Quick question: what are Morlock leader Callisto’s superpowers? They’re hard to define, aren’t they? It seems to me her powers are a bit different depending on where she is, and rewatching X-Men: The Animated Series with Jimmy showed that Callisto, if she has powers on the cartoon, doesn’t seem all that clear about defining what they are.
So, let’s take a look at her, shall we?
A friend of mine once explained that, in the 80s, X-Men comics offered three possible routes for mutants to follow in the mutant-hating Marvel Universe. They could go along with Professor X’s dream of co-existence with humans. They could take up Magneto’s cause of mutant domination over humanity. Or they could do like the Morlocks did and basically try to hide from humanity and do their own thing from a former bomb shelter hidden in the sewer systems of New York City. That last option was the one taken by Callisto, a former fashion model that was heavily scarred for reasons unknown and explained. She had actually discovered the bomb shelter, and after recruiting the mutant tracker Caliban, build up the Morlock community there, far away from the rest of the world.
Callisto herself first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #169 in May of 1983. Written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Paul Smith, Callisto started off as an adversary to the X-Men, kidnapping Angel to be her mate and holding Kitty Pryde down there while refusing to let Kitty go to treat a rare disease. Storm, having had enough, challenged Callisto to a fight, the winner of which would be the new leader of the Morlocks. Storm, it should be noted, fought without the use of her weather manipulation powers. Callisto? Well…
See, here’s the thing about Callisto: she probably can’t turn her powers off. Callisto’s actual powerset is super-enhanced senses. Combine that with some enhanced strength and regeneration, and she should be unbeatable in a fight since her enhanced senses are good enough to predict an opponent’s every move before they make it. But the story goes very differently if Kitty dies, Warren has to live in the sewers, and a host of other problems. Besides, Claremont probably loved Storm more than thought to be humanly possible, giving Ororo all kinds of plot armor.
Regardless, Callisto, and by extension the rest of the Morlocks, was something of a villain in her first couple appearances, but then she became something of an ally to the X-Men, even serving as Moira MacTaggert’s bodyguard at one point. Things go weirder when the flesh-carving Masque temporarily gave Callisto her original face back before later taking it away again and then changing both her arms into two masses of tentacles that made Callisto even more formidable in a fight.
Of course, she also only has one eye. That has to affect her depth perception.
Regardless, Callisto seems to have gotten her arms back in more recent years and, during the Krakoan era, joined Kitty Pryde’s Marauders team for a bit, ironic given what the original Marauders did to the Morlocks during the Mutant Massacre.
So, her powers are basically enhanced senses. Why is that confusing?
Well, in X-Men: The Last Stand, Callisto was there as played by actress Dania Ramirez. That version was more of a mutant detector, someone who could sense where mutants were and how strong they were.
As I stated above, I don’t recall X-Men: The Animated Series ever really saying what her powers were while X-Men: Evolution seemed to split the difference between the comics and the movies by having Callisto once sense another mutant coming into the sewers looking for her, and she just shouted out that she knew he was two or three tunnels away thanks to some kind of radar sense. But her actual powers might be, well, the ability to win a fight.
I’ve heard of worse.
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