Woodgod is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Woodgod is a genetically-engineered sentient life-form who physically resembles a satyr. He was created using cloning techniques by combining human and animal DNA.
Publication history
Woodgod first appeared in Marvel Premiere #31, and was created by Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen. Despite debuting as the starring feature in Marvel Premiere #31, he would make only a handful of appearances over the ensuing decades.
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 and quarantined the empty town. Later, the Hulk and Spider-Man turned up in Liberty, and Col. Tremens and the army tried to kill both them and Woodgod. 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 ColoradoRocky Mountains where he established a community for the Changelings, and became the Lawgiver of the Changelings. Some time later, Woodgod was revealed to have become an experimental subject of the Stranger on his laboratory world. Woodgod then returned to Earth in Jack of Hearts's caravan. Woodgod later thwarted attempts by Leoninus and Roxxon to take control of the Changelings' breeding patterns. 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.
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."
