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- Kalibak (/ˈkælɪbæk/) is a supervillain appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. He is the eldest son of Darkseid, half-brother of Orion and Grayven, and an enemy of Superman and the Justice League. Created by Jack Kirby, being debuted with the rest of the New Gods, first appearing in New Gods #1 (February 1971) in an era called the Silver Age of comic books. He is originally and recurrently depicted as the brutish son of Darkseid commonly seeking affection of his father who he had a tragic childhood with. He is also depicted as second in command as leader of Apokolips and rival to another of Darkseid' son, Orion. Kalibak's name is derived from the William Shakespeare character name Caliban, the half-man from The Tempest. Kalibak is the first-born son of Darkseid and Suli. His mother Suli is killed by Desaad, acting under orders from Kalibak's grandmother Queen Heggra. Kalibak becomes a legendary warrior, and often serves as Darkseid's second-in-command. After Darkseid breaks the pact of peace with New Genesis, the rival planet of Kalibak's home Apokolips, he aids his father in the resulting battles. Kalibak is often pitted against Orion, and after numerous clashes they learned that they were half-brothers. This fuels Kalibak's hatred of Orion to new levels, for Darkseid clearly respects Orion over his first-born. Unlike Orion, Kalibak secretly craves the love and respect of his father – something neither he, nor anyone else, can ever hope to attain – and it has been shown that he has a gentle side which is completely submerged under his brutish exterior, and which he consistently and fearfully keeps hidden because on Apokolips, any sign of weakness is subject to the cruelest punishment. For his part, Darkseid is more lenient towards Kalibak's failures than those of his other servants; having slain him, he always returns him to life. It is implied this is because his eldest son is the offspring of the one person Darkseid truly loved as well being one of the only few of his followers with genuine loyalty. At one point, Kalibak is desperate enough to confront Orion without Darkseid's consent. Kalibak's scheme fell apart and he kills his accomplice Desaad, also a servant of Darkseid, to cover his tracks. Darkseid was not pleased when he found out and reduced his son to a pile of ash. After enough time had passed Darkseid resurrected Kalibak, hoping the boy had learned a lesson. Kalibak later spends some time in an Apokolips prison, on Darkseid's orders. In Orion #1, (June 2000), Darkseid is on Earth when Orion invades Apokolips. Justeen, a servant of Desaad, releases Kalibak to battle Orion yet again. Kalibak is swiftly subdued, but does not care much as Orion leaves to battle Darkseid and Kalibak hopes to gain power as a result. During the universe-wide Genesis incident, Apokolips forces, including Kalibak, invade Earth. In Young Heroes in Love #5, Kalibak and his small squad of Parademons are defeated by the leader of the Young Heroes, the telekinetic and telepathic Hard Drive. Kalibak is slain by his uncle Infinity-Man, who has been murdering the residents of Apokolips and New Genesis as an agent of the Source Wall in Death of the New Gods. In Final Crisis the new Fifth World and human version of Kalibak appears alongside Darkseid (calling himself Dark Side) seemingly reborn in a new form alongside his father and a human Kanto. This form is later replaced with a humanoid tiger-like form, engineered by Simyan and Mokkari. He is seen devouring a Green Lantern named Opto. He leads a regiment of tiger soldiers against the heroes in Blüdhaven, but he is killed in combat with Tawky Tawny. Before he dies, he begs his soldiers to help. They refuse as they only follow the strong. They then bow to Tawny as Kalibak dies. In The New 52 (a 2011 reboot of the DC Comics universe), Kalibak is a loyal follower of Darkseid, backing him up in a war against the Anti-Monitor. He does have a problem with slaying Apokolips soldiers that literally get in the way between him and the enemy. Kalibak possesses high levels of superhuman strength, endurance, and durability. Despite his muscular bulk, he is surprisingly fast and agile as well. Like all beings of the Fourth World he is immortal. Kalibak is a highly trained hand-to-hand combatant known on Apokolips for his savagery. He is armed with a Beta-Club, a weapon that fires force bolts or nerve beams that causes living beings agonizing pain beyond comprehension. It is nearly indestructable, though Orion once destroyed it with some assistance from Lightray. He can also summon and use aero-disks which allow him to fly. Kalibak also has access to high-tech weapons of mass destruction. Physically, Kalibak is one of the strongest gods on Apokolips, and the most loyal to Darkseid. This is what makes Kalibak an indispensable member of Darkseid's Elite. Kalibak possesses incredible levels of superhuman strength almost on par with Superman, Orion, and even Darkseid himself. Once he had been augmented by his father in an effort to secure the Life-Equation from an elemental wielder; Darkseid had bestowed his son with vastly augmented might and menace enabling him to physically overpower his once far stronger brother Orion in combat, even granting him the ability of psi-beams which are an Omega effect like psionic blast which spike individual minds with blinding amounts of mental agony. (en)
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