That Juggernaut is one of the X-Men’s greatest villains, as he represents a threat that the mutants are ill-equipped to handle: magic. Juggernaut is not a mutant, he is powered by a magical gem of ancient demonic origin, which is why it is so difficult for the X-Men to take him down time and time again. However, in addition to his established strength and near invulnerability, the Juggernaut has another power that has the potential to make him a literal god – too bad he completely forgot about it.
Cain Marko aka Juggernaut served in the Korean War and during his time overseas, Cain stumbled upon a hidden temple dedicated to the ancient demonic deity known as Cyttorak. Within this temple was the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, a magical artifact that would possess anyone who accepted its power with the essence of Cyttorak himself, making that person the demon god’s avatar on Earth, a living Juggernaut—an offering that Marko gladly accepted. Juggernaut is powered by magic to cause as much chaos as possible in Cyttorak’s name, and as it turns out, these methods sometimes include a little more magical finesse than pure brutal mayhem.
Juggernaut is powerful in magic on a cosmic scale (and Doctor Strange proves it)
IN Doctor Strange #182 by Roy Thomas and Gene Colan, Doctor Strange finds himself in the realm of nightmares after the Lord of Dreams himself captured Eternity and began using Eternity’s unique power to reshape the waking world. Strange’s mission is to stop him by any means necessary, but to do so he needed a distraction: enter the Juggernaut. At this point in the Marvel canon, the Juggernaut has been banished to the Crimson Dimension, which is how Doctor Strange was able to pull him into the realm of dreams during this battle, since he was already on the mysterious plane. While Juggernaut was intended to act as a simple distraction, he proved far more useful than that. In the Crimson Dimension, Juggernaut learned some pretty powerful spells that actually allowed him to fight Nightmare. While they proved ineffective in actually beating the almighty deity, Nightmare admitted that the power Juggernaut displayed would have made him the ruler of the entire other cosmos.
The Crimson Gem of Cyttorak imbued Cain Marko’s body with otherworldly, mystical power, making him physically unstoppable. This baseline invulnerability is then taken to new heights by Cain Marko himself when he decided to lean into his magical form and actually learn legitimate spells to use during battle. Although he couldn’t take down someone like Nightmare (who also channeled Eternity’s power), Juggernaut gave him a fair fight and even gained the deity’s respect. This is perhaps the Juggernaut’s most impressive feat as it proved that he is powerful enough to rule an entire plane of existence. You’d think this would be a game-changer for his Marvel Comics career, but unfortunately, Juggernaut was unlikely to ever use this immense power again.
Returning to the physical plane, the Juggernaut never again called upon the magical spells that Nightmare herself called as powerful enough to conquer entire universes. Hopefully Juggernaut will remember that he has magical abilities that make him unstoppable in a whole new sense of the word, but until then fans will just have to be content knowing that he has the power to become a literal god, but not because he apparently forgot he was learning powerful magic.