstoppable. His main strategy in combat is to rely on magic or summons, and there aren’t enough physical showings to prove he can hold his own up close.

It doesn’t help that he’s extremely arrogant and sadistic, preferring to taunt his victims first before going for the kill. He can become frustrated enough to forego this, but that’s only happened under extremely specific circumstances.

He’s also easily angered. Even the most basic insults or being flipped off will make him furious. Though this is a double-edged sword since it will motivate him to start using his more powerful magic.

He also has a really bad habit of getting tunnel vision when dealing with Sonja, which has led to him dying quite a few times. And while he can use his amulet to possess others, his host can overcome his control and remove the amulet by focusing on the pain of their wounds.

Conclusion

After researching Marvel’s Kulan and seeing how entertaining he was, I was expecting Dynamite’s version to follow suit, but he was honestly a real mixed bag. Dynamite volume 1 Kulan was about as cruel as Marvel’s worst showings, and while he had the same presence at times, he wasn’t all that great when it came to battle. You could make the same argument for Marvel’s, at least that version threw out attacks. In the 2005 run, Dynamite Kulan’s only showings in combat were him getting instantly overpowered and running into an outstretched knife before blowing himself up.

At first I thought he’d get a redemption by appearing in the Lady Sonja arc since the cruelty of that arc’s antagonist (Lucan Martur) gave me Kulan vibes. I figured that by the end of it, we’d either get a reveal that Lucan was Kulan reincarnated or that the artifact he was searching for was Gath’s amulet. So I was a bit surprised when Scathach turned out to be the main villain, Lucan became her right hand man, and there was no involvement from Kulan.

Prophecy gave him more of a role in the story by having him act as this mastermind that was puppeting the events, and his death at Sonja’s hands was brutal!

Volume 4 was an excellent return after being gone for so long. Him adapting to the times by becoming a modern businessman was a fun idea, and he was just as big of a scumbag as ever! It’s a shame the plotline ended as abruptly as the fight between him and Sonja, but his return to Hyborian times and rise to power was entertaining. It was also cool seeing him manipulate Sonja’s clone into joining him, even if her screentime didn’t amount to much. The final battle was great and had some decent action, but it’s a bit disappointing Sonja and Gath didn’t have a rematch. His actual death felt a bit anticlimactic too.

His return in Age of Chaos was cool, and his design when he possessed Purgatori looked sick, even if it didn’t really amount to much. I also question Sonja’s decision to let him live. I get that not having the amulet around threatened to destroy the timeline, but that doesn’t prevent Sonja from just killing him again, especially when he- by his own admission, no less- is weaker than ever.

The appearance in the Valentine’s Special was kinda surprising, and the story itself was stupid in a fun way. Seeing him desperately try to get Sonja to reciprocate his love was hilarious, especially when it ended with him dying again just to get back up.

The Gronbekk run has been solid so far. Gath is just as fun and scummy as ever, and him going to war with and scamming the gods has been interesting to see unfold. As of this writing the story’s still not finished, but I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.