Woodgod

Woodgod first appeared in Marvel Premiere #31 (Aug 1976), and was created by Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen.[2] Despite debuting as the starring feature in Marvel Premiere #31, he would make only a handful of appearances over the ensuing decades.[1]

Woodgod was created by two scientists, David and Ellen Pace, on their farm in New Mexico. They also had been working with nerve gas for the federal government. When people from the nearby town of Liberty, New Mexico, discovered Woodgod they stormed the farm and shot him. One of the townspeople smashed a canister of the lethal nerve gas within the barn, killing the Paces and everyone in Liberty. When Col. Del Tremens and the U.S. Army came to investigate what happened in Liberty, they found and battled Woodgod (who was immune to the gas) and quarantined the empty town.[3]

Later, the Hulk and Spider-Man turned up in Liberty, and Col. Tremens and the army tried to kill both them and Woodgod.[4][5] Woodgod escaped and returned to the Pace farm, using David Pace's notes to teach himself how to read. Using Pace's notebooks and equipment, Woodgod began genetic experiments using the methods he had discovered and created the sentient half-humanoid half-animals of human intelligence that he called the Changelings. He resisted a coup by the murderous Changeling Leoninus. He soon left the Pace farm and found a valley in the Colorado Rocky Mountains where he established a community for the Changelings, and became the Lawgiver of the Changelings.[6]

Some time later, Woodgod was revealed to have become an experimental subject of the Stranger on his laboratory world.[7] Woodgod then returned to Earth in Jack of Hearts's caravan.[8] Woodgod later thwarted attempts by Leoninus and Roxxon to take control of the Changelings' breeding patterns.[9]

Woodgod later returns to Earth and fights Red Hulk. Red Hulk sends Woodgod running as a Hulk that is not the one he knows appears.[10]

Woodgod is an artificial being created through advanced genetic engineering techniques, and possesses superhuman strength, as well as a superhuman resistance to chemical toxins. Woodgod has mastered advanced methods of genetic engineering that enabled him to create the Changelings.

Woodgod resembles the Greek mythological half-man half-goat, forest god Pan.

Gary Smith of Comic Book Resources commented that "if there was any justice in this crazy world then Woodgod would have been THE breakout Marvel character of 1976."[11]

• Woodgod at Marvel Wiki
• Woodgod at Comic Vine