Just as a single shard of Kryptonite can take down Superman – someone strong enough to move the moon and even go toe-to-toe with Godzilla – so, too, can something equally simple and seemingly innocuous de-power the Juggernaut, and the person who uncovered it was none other than the Hulk.
Cain Marko got his powers after stumbling across an ancient temple in Korea dedicated to the demonic god-king Cyttorak, and finding the Crimsons Gem of Cyttorak. Upon taking the Gem in his hands, Marko vows to be Cyttorak’s avatar on Earth in exchange for immense strength and cosmic powers.
While there are different versions of the Juggernaut’s origin story throughout the plethora of Marvel Universes spread out across the vast multiverse, most of them more or less align with the original origin detailed in Earth-616. One such universe showed a version of the Juggernaut who gained his powers, but didn’t leave Korea, as he still needed to find another mystical artifact. Not the one that gave him his powers, but the one that could take them away.
X-Men: 10 of Juggernaut’s Worst Crimes (To Remember the Next Time He Does Something Heroic)
Juggernaut’s become an official X-Men member, marking the completion of his redemption, but that doesn’t erase his past crimes. Here’s the 10 worst!
The Juggernaut’s ‘Kryptonite’ Is The Amulet Of Cyttorak
In Marvel Adventures – Hulk #10 by Paul Benjamin and Steve Scott, Bruce Banner is seeking the Amulet of Cyttorak due to his misunderstanding of what it was created for. He read in an ancient text that the Amulet could “stop the unstoppable man”, and he believed it could rid him of the Hulk. When Banner gets to Korea, he hires an ex-soldier named Cain Marko to lead him to the temple he sought, with a map that Marko had never seen before.
Marko gladly accepted, taking advantage of the fact that Banner was helping him way more than he was helping Banner. Marko had been searching for the Amulet for some time, and Bruce gave him its exact location. When they found it, the Amulet was quickly used against the Juggernaut, and it did exactly what the ancient texts said it would: it stopped the Unstoppable Juggernaut – proving that this is, in fact, the Juggernaut’s Kryptonite.
The Amulet May Have Been The Juggernaut’s Kryptonite, But Now It’s Totally Useless
The Amulet of Cyttorak only existed to stop the Juggernaut specifically if he ever got too out of control (which is why Bruce was wrong in assuming it would work against the Hulk). The Hulk successfully used it against the Juggernaut, and it worked wonders at first, but the Jade Giant accidentally smashed it after he continued to beat the already beaten Juggernaut. So now, the Amulet of Cyttorak is totally useless, and the fact that it could be destroyed with physical strength alone confirms it may not have been the most reliable weapon to use against the Juggernaut anyway. However, even if it wasn’t destroyed, the Amulet would still prove totally useless against the Juggernaut as he is in the current continuity of Earth-616 – or, at least, it should. Juggernaut has completely cut himself off from Cyttorak, anchoring the Crimson Gem to the earthly plane while keeping the physical Gem itself inside his own body. The Amulet, in contrast, is anchored to Cyttorak. But, since Cyttorak has no dominion over the Juggernaut’s powers as he once did, the Amulet shouldn’t work against him, meaning he overcame his greatest weakness simply by rejecting evil and seeking redemption.
Of course, it’s possible that the Amulet of Cyttorak can operate outside of Cyttorak’s influence, and is something of a neutralizing agent for the Crimson Gem directly, meaning it would still work against the Juggernaut, even after his recent redemption. Since it exists in an entirely different reality (Earth-20051, to be precise), it’s impossible to know, but what fans do know is the reaction it had on the Juggernaut in this issue alone, where the Amulet of Cyttorak proved to be the Juggernaut’s Kryptonite.
