Every kid tries to fulfill their parents’ expectations. Kalibak is the same. Kalibak, one of the New Gods and the son of the Darkside, will do anything to please his father. Darkside does seem like a difficult person to impress, so you have to go above and beyond.
Although Kalibak might not have initially appeared to be a very formidable foe, you know what they say—never judge a book by its cover! The same is true of Kalibak, whose full abilities were revealed in conflict with some of the most formidable DC Heroes. You must now be asking yourself, “Which heroes?” Well, it would not be wise to reveal everything so soon. Together, let us find out in Kalibak: Origins Explored.
Prior to explaining further, we have a very minor request.
Please subscribe to our channel if you enjoy our work. It may seem like a tiny gesture to you, but it means a lot to us.
Kalibak’s significant appearances in animated series
We will start by talking about Kalibak’s outstanding entrance to Superman: The Animated Series. Kalibak sought to win over his father, Darkside, as we have already mentioned. In Season 2, Episode 15, appropriately titled “Father’s Day,” Kalibak makes his debut. Nothing has been more important to Kalibak than having his father acknowledge him throughout his entire existence. Desaad’s failed attempt to take down Superman opens the episode. Kalibak then asks Darkside to let him be the one to defeat Superman as a result, but as is to be expected, Darkside declines.
A dejected Kalibak is approached by Desaad, who manipulates him into going after Superman against Darkside’s orders, playing with his emotions as Kalibak is desperate for his father’s acknowledgement. He opens a portal and teleports Kalibak to Metropolis. Kalibak then enters restaurant Minerva in search of Superman, knowing that if he causes havoc, Superman is bound to arrive. Unknown to Kalibak, this is the very restaurant Clark and his parents are supposed to have dinner together. Clark’s parents and Lois are caught in the crossfire as the destruction causes Clark’s father, Jonathan, to get stuck under rubble.
The fight between Superman and Kalibak covers most of the episode, as the two powerful individuals throw down against each other. No matter how many times Superman beats Kalibak down, he manages to get up. In all his good nature, Superman tries to reason with Kalibak amidst their public fight that it is putting innocent bystanders in danger. Still, Kalibak is a villain, so why would he care about such things?
One of the funniest things that happens is that even though Kalibak is so powerful, he gets electrocuted by the subway lines and becomes unconscious. Superman couldn’t get him to be unconscious, but the subway lines definitely could. Honestly, the fight was pretty 50/50 until Kalibak mentions Superman’s defeat would please his father, which reminds Clark of his father, who is trapped beneath the rubble whom he still couldn’t rescue because of this human-gorilla looking hybrid, and Clark gets angry. An angry Superman takes no prisoners as he wipes the floor with Kalibak and throws him far away.
A defeated Kalibak lands somewhere outside Metropolis, and moments later, Darkside, who had been tipped off by Desaad, arrives at the scene. Darkside berates Kalibak for his failure and blasts him away. So much for trying to be a good son to his father. This episode also marks the first time Superman and Darkside meet each other in the series. Kalibak also appeared in later episodes like “Apokolips… Now! Part II” and “Legacy Part I and II.”
Kalibak made a small but impactful appearance in the premiere of the second season of the Justice League animated series. The episode “Twilight” revolves around Brainiac’s attack on Apokolips and how the Justice League and Darkside team up to defeat Brainiac.
Kalibak is first shown when Steppenwolf’s vessel crashes into Darkside’s palace, burying Kalibak, Desaad and Darkside under the rubble, a result of Highfather’s warning to Darkside as he broke the treaty with New Genesis. Kalibak is the one supervising the reconstruction of the palace. Soon after, an unknown ship arrives that Kalibak spots, and Darkside refers to it as “its death.”
The ship attacks Apokolips, and all hell breaks loose. As Darkside goes to enlist the help of the Justice League on Apokolips, Kalibak is the one who leads his army in the attack against Brainiac’s ship, although it makes no difference as the ship’s shields are too powerful. Even after Superman, J’onn and Hawkgirl arrive to assist Kalibak, they are unable to break the shield. Superman tricks Brainiac into creating an opening in his shield to launch a laser beam at him, but Superman withstands it and pries the shield open further.
Darkside uses this opportunity to fire a powerful weapon at the shield, and it hits Brainiac, damaging him and causing the shields of the ship to go down. At this moment, Kalibak and his army successfully destroy any obstacles and the device that was downloading Apokolips’ databanks, thus saving Apokolips’ from destruction and deterring Brainiac from absorbing all the knowledge of Apokolips.
Kalibak made a comeback in the Justice League universe again in season 2, episode 2 of Justice League Unlimited. In this episode titled “The Ties That Bind,” Kalibak becomes a pawn in the power struggle after Darkside’s appearance. This episode picks up after the events of Justice League’s episode “twilight.” Granny Goodness approaches Scott Free, aka Mr. Miracle, during his escape practice.
She kidnaps his assistant Oberon as leverage for Scott to help Granny by freeing Kalibak from X-Pit, Apokolips’ impregnable prison. Vundabar had imprisoned Kalibak to legitimize his claim to the throne. Scott agrees to help Granny and then heads to Justice League for help but does not find Superman as he hoped.
Instead, J’onn refuses to help Scott as he believes Granny winning this power struggle would result in her attacking Earth eventually, just like Darkside. Flash disagrees and secretly goes off to help Scott and his wife, Barda. After scouting through the prison, the group arrives at X-Pit and finally manages to find Kalibak and release him.
But at this very moment, Vundabar switches on a destruction device, resulting in the prison exploding and everyone inside presumably dying. As Granny searches the ruins, Flash, Scott, Barda, and Kalibak emerge from a boom tube. Granny congratulates the team but exclaims that Oberon will still have to die as he insulted her. The moment Granny reveals her plans, Kalibak, who was actually J’onn in disguise, reads her mind, finding Oberon’s location, and Flash rescues him before Granny’s device can kill him.
It turns out to outsmart Granny, the group had boom tubed back to the Watchtower with Kalibak, captured him there, and returned with J’onn disguised as Kalibak. This way, neither Granny nor Vundabar would be able to use Kalibak to legitimize their claim to the throne.
Comic book origins of Kalibak and his journey to becoming a supervillain
Kalibak first appeared in March 1971’s New Gods #1. He was created by comic book legend Jack Kirby. Kalibak was the first-born son of Darkside and Suli, who was killed by Desaad on orders from Kalibak’s grandmother, Queen Heggra. He also happens to be half-brother to Orion, which caused his hatred to increase even more, as Darkside often praised Orion’s skills over Kalibak’s.
Kalibak often served as Darkside’s second-in-command and assisted his father in countless battles. He was often pitted against Orion. Once, he even attacked Orion without Darkside’s orders and ended up getting defeated brutally, and even killed Desaad, Darkside’s prime servant, to cover his tracks. This resulted in Darkside reducing his son to a pile of ashes for disobeying him, although he was later resurrected by Darkside, which goes to show the father at least had some compassion for his firstborn.
During the Genesis incident, Kalibak, alongside the forces of Apokolips, invaded Earth. Unfortunately for him, Kalibak and his squad of Parademons were quickly defeated by Jeremy Horton aka Hard Drive of the Young Heroes.
After being killed by Infinity-Man, during the Final Crisis, he was reborn in a human body along with the other New Gods of Apokolips. After resuming its work, the Evil Factory gave Kalibak a new tiger-man body and an army of tiger warriors to serve him.
Some important comic book arcs featuring Kalibak
Robin Rises
During the events of this arc, Kalibak commanded Glorious Godfrey to retrieve the Chaos Silver from Earth to power the Chaos Cannon but instead received an ornament that emitted similar energy and used it to power the cannon. He fired the cannon in Darkside’s name and managed to destroy an entire moon.
Fueled by this carnage, he targeted a populated planet to destroy next, which would nourish Apokolips, but was interrupted by an intruder. He confronted the intruder but was defeated before Darkside’s arrival; honestly, not very surprising. After this chaos, Kalibak really thought the best thing to do would be to confront Batman. Which he did, and Batman transported him right out of the battle into some remote part of Apokolips.
By the time he managed to get himself back, Batman and his allies had already escaped. Unfortunately, Cyborg didn’t close the boom tube, which allowed Kalibak to use to it follow the heroes to Earth. He almost succeeded in killing the heroes but was stopped by a revived Damian, who now had many new powers, which allowed him to defeat Kalibak and send him right back to Apokolips easily.
World’s End
After the birth of Apokolips’ Deathspawn, Kalibak joined his father on Apokolips against the war on Earth. Under the command of Doyenne Barda, both massacred the humans on Amazonia. Kalibak showed his true self as “Kalibak the Cruel” when they were confronted by Jimmy Olsen, who was able to defeat Barda, but Kalibak took him down, only to discover that the boy was a New God. Kalibak took charge instead of Barda, resulting in an enraged Barda fleeing, refusing to be led by Kalibak.
Kalibak led the attack against the remaining survivors of Earth, killing everything in his path. He wasn’t known as the “Scourge of Apokolips” for nothing.
Darkside War
Kalibak was summoned by Darkside to fight against the Anti-Monitor alongside the force of Apokolips on Earth. During the battle, his sister, Grail, managed to blind him and gorged his eyes out. Although Darkside summoned Black Racer to aid him, Anti-Monitor used Darkside’s weapon against him and ended his life. The now leaderless Apokoliptitans decided to destroy all the humans as retribution for Kalibak’s father.
What makes Kalibak so powerful?
Being Darkside’s son, of course, Kalibak has to be powerful. He is one of the strongest gods on Apokolips. He possesses incredible superhuman strength, which allowed him to take on Pre-Crisis Superman, which is no small feat. He is a legendary warrior and is known for his savagery and bloodthirstiness. He has extreme durability, which allowed him even to withstand Batman’s Hellbat Suit, and also the combined arsenal power of the Batcave.
He has incredible hand-to-hand combat skills, having been trained by Wioska, a former combat master at Apokolips. Darkside had augmented his powers to make him more formidable, resulting in strength and powers surpassing even Orion. He also possessed psionic emission powers called Psi-Beams, which could set his enemies’ minds and bodies ablaze, causing tremendous pain.
Kalibak’s favorite weapon is the Beta-Club, a deadly weapon that can fire nerve beams at enemies. Kalibak looks remarkably brawny, but despite his size, he is pretty agile and fast, with immense reflexes.
Kalibak, as a character, has many qualities which remain to be explored in the modern-day. As a powerful New God and a formidable enemy, he has the potential to become quite the DCEU villain. It’s his loyalty to Darkside that makes him such a formidable character and the sheer lengths he can go to appease his father can be frightening. With the right direction, Kalibak’s personality can easily take a darker turn, something modern-day comic fans would thoroughly enjoy. With new villains being the need of the hour, Darkside’s firstborn certainly fits the bill.