Emperor Gladiator

Kallark is Gladiator, the mighty Praetor of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard — an alien warrior whose vast superhuman powers are fueled by his own self-confidence. Utterly loyal to whoever sits on the Shi'ar throne, he serves as the empire's ultimate enforcer across the cosmos.

Bursting onto the scene in The X-Men #109 in 1978, Emperor Gladiator is a Bronze Age Marvel creation from the legendary team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne — a pedigree that alone signals this is a character worth tracking down. Over a remarkable 36-year publishing history, this cosmic figure has kept extraordinary company, sharing pages with the likes of Scott Summers, Logan, and Kitty Pryde, and turning up across titles as varied as Guardians of the Galaxy and Wolverine & the X-Men. With team affiliations spanning both the Starjammers and the X-Men, Emperor Gladiator occupies a genuinely rare crossroads between Marvel's cosmic and mutant universes, and with a key collector's issue among their appearances, this is one Bronze Age heavyweight that serious readers won't want to overlook.