Shadow People

The Shadow People of Sakaar are a nomadic race of gray-skinned giants who roam throughout the planet’s deserts and steppes since the beginning of recorded history.

Power Out of Space

The specific origins of the Shadow People—and even their home planet's name—remain a mystery. However, it is known that tens of thousands of years ago the Shadow People developed a synthetic version of the Power Cosmic known as the Old Power. It proves unstable and needs to be controlled, so the Shadows travel the cosmos teaching worlds how to do exactly that. Its instability, however, destroys a quarter of the known universe. 

The Shadow People eventually land on the planet Sakaar in the Tayo Star System within the Fornax Galaxy and make it their home. They eventually share the planet and its moons with three other major races—the pink-skinned humanoids known as the Imperials, the insectoid Natives, and shape-shifting xenophobes, the Spikes—which are collectively known as the Sakaarians.

Stone Strong

Shadow People physically develop very quickly. They are born just a few days after conception and start walking minutes after birth. Running takes just a few hours to learn for them. By the age of six, they equal an Imperial 13-year-old. Once a Shadow reaches adulthood, they live for a much longer span than most. The Shadows have a great capacity as hunters and warriors. The ones on Sakaar do not embrace modern technology, instead making weapons with the Shadowforge, which are nearly indestructible. The Shadow People develop ships made of stone for traveling through space. 

Though the Shadow People develop the Old Power, not all of them can channel it. Those who can are dubbed “Oldstrong” and can manipulate the Power to make themselves incredibly strong with increased health and stamina. The Old Power can also be projected as energy blasts or used to manipulate the actual geology of a planet.

Nomadic Race

The Shadow People inhabit the Northern Steppes and Great Desert of Sakaar, the latter of which is viewed by the People as a Saka holy region. They live in nomadic tribes, most no larger than a hundred members, and are largely removed from encounters with the Empire. The tribes form loose coalitions and pool military resources and leadership in times of crisis. Tribes are nomadic and live in camps, which can be moved at an instant’s notice. A tribe’s location on any given day is nearly impossible for an outsider to guess, but the general patterns of movement seem to be linked to the seasons and the migration of the trizelle herds, which provide the Shadow People with much of their food. 

The survival of a Shadow tribe depends on its success in hunting, so from childhood, every Shadow Person is trained to be a warrior. Traditional Shadow weapons include the javelin and a seven-foot-long staff with blades running along its entire length. Both men and women are hunters and warriors–the Shadow do not cultivate any crops, only occasionally harvesting wild roots and vegetables to supplement their diet.

The Saka temples are the only known permanent outposts built by Shadow People, often constructed on inaccessible ridges and mountaintops of Sakaar’s Steppes and deserts. A small number of Shadow People train as Saka priests and live in these temples and minister visiting pilgrims. Most tribes of Shadow People contain one Saka priest who makes a pilgrimage to a Saka temple once per year. Shadow People also make pilgrimages to Prophet Rock, the holiest of their holy sites, where, according to legend, the teachings forming the basis of the Saka religion were revealed a millennia ago.

Spacefarers

While not always well-received at first, the Shadow People had done a great deal to secure planets like Sakaar and Giausar. On the latter, their efforts are not well known to the Imperials or Natives. For the most part, the Shadows stayed out of the affairs of Sakaar until the alien Spikes crashed there. At that point, they allied with the Imperials, setting up a pact. The Shadow Treaty marks the first formal agreement made between Shadow People and Imperials. It guaranteed the political independence of the Shadow People and the assistance of the Imperials’ Empire in wiping out the Spikes in exchange for a certain number of Warbound Shadow dedicated to service to the Empire. The Father Emperor chooses great hero and warrior Hiroim the Shamed to be his Warbound Shadow; the Father Emperor’s son and successor, Angmo II, AKA Red King, chooses a young Shadow warrior known as Caiera the Oldstrong, who eventually serves as his first lieutenant and personal bodyguard.

The Shadow People across the cosmos have found themselves the target of Galactus, who briefly became addicted to consuming the Old Power. Bruce Banner, AKA Hulk, Norrin Radd, AKA Silver Surfer, Korg, Amadeus Cho, AKA Brawn, and Thor Odinson, AKA Thor, fight alongside the Shadows.
 

Casting Shadows

The first planet that Shadow People attempted to help was the wildly dangerous Giausar. By teaching the natives about the Old Power, they began to tame their planet. The Shadows even went so far as to implant the Giausaran creatures with a biological form of Obedience Disks to control their savage nature. Three major city-states developed and they lived in a kind of balance for centuries, protecting their peace with an unequalled fury. 

When the space-traveling Shadows came to Sakaar, they found a world tearing itself apart on a geological level, so they used the Old Power to heal it. Upon stabilizing the place, they made it their home and buried their stone ships throughout the deserts. While Giausar and Sakaar proved successful, many of the other planets ultimately could not hold the Old Power and were torn apart. 

Though they lived on the planet as long as recorded history, the Shadow People remained a relative mystery to the Imperials and Natives of Sakaar. They kept to themselves in nomadic tribes often located in the Great Desert and the Northern Steppes. The desert holds Prophet Rock, a sacred mountain that features the basis of a philosophy called Saka. Some temples have been built with a few priests living there to guide anyone seeking to study the ideology. While many believe the Shadows brought the religions with them, others say that it already existed there. Either way, the Shadow People performed a variety of rituals to prepare themselves for specific roles, like warriors or priests. 

As nomads, the Shadows of Sakaar live in groups maxing out around 100 people. They live in camps that can be packed up and moved easily and quickly. The various tribes do communicate with one another and have worked together when necessary. Most Shadows learn to hunt from an early age and are trained to use weapons like a javelin and a long staff lined with blades. They do not usually farm, deal with technology or build much of anything aside from their traditional Shadowforged weapons and tools. 

The Shadow People kept to themselves as the various Imperial groups fought each other and eventually came together under the Father Emperor Angmo. However, when the Spikes landed on the planet and began attacking, even the Shadows saw the threat posed. First, they gathered all of their forces under the leadership of Hiroim. Though they fought well, the Shadow People realized a need to join forces with the Imperials. Thus came the Shadow Treaty, which allowed the nomads to continue on as they were as long as some Shadows became Warbound to the Empire. Angmo selected Hiroim as his Shadow and with some help from the Great Portal, they managed to push the Spikes back.

Though no one else knew, the Great Portal came about because of the Shadow People. Years prior, one particular group of Sakaar Shadow People grew uncomfortable with the over-reliance on fables and stories instead of science. Sam—known as Old Sam in current times—and the Clear-Eyed Shadow retreated to the Vanishing Tower in an effort to preserve their peoples' history. When the Spikes landed, he snuck off to the Saka Temple of Ha'El which had been built around one of their stone ships. He used it to secretly open up the Great Portal in an attempt to bring aid to the planet and his people. 

Hiroim served the Empire loyally until one day he simply left. Breaking his Warbound oath, Hiroim was unable to return to the Shadow People. He traveled on his own for a while, but was eventually captured by Imperial forces and forced into gladiatorial combat by Angmo's son and successor, Angmo II, AKA Red King. There he met the displaced Hulk. Along with other warriors, they became Warbound.

As a youth Angmo II selected a young Shadow named Caiera the Oldstrong, who quickly grew to become a formidable warrior. She served him well into his own reign as king, even going up against the Hulk when he first attacked after winding up on Sakaar thanks to the Great Portal. However, after seeing the Red King's cruelty, she broke the pact herself and joined the Warbound. 

When Hulk, Caiera, Hiroim and the others found a Shadow tribe led by the First Elder, the wisened one explained that the Shadow People were not only extraterrestrial, but also responsible for the Great Portal. Hulk took one of the hidden stone starships and used it in their war against the Red King. Having won, Hulk became the new king of Sakaar and united with Caiera by showing all of himself to her, making her the queen. This union took the place of the old treaty between the Shadows and the Empire.

Shortly after, the planet was thrown into turmoil when the Native Miek arranged for the Hulk's ship from Earth to explode, nearly destroying the planet. Many Shadow Elders died in the explosions, passing on a great deal of power to other Shadows. Caiera sacrificed herself to hold the planet together, joining with the Old Strong power within. Before dying she gave birth to Skaar and Hiro-Kala, her sons with Hulk who did not know of their existence because he had already left in the stone ship to exact revenge on Earth with Hiroim along for the journey. Hiroim fought alongside the Hulk against the heroes of Earth until the Jade Giant ceased hostilities leaving the remaining Warbound—Korg, No-Name Brood and Elloe—to find their way on the new planet. Hiroim died saving a whole town and his power passed along to Warbound ally Kate Waynesboro.

Back on Sakaar, Skaar was born and taken in by Shadow People who marked him as one of their own. He would grow quickly and save a number of Shadows and also come into direct conflict with his brother Hiro-Kala who had allied with Axeman Bone. Those battles became unimportant when Silver Surfer arrived. He intended to feed Sakaar to Galactus in hopes that the Old Power would satisfy his hunger for a hundred thousand years. The Herald had arrived in enough time for the Shadow People to escape in the ships, but Skaar fought him and managed to slip an Obedience Disc on him instead. Still, Galactus came and feasted on the planet. Many Shadows managed to flee in their ships. Caiera also manifested and sent Skaar through a portal to Earth. 

However, as Skaar fell through, he got one more attack off on the Devourer, which made him addicted to the Old Power. Galactus then began seeking out planets that had also been seeded with the energy. In an attempt to save the Shadow People throughout space, Silver Surfer warned as many of them as he could to get in their stone ships and depart their homes for safer ones. 

The Sakaar refugees made their way to Giausar, which was still strong in the Old Power. Hiro-Kala presented himself as a god. The power he used garnered the attention of Galactus. The son of Hulk combined the forces making the New Power and using it against Galactus which seemed to help the cosmic force kick his addiction. 

Meanwhile, thanks to a new manifestation of the Time Stone, Sakaar found itself whole in the cosmos once more. Along with the planet came the Shadow People as well as the Natives and Imperials. Whether this recreation has changed the Shadows or how they connect to the Old Power remains a mystery, just like the scores of other Shadow People settlements out in the depths of space.