Athletes - Sasquatch

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Sasquatch (comics)

	Athletes - Sasquatch

Sasquatch is a fictional character in Marvel Comics' universe. He first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #120 and was created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.

Character biography

Dr. Walter Langkowski is a member of Alpha Flight, a native of British Columbia, Canada of Polish origin and a renowned physicist. He is also a former linebacker for the Green Bay Packers.

He possesses the ability to transform into a super-strong, orange-haired beast resembling the legendary Sasquatch or Bigfoot. This transformation is triggered by willpower. In his transformed state, Langkowski has increased strength, stamina and resistance to injury. He also has sharp claws on the end of all five digits, and is able to leap incredible distances.

These powers came as a result of Langkowski's own doing. In an attempt to become like the Hulk, Langkowski bombarded himself with gamma radiation at his laboratory near the Arctic Circle. As a proposed explanation for why he transformed into an orange instead of green behemoth (as gamma-irradiated persons are usually affected), Langkowski assumed it had something to do with the Aurora Borealis.

However, unbeknownst to Langkowski, it was not the gamma rays that turned him into Sasquatch, but the fact that his lab equipment opened a doorway between our world and the "Realm of Great Beasts." When this portal was opened, a mystical beast called Tanaraq invaded Langkowski's body and granted him his powers. Langkowski had to learn to maintain his own personality and intelligence when in the form of Sasquatch, and was very successful for a time. But Tanaraq eventually took control of Sasquatch, forcing Snowbird to slay Langkowski.

A new body and a new identity

Sasquatch was subsequently brought back to life, free of the influence of Tanaraq, by inhabiting the body of the then-deceased Snowbird. At first limited to transforming between Snowbird's human form and a white-furred version of his Sasquatch form, he called himself "Wanda Langkowski" and fought to be recognized as legally alive. This body was later altered to be identical to his original body.

The true Sasquatch

Another Sasquatch, this one a barely intelligent monster, appeared in Alpha Flight volume 2. Although his teammates believed this Sasquatch to be a highly degenerated Langkowski, it was an actual sasquatch that had been captured by Department H. This Sasquatch died in the final conflict with Department H's corrupt leadership and the Zodiac. Langkowski soon returned to active membership in Alpha Flight.

In Alpha Flight volume 3 issue #1, Sasquatch assembled another incarnation of Alpha Flight, with entirely new members, in order to rescue the original team from an alien race known as the Plodex. Sales were poor, and the series was canceled with issue #12.

Along with Major Mapleleaf, Puck I and II, Vindicator, Sasquatch, and Shaman, Guardian was among the Alpha Flight members to be seemingly killed by The Collective in New Avengers #16. It has been hinted on recent fan message boards that the members of Alpha Flight are in fact NOT dead. Popular Scottich comic writer Mark Millar has professed his interest in the characters of Alpha Flight, and has suggested that a new Alpha Flight series could emerge from Marvel's 2006 Civil War storyline. (In fact, both Guardian and Puck are seen on Steve McNiven's promotional drawing for Marvel's up-coming Civil War.) Also, Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada hinted that fans of Alpha Flight should not dispair at their apparent death in New Avengers, suggesting that there is more to come from Canada's premier super team.

Powers and abilities

In his Sasquatch form Langkowski possesses vast superhuman strength, also highly agile and has heightened endurance. Langkowski's Sasquatch form is 10 ft. in height and weighs approximately 2000 pounds.

As a former professional football player, Langkowski has highly athletic physical strength and endurance, though he is no longer in the peak condition of his life.

Durability: In his Sasquatch form, he is extremely durable even capable of taking armor piercing machine gun fire and not be effected. Walter has even taken tank blasts, energy blasts and various other attacks and he has held up fine. He also has even taken hits from Colossus and those same hits didn't faze him, or did it even make him budge .

Healing Factor: As well as having super strength, Sasquatch also has a healing factor that can quickly heal wounds. The upper most limits of what the healing factor can do was never stated. It's most likely between the Hulk and Wolverine's healing factors. Example of his healing factor power is Vision of the Avengers went intangible and tried to destroy his organs and stated "your vital organs are most resilient. I don't know how you keep reforming them." showing his healing factor is quite powerful.

Intelligence: Langkowski is a professionally trained scientist with experience dealing with many forms of experimental radiation and their mutagenic effects on life forms under controlled settings. He is a super genius, he even meet Robert "Bruce" Banner while in graduate school at Pennsylvania State University. He later became a professor of biophysics at McGill University in Montreal. Unlike the Hulk when he transforms, Walter keeps his intelligence while he transforms. Walter even has a Pd.D in physics.

Leaping Ability: Inferior to the Hulk's leaping distances, but Sasquatch can land better than he can. He can cover great distances in a single leap, but the extent was never stated. He has great strength in his legs and it was even said, "and with that, what may well be the second strongest legs on the face of the Earth suddenly thrust their owner forward"

Senses: Sasquatch also has heightened senses, such as taste, smell, hearing, and vision much greater than an average human being. Once again the limits of his heightened senses were never stated.

Strength: His strength is of an order inferior to the Hulk and has an upward limit of 70 tons. (Although, like most of the official Marvel strength statistics, this is incredibly low when compared to some of the feats of strength performed by the character in the comic book pages.) Such as in his first appearance he tossed a 250 ton DC-10 1000 feet crashing into a building even while the engines were still on were ease. The engines were stated to produce 150,000 pounds of thrust and Sasquatch caught the plane and it didn't even budge. He even did this feat with ease. Sasquatch has also been shown to catch a 6-story apartment building from falling over, to use a massive rock easily in excess of 70 tons to bulldoze several tons of earth and clay, and dragging a Destroyer ship as well as even lifting it out of the water. He has gone toe-to-toe with various heavy hitters such as Hercules, Juggernaut and even going 30 minutes against the Hulk(In all three fights there was no winner). He even beat a green Hulk from an alternate reality as well. In Marvel Team-up #83, Thing admitted, "Sheesh! Your bigger, stronger, talk better than me and played proball! There must be something I can beat you at!", Sasquatch replies, "I doubt it". Walter was temportally in the new model of Box armor, where it's strength was in the 85 tons range. When he came back as Sasquatch he stated, "I once occupied the Box armor, too! Heather! I know it's strengths! It's might's not half that of Sasquatch's, but Box power lies more than the armor's strength." So that proves he is indeed way more than the 70 ton mark the handbook state of him. When completely possessed by Tanaraq, Sasquatch's strength is several times more powerful.

Transformation: Early on, changing from his human form into his Sasquatch form caused Langkowski extreme physical discomfort. To alleviate the pain, Langkowski recited a slow mantra, which served the same purpose as a yoga practitioner concentrating on his/her craft, to calm the body and to divorce pain from the physical body. Through years of practice, he can now achieve his Sasquatch form with relative little pain or effort. If he does experience great pain or rage in his Sasquatch form, he runs the risk of Tanaraq taking over his body destroying his personality. All though Tanaraq keeps all of Walter's memories.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Sasquatch (comics) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Sasquatch (comics); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Athletes - Sasquatch

Character biography

A new body and a new identity

The true Sasquatch

Powers and abilities

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay