Since first joining the team, Colossus has always been the X-Men’s resident powerhouse, playing the same conceptual role on the team the Hulk does on the Avengers. But now, there’s a new crop of superhumans on the rise, and one of them actually rivals the Hulk himself (literally, not just conceptually). In other words - sorry Colossus, there’s a new Hulk-strength hero in town: Children of the Vault’s Perro.

The Children of the Vault is a group of superpowered individuals who aren’t mutant or human, but rather a further stage of evolution: Homo Novissima. The reason the Children are so evolved is through the time dilation process inside their ‘home’ structure known simply as the Vault. Within the Vault, the Children were subjected to six thousand years of evolutionary growth in just thirty years - all so the Children could carry out their dark purpose. The Children of the Vault’s mission is and has always been to usher in a new era of humans, which essentially involves exterminating everyone on the face of the planet to do so. Right now, Marvel is leading up to the Fall of X, an era that could spell the end of the X-Men as fans know them, and the Children of the Vault are ‘rebranding’ themselves as heroes to earn the world’s trust in order to accomplish their twisted mission. The scary thing is, they absolutely have the strength to make their sick dream a reality - especially Perro.

Children of the Vault’s Perro is Stronger Than Colossus with Hulk-Level Strength

In X-Men #16 by Gerry Duggan and Joshua Cassara, the Children of the Vault have been placed in a state of stasis, giving them a false reality that makes them believe they’ve already conquered the Earth. However, one of the X-Men’s own members, Darwin, is trapped in there with them, and in this issue, it’s time to get him out. During the mission, Perro escapes from his stasis pod, and it’s up to Iceman to bring him down. During their fight, when Iceman is still assessing exactly how strong his opponent really is, he says, “All right, beefcake. How hard do ya hit? Rogue? Colossus?”. At that point, Perro threw a punch, giving Iceman all the information he needed about his strength, something that was made clear with Iceman’s final comment, “Oh. Hands like the Hulk”.

Iceman’s power scale gives readers all the information they need to know about Perro’s strength in relation to that of Colossus. Clearly, having “Hands like the Hulk” is the pinnacle of power for a brute like Perro, whereas Colossus falls somewhere in the middle - not weak, but definitely not anywhere close to what the Hulk can bring. This is especially interesting given the Children of the Vault’s upcoming solo series, in which they will pretend to be heroes of Earth in order to gain humanity’s trust, at which point they will assuredly try to raze the planet and begin life anew in their image. This issue proves that, if the X-Men or even the Avengers are the only heroes that will stand in their way, then Perro will have no problem taking down the X-Men’s powerhouse, Colossus, and may even be able to outmatch the Hulk himself, as well.

Colossus has always been the big, muscle-bound member of the X-Men with nearly impenetrable skin and the strength to take on brutes like the Juggernaut. But, even if his role on the X-Men is similar to the role the Hulk fills on the Avengers, Colossus is nowhere close to as strong, which is something that cannot be said for Perro - an X-Men ‘replacement’ with true Hulk-level strength.