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If there was a yearbook for the Marvel Comics universe, Juggernaut would easily snag the superlative for "Most Improved." The one-time X-Men villain has had one of the slowest burn bad-guy to good-guy arcs in comic book history, and this past week's Amazing Spider-Man #68.DEATHS clinched the deal: nothing can stop the Juggernaut from self-improvement.
Introduced in 1965's X-Men #12 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, for decades Juggernaut stories had a repetitiveness to them. Juggernaut would attack the X-Men, they would somehow get his helmet off and then knock him out. Rinse, repeat. His whole deal was running through things non-stop, and that was pretty much it. But in the 50 years since the character was introduced, we've slowly learned more about him as he's gone from villain to anti-hero, to definitive hero.
The steps have been small, from finding out that Juggernaut is Professor X's stepbrother, to the X-Men's mentor conceding that there could be redemption for the character. And while, like every other villain, he's been forced into situations where he's needed to team up with the good guys, that back-burner bubbling storyline didn't really come to a boil until relatively recently. In 2002's issues of Uncanny X-Men, Juggernaut joined the team as part of a plot by Black Tom Cassidy and found that he started to like being a good guy. In 2010's Thunderbolts, Professor X went to bat for his stepbrother, convincing Luke Cage to let him on the team. But each time, he's slipped back to being a villain for a variety of reasons.
Then came 2020's Juggernaut solo series by Fabian Nicieza and Ron Garney, with a killer costume redesign by Garney, and Nicieza's always strong focus on character. While the five-issue series didn't redeem Juggernaut entirely, it did give him the tools for self-improvement he needed. Looking at it from an outside-of-the-story point of view, what Nicieza smartly did was give other writers the tools they needed to get Juggie out of that narrative rut he was in (see above regarding taking off his helmet).
That series was definitively the turning point for the character, which elements picked up and run with in the following Krakoa storyline. Not only did that arc make Juggernaut part of the mix on the island, but the culmination of the storyline was Juggernaut getting elected to the X-Men. Granted, it was as part of the team that was otherwise slaughtered by Orchis during the seminal Hellfire Gala 2023 special, but it happened – and following that Juggernaut was considered a key enough member to work with Cyclops and Kitty Pryde.
In the recently launched X-Men series, Juggernaut has continued on as part of the team. And while the rest of the title can often be self-serious and overly macho, Juggernaut is the one who consistently seems to be having fun under writer Jed MacKay's pen. His repartee with Magik is hilarious, and while Cyclops blusters, Magneto is dying of a debilitating disease, and Beast wrestles with the sins of another version of himself's past, Juggernaut is the comedic foil that makes this title a joy to read.
So why is it that Amazing Spider-Man #68.DEATHS is the issue that clinches it? Part of it is that one of the most iconic Juggernaut storylines of all time didn't happen in X-Men comics. 1982's Amazing Spider-Man #229-#230 by Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr. finds Juggernaut sent to kidnap Madame Web, with Spider-Man dispatched to stop him. While Juggernaut is the villain there, you feel his drive on every page. He can't stop because he has to do this task that's been given to him, not just because his power is to be unstoppable. In #68.DEATHS, Spider-Man is, well, dead. The X-Men have been corrupted by an otherworldly force called the Blight. The only one left to fight? Juggernaut. And now, over 40 years later, he can't stop because he has to keep fighting the fight Spider-Man lost. He has to fight because he won't allow his friends the X-Men to die.
This is something that the team of Christos Gage and Mark Buckingham drive home, over and over in the issue. "Nothing can stop the Juggernaut" isn't just his power, it's his emotional mission. He won't stop fighting for what he believes in – and now, finally, after half a century, what he believes in is fighting for what's good and what's right.
But more than that, we get a peek inside the emotions of a man – Cain Marko, the alter ego of the Juggernaut – who cares deeply about his friends and the world. From a man who has been treated as a human bullet by villains ranging from Black Tom Cassidy to the demon Cyttorak who gives him his powers, to someone with a passionately held code of beliefs? That's growth. And for that alone, he'd clinch that "most improved" superlative. The issue might be numbered #68.DEATHS, but for the first time, it feels like the Juggernaut is truly alive.
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