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Spider-Man and Deadpool’s wildest holiday ever was spent showing a brutal Marvel god that the true meaning of Christmas is to party until the sun comes up.
The Marvel Universe has long been home to some of the most iconic heroes and villains in all of pop culture. And yet there have always been those who embody an entirely different kind of morality than good or evil. This does not mean that those figures aren’t a menace in their own right, especially when they just so happen to be near immortal gods such as Cronus. Better known as Saturn, the Titan has played a prominent role in some of Marvel’s most shocking stories, though none of them stand out quite as much as the Olympian’s war on Christmas, one which Spider-Man and Deadpool put an end to in the least expected way possible.
While the holiday season is typically a cheery time of year, it took a lethal turn back in the pages of 2016’s Spider-Man/Deadpool #12 by Nick Giovannetti, Paul Scheer, and Todd Nauck. During the Avengers’ annual Christmas party hosted by Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth was unceremoniously booted from his own get-together by the rest of the team following an unfortunate gift mix-up, leading him to come across Spider-Man whose invitation had gone unsent. The unlikely pair of heroes at first seemed hesitant to spend much time together, although coming across the gruesome sight of burning cars and bloodied bodies in the street quickly changed their minds. As it turned out, all of the death and destruction that had been wrought was at the hands of the ancient god Saturn himself. Saturn’s homicidal rampage through the streets of NYC had been set off by the revelation that his holiday, Saturnalia, had been supplanted by Christmas. Interpreting the holiday as little more than a cash grab, Saturn was relentless in dispensing of every reveler that came into his line of sight in the goriest ways imaginable, at least until the titular heroes stepped in to show the Olympian the true meaning of Christmas.
Spider-Man and Deadpool were able to talk Saturn into joining them for the evening in a bid to show him that Christmas was not all that different from his own namesake holiday, and soon enough the trio were off for a night of drinking, dancing, and general unruliness, all in the hopes that this would quell Saturn’s rage. As luck would have it, a night of inebriated fun was precisely what Saturn needed to convince him that Saturnalia and Christmas weren’t all that different in spite of their origins. All of the death and violence was taken back as if nothing had happened. Between the decapitations and dismemberments dished out by the Olympian, getting him to undo the damage he had caused proved to be enough for Saturn to walk away without any real repercussions for his actions. That in itself may not have been surprising considering the heroes who had taken to corralling him, but for how much of a threat Saturn had always been as well as the horror show he had put on, it was ultimately an anticlimactic if not disappointing display.
When Cronus was first introduced to the Marvel Universe back in 2008’s Hulk vs Hercules #1 by Greg Pak and Fred van Lente, his story was very much in line with those he is part of in Greek mythology. From consuming his own children upon their births to being bested by his son Zeus and the other Olympians, not much was changed between the Saturn of myth and the Saturn of the Marvel Universe. Though he would be defeated once more by Hercules and his brethren, Saturn consistently posed the sort of threat that few villains have been able to, and his rampage through the streets of New York only confirmed how unrelentingly brutal he truly was. Unfortunately, what started out as a horror story quickly spiraled into classic Deadpool style humor, and while that shift didn’t make it unenjoyable, it did reduce Saturn himself to more of a joke than anything else.
That Saturn hasn’t played a more prominent role in the Marvel Universe is far from its greatest loss, especially given the character’s immortal nature and the potential for him to return. Then again, it is hard to think that he could play the part of a supervillain with much success after everything that readers have seen from him. All of the very real terror presented by Saturn at the start of things was certainly palpable, but the direction his Christmas outing with Spidey and Deadpool went undercut all of it with such a heavy dose of comedy that coming back from it might not be an option anymore. If nothing else, it at least showcased the gut wrenching barbarity that Saturn is capable of, even if it was all swept under the rug by the time the night was over.
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