5 Santa Claus, You Never Knew

Story by Goh Wei Kiat

The end of the year is coming closer, but it is not going to be like a sad ending of a movie. In fact, one of the biggest day of the year happens just one week shy from the upcoming year, I am talking about Christmas if you are still trying to figure out.

On the 25^thof December, one of the happiest day in a year, celebrated and still celebrates throughout the globe. This is the very day when Jesus Christ is born, people celebrates this special day with feasts in family, party with friends and religious activities. However, one old man tends to steal the limelight and often seen as the protagonist of Christmas, one plump old man who loves to wear red and hands out gifts. No, he is not the God of Fortune, he is Santa Claus. Santa Claus was believed to be derived from various historical entities, such as the a bishop, Saint Nicholas from the fourth Century Greek, the British figure of Father Christmas or the Dutch figure of Sinterklass. Santa Claus would deliver gifts to well behaved children or coal for bad children, all of these on the Christmas Eve to the morning of Christmas.

Many of us love Santa Claus and even believes in his existence at one point of our life, until we outgrow the fantasy. Santa was so well loved, there are many religious people are unhappy that it was not a celebration about Jesus Christ. Despite that, Santa Claus still remains the most popular figure of Christmas, but do you know Santa Claus plays a different kind of roles in many media form? Let us look at a few of them and open your horizon of your favourite ho-ho-ho old man.

1) Santa Claus (Marvel Comics)

Pretty much everyone in Marvel comic is some kind of being with super powers unless you are regular citizens that need saving from the super heroes. In Marvel comics, Santa Claus is the most powerful mutant to be registered by Cerebro, the mutant detecting computer from X-men. This Santa Claus has various magical power, teleportation, shapeshift and super strength, his power is even greater during Christmas Eve. He is so powerful that he turned the Brotherhood into toys and teleported the X-men to somewhere far away to end a fight between the two organisations. He even wielded the infinity gauntlet to revive his reindeers to deliver gifts, but he was driven mad by the power, the superhero team, Illuminati, has to work together to defeat him to take off the gauntlet. Even though in a world with superheroes, this mutant Santa still does what he does, delivering gifts to good children.

2) Santa Doom (Marvel Comic)

Continuing with the trend of Marvel Comics, there was a time that Santa Claus was injured in Doctor Doom’s castle while delivering gifts in the fictional country, Latveria. Doctor Doom took the mantle up as Santa Doom to deliver gifts, while the real Santa Claus was recovering inside the castle. Although a fight almost erupt between Santa Doom and the superheroes, it was stopped in time and both heroes and villain assist each other to deliver gifts. Santa Doom even got his own gift, in the form of a happy little girl’s smile upon receiving teddy bear from Santa Doom. Christmas does brings the good out of everyone, even the most evil villain.

3) Santa Claus (DC Comics)

The Santa Claus in DC Comics has multiple interpretation. On one hand, Santa Claus is the normal Santa Claus we know, delivering good children gifts, he even gave superman A Kryptonian toy that no one on earth can make. On the other hand, Santa Claus was depicted as a slave owner who has done battle with the galactic bounty hunter, Lobo. The battle ends with Lobo decapitating Santa Claus and killed the rest of the reindeers and elves. This contradicted with the other superheroes as many of them has met Santa Claus, after the supposed battle, thus the battle might never happened.

4) Klaus (Boom! Comics)

Klaus is a miniseries published by Boom! Comics in 2015 and ended in 2017, it is sort of the origin story of Santa Claus, but with violent and heroic content in it. Klaus, a hunter that stumbles into a town where the tyrant cancelled festivity in order for the townsfolk to work longer in the mines. Klaus fought against super natural beings and demons, finally freed the townsfolk and resume the festivity that vaguely resembles Christmas. It may came out as a shell shock as Klaus looked nothing like the plump Oldman he is known, but a muscular hunter that many yearns for.

5) Ultra-Father (Ultraman Ace)

Let’s go to the land of rising sun, Japan. In 1972, one of the current longest running Tokusatsu TV show, a Japanese style superhero TV show, Ultraman Ace aired on Japanese TV stations. On episode 38, Ultraman Ace has to fight off a giant monsters that can utilise low temperature as weapon. The monster turns out too powerful for Ultraman Ace to defeat, Ultra-Father appears with the Santa Claus disguise to assist and Ultraman Ace finally destroyed the monster. It was aired just two days shy of Christmas Eve and it felt oddly satisfying to see Santa Claus helped to bring a moment of peace and happiness to the children by defeating giant monsters.

So those are some of the different kind of Santa Claus in different medium, which of it is your favourite? Pick Klaus, it is awesome.