BIOGRAPHY - Page 2
Another Wendigo emerged in the wilderness from a man living at his own isolated cabin. A sinkhole opened up while Andre Mornet was chopping wood, trapping him under a tree and severing two of his fingers with his axe. He lay there for days, hoping his brother or his neighbors would find him. Eventually, however, the starving man gave in to hunger and ate his own severed fingers, triggering the curse of the Wendigo. While moving through the woods near the abandoned 
Weapon X compound, the Wendigo recognized Wolverine’s scent as an old enemy and sought him out. This was at a time when Logan was missing his Adamantium and his bone claws had been snapped off by Sabretooth, leaving him handicapped for battling the werebeast. Wolverine blinded Wendigo with his claw nubs and fled to an isolated farm to recover. In their second encounter, Wolverine set Wendigo and the barn on fire using kerosene in order to make his escape. [Wolverine (2nd series) #129-130]
[Note: Curiously, Andre Mornet reportedly lived in northern Wisconsin, not Canada. He presumably crossed the border before the cave-in that led to his fate. He was also the first Wendigo that explicitly recognized Wolverine from past encounters after being cursed, proving the “spirit” of the Wendigo is the same being possessing many hosts in succession.]
Mornet had the briefest of reprieves months later thanks to an amateur sorcerer named Lorenzo Scoggins. Larry wanted to claim the strength and power of the Wendigo as his own, and studied the mystical arts to find a way to manipulate the curse while still retaining his true personality and intelligence. Acting as an independent film director, Larry hired Marlo Chandler and Lorraine to film a “mockumentary” in the Canadian woods of staged and improv-based “found footage.” Once they were alone, Larry killed Lorraine and tasted her blood to trigger the curse. His earring served as a mystical talisman to maintain his mind once the curse transformed him. Hundreds of miles away, Andre Mornet spontaneously reverted to human as the curse transferred to Lorenzo. Marlo Chandler was married to Rick Jones, who predicted the Wendigo would show up and sent his molecular-bonded partner Captain Marvel to protect Marlo. Captain Marvel and the coincidental 
appearance of the Hulk were there to oppose Larry the Wendigo until he seized Marlo as a hostage. She ripped out his earring and cast it into the river, undoing Larry’s counter-spells. Larry’s body reverted to human, a mindless husk as his consciousness was still in the earring, swallowed by a fish that in turn was eaten by a bigger fish. Unfortunately, Andre Mornet was just in the middle of explaining his story to a group of campers when the curse of the Wendigo reverted to him. [Captain Marvel (4th series) #1-3]
Andre Mornet returned one final time as the Wendigo when he was summoned by the cannibalistic sorcerer called Mauvais. Jean-Pierre Beaubier was an old enemy of the Northern Gods of Canada, opposing them during the French-Indian War before finally being trapped by them during the French Revolution. Having recently escaped his confinement, Mauvais planned to confront the gods themselves for his revenge. He attacked a Reality TV show filming in the Arctic tundra, devouring the contestants and crew to feed his sacrificial magic. The bodies of his victims were gathered in a ritual formation to act as a beacon, a massive act of cannibalism to draw the Wendigo to him.
The Northern Gods sensed Mauvais’s plans and sent his nemesis Wolverine north to stop the process. Both Wolverine and Wendigo arrived at Mauvais’ location, leading to a three-way battle between the bestial man, the cannibal man and the cannibal beast. Wolverine was unable to prevent Mauvais from cutting out the Wendigo’s beating heart and feasting upon it, claiming the 
curse of the Wendigo and its power for himself. Snowbird, daughter of the Northern Gods, appeared with her teammates in Alpha Flight to support Wolverine against her people’s ancient foe. The Mauvais-Wendigo now had animalistic strength to go with his dark magic, allowing him to fight Canada’s heroes while feeding a mystical column designed to lock the Northern Gods out of the lands of Canada forevermore.
Wolverine and Shaman recognized the column was the true threat and turned their attention to it, forcing Mauvais to reanimate the fallen Wendigo and other creatures of Inuit folklore to battle his foes. This stretched his strength too thin, however, and Alpha Flight remained focused on the now-weakening column long enough to destroy it. Nelvanna and the Northern Gods were freed to confront their past mistake directly. Even with the strength of the Wendigo, Mauvais was no threat to the Northern Gods in single combat, and they opened a portal to banish the cannibal sorcerer, sending him to the realm of the Great Beasts. [Wolverine (2nd series) #170-172]
As long as the curse remains over the lands of Canada, though, there will always be another Wendigo eventually. A hunting game took place on the isolated Isle Dupree in the frozen north, where Sabretooth used a small coastal town as bait to lure out the Wendigo, and Sasquatch tried to stop him. Curiously, the Wendigo here was again treated like a pure nature spirit instead of a 
man cursed for unspeakable acts. Sasquatch acted like a conservationist trying to protect the Wendigo, calling it the “noblest of beasts” and the creature was articulate enough to growl out “Trust… No… Man.” (It should also be noted that Sabretooth took a bite out of the Wendigo in their final battle under the icy shelf. One must assume he didn’t swallow, otherwise the curse of the Wendigo would likely have taken him, too.) [Sabretooth (2nd series) #1-4]
Sabretooth skinned the Wendigo to make a new coat, but another one soon arose. The Wendigo was seen stalking the displaced Paul Patterson and, on another occasion, it was driven back north by the Sentry. [Marvel Team-Up (3rd series) #6, Sentry (2nd series) #2] As Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Iron Man commissioned a new team of Hulkbusters to hunt for the missing Hulk and any Hulk-level threat. Agent She-Hulk and Wolverine teamed up to capture a Wendigo near Hudson Bay, bringing him back for Project: Achilles. Stark had S.H.I.E.L.D. develop Super Power Inhibiting Nanobots by testing them on Hulk-level threats, removing the powers of several captives. The Wendigo’s mystical nature was causing problems in their research, though, and it wasn’t mentioned among the threats successfully neutralized by the S.P.I.N. tech. [She-Hulk (2nd series) #16-18]
The nature of the Wendigo curse produced curious variations from time-to-time. The Red Hulk was attacked by a Wendigo while camping in the Canadian wilderness. He killed the creature, but somehow this was only one of a pack of Wendigos. [King-Size Hulk #1] These Wendigo pursued 
the Red Hulk south of the Canadian border, with sightings in Seattle, San Francisco and finally Las Vegas. It was the original Hulk, Bruce Banner, who finally caught up with the Wendigo pack on the Las Vegas strip. He was joined by Moon Knight, Sentry and Ms. Marvel in corralling these creatures, but the Wendigo pack had other unique qualities. The bite of the Wendigo seemed to transform any victims they did not wholly consume into more Wendigos, more like a werewolf’s bite than the traditional Wendigo curse. Even Banner changed into a “Wendihulk” after being swarmed by the creatures. Fortunately, Brother Voodoo arrived on the scene and cast a counter-spell which reverted all the Wendigo back to their human forms. [Hulk (2nd series) #7-9]
The Canadian government had a policy of denial when it came to Wendigo attacks. Like Bigfoot or Sasquatch, the Wendigo was dismissed as an urban legend and tacky commercialism about the beast was subtly encouraged to minimize its mystique. A pseudo-documentary film crew from America went out into the woods to sensationalize the Wendigo with costumes and a recreation of the attacks. The most recent Wendigo, named Luc Lemay, attacked their camp and left only two men alive. They survived thanks to the intervention of Wolverine, who cut off one of the Wendigo’s arms, causing it to revert back to a genuinely human severed limb. Government agents encouraged Inspector Jean Guy and the local R.C.M.P. to discredit the Americans’ story and keep the Wendigo in the shadows. [Wolverine: Wendigo! #1]
When the Chaos King rampaged across the Pantheons, the Northern Gods were temporarily destroyed. The magic of the Wendigo curse went unsupervised, allowing the Great Beasts to seize control of the curse and transform humans at will into Wendigos in their fight against the Chaos King’s forces. [Chaos War: Alpha Flight #1]
A version of the Wendigo was summoned by a Wishing Well along with several past foes of the Hulk during a conflict involving Tyrannus and Monica Rappaccini. This Wendigo hated the Hulk, even enough to actually say Hulk’s name instead of its own. The waters of the Wishing Well splashed on those present, fulfilling their wishes and giving the Wendigo humans to feast on for a time. The overlapping wishes became complicated, however, as Wendigo and Bi-Beast grew to enormous size fighting Hulk and each other before getting transported to the Dark Dimension. Many participants in this chaos eventually returned to Earth, but it’s unclear whether Wendigo did. [Incredible Hulks #630-634] Not long after that, Dracula himself airdropped a Wendigo on the Hulk (along with a full monster attack force) to delay Hulk from entering vampire territory. [Fear Itself: Hulk vs. Dracula #1-2]
For a time, the Wendigo entered a relatively tame period when it came to interacting with others. The Master of the World took over Canada with his Unity Party and established his official super-heroes, Alpha Strike, to oppose the renegade Alpha Flight. A Wendigo appeared as part of this team. He was presumably controlled through some combination of the Master’s Unity technology or the efforts of Ranark the Ravager, another member of Alpha Strike who was a dark sorcerer empowered by the Great Beasts. Still, it had to be a VERY strong control for the overly protective 
Vindicator to allow her daughter Claire to be swaddled in the arms of a cannibalistic werebeast. [Alpha Flight (4th series) #4-8] A Wendigo (perhaps the same one) soon appeared among Department H’s new Omega Flight, without any identifiable magician or control collar to keep it in line. It was a moot point, as the Wendigo was infested and ripped apart at the Origin Bomb impact site in Regina on its first recorded mission. [Avengers (5th series) #9-10]
Another Wendigo served as “gym teacher” for the Hellions at the Hellfire Academy. [Wolverine and the X-Men (1st series) #20] While being deliberately unsafe was probably the point of Hellfire’s Danger Room, the fact that Mister Wendigo never ate any of the students implies SOME 
level of control over his instincts. He followed the school rules, quietly but menacingly encouraging the Hellions to participate in one-on-one training drills. In addition to the Danger Room, Mr. Wendigo also “taught” a class on Senseless Destruction of Property and was faculty liaison to the Killing and Eating Other Mammals Club, assuming the syllabus could be believed. Wendigo and the Hellfire Academy were eventually shut down by the X-Men. [Wolverine and the X-Men (1st series) #31-35]
The Curse of the Wendigo would enter a new stage after the events at a meat packing plant in Ontario. A man killed his coworker for cheating with his wife and disposed of the other man’s body in the meat grinder. As a result, a larger number of Canadians would soon accidentally consume human flesh, localized at the distribution site in Forrest, Canada. This critical mass of cannibalism caused all the people who ate the tainted meat to change into Wendigos simultaneously. Worse, the previous “Wendigo pack” factor resurfaced, changing anyone scratched or bit by a Wendigo into another Wendigo, creating a spreading Wendigo infestation. In the Realm of the Great Beasts, Tanaraq sensed this failure of “man’s law” in civilization, and began to harness the power of the curse, becoming stronger as it spread and making the curse stronger in turn.
Alpha Flight became involved in the crisis, and soon Wolverine and the X-Men arrived as well. There was some small solace in the fact that the curse remained localized in Canada – any 
Wendigo who crossed the border into the United States spontaneously reverted back to their human form. Talisman arrived with a counter-spell designed to undo the curse, and worked to make the spell strong enough to deal with an infestation on this scale. Unfortunately, Wolverine succumbed to his scratches and became a Wendigo as well, striking down Talisman before she could finish her work.
The X-Men and Alpha Flight changed tactics, following a suggestion by the fading Talisman to seek “the wound of the mountain where shadow rests eternal” – a cave which would allow access to the spirit realm of the Great Beasts. Sasquatch could locate the cave due to his connection to Tanaraq, but at the same time that connection was making him less and less stable. Tanaraq, 
conqueror of beasts, grew more and more powerful as more people turned into Wendigo, making him strong enough to defeat his fellow Great Beasts with his horde of shadow beasts. Snowbird and her allies desperately tried to reason with him for the need of balance in nature, but Tanaraq would not be turned back. He welcomed the fall of man’s civilization by their own “appetites,” pointing out that the Curse of the Wendigo only thrived because of the evil men did to each other. He was strong enough to reinforce the Curse of the Wendigo, causing even the infected who had crossed the border to turn back into Wendigo.
This surge of transformations empowered Tanaraq to become a giant as he fought the X-Men and Alpha Flight. Guardian tried to confront the Great Beast and was swallowed whole. Tanaraq cast aside his tiny foes and left for the cave to enter the realm of men as their new god. Storm pressed the other Great Beasts to lend the heroes power against Tanaraq, strengthening her, Iceman, 
Firestar and Rockslide with elemental strength. Alone, even they weren’t powerful enough to slay him, but their attack weakened Tanaraq enough for Guardian to blast his way out from within the Great Beast’s stomach. As Tanaraq fell, all the Wendigo on Earth reverted to human form. [Amazing X-Men (2nd series) #8-12]
Hopes that the curse would die with Tanaraq went unfulfilled when a Wendigo turned up fighting Jimmy Hudson in Canada. [X-Men: Blue #1] In fact, as Tanaraq would have foretold, it was man’s own folly that led the Wendigo to return, and even prosper. The RCMP hired Jessica Drew and her agency to look into the rise of Wendigo activity. Spider-Woman and her partner Roger discovered a conspiracy to feed tainted meat to guests at a ski lodge. The reasoning was unknown, but clearly some group deliberately wanted to provoke the Wendigo curse. [Spider-Woman (6th series) #9]
The RoXXon Energy Corporation had their own plans for the Wendigo, seeking to acquire controllable monsters for their business. Under the guise of supporting an archeological expedition, RoXXon funded a trio of explorers to seek out the remains of the Avignon Party, 19th century explorers whose shelter was snowed in for seven weeks, leading to mass cannibalism. Once Dr. Sterling found the site, however, RoXXon’s agent Banks fed jerky to Philips Waggoner, the third member of their party. The jerky was more than just human meat, it was the meat of a man transformed into a Wendigo. Banks was revealed as an android while Waggoner became a larger, more bestial version of the Wendigo, the Ur-Wendigo, apparently as a combination of proximity to the site of mass cannibalism and the “force multiplier” effect of eating Wendigo meat.
By sheer happenstance, the Weapon X Program's Hulk/Wolverine hybrid, known as Weapon H, was in the region and came to Doctor Sterling’s aid. This situation became more hazardous when the Ur-Wendigo got a taste of nano-gamma enhanced flesh from Weapon H, growing to become a 
colossus. Doctor Strange responded to the threat he saw in the Orb of Agamotto, but even he struggled against the Ur-Wendigo. Weapon H ended up taking Strange’s mystical axe and (unwittingly repeating Guardian’s trick with Tanaraq) using the axe and his own retractable Adamantium spikes to tear the Ur-Wendigo apart from the inside. [Weapon H #1-2]
In the end, perhaps Tanaraq was right. The Curse of the Wendigo only threatens mankind because mankind first commits unthinkable acts to trigger it. The end of the Wendigo rests in our hands… it will stop when we stop.