BIOGRAPHY - Page 4
Colossus was pulled back into the world of mutant combat when the Shadow King possessed him and sent him to kill Professor Xavier. Charles and Stevie Hunter only barely eluded Colossus‘ attempts to smash them until they temporarily trapped him in the Danger Room. Colossus busted loose and the professor’s mental probes revealed that the only possible way to free him of the Shadow King's influence was to erase the "Peter Nicholas" persona from Piotr's mind, as that was where the Shadow King had gained a foothold. Back to his former self, Colossus aided X-Factor and a rag tag group of X-Men in the final battle against Farouk and re-joined the X-Men. When the team was divided in two, Piotr ended up on Storm's Gold Strike Force. Apparently, Piotr no longer had any trouble changing back to normal by this time. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #278-280, X-Men (2nd series) #1]
Shortly after the new team was formed, Colossus and the Gold Team were sucked into another dimension. Strangely, the inhabitants of that realm seemed to recognize Piotr and addressed him as their savior.
It turned out that they mistook him for his older brother Mikhail, who too was in this dimension, though was living in seclusion. When the brothers met each other again, Mikhail explained that the Russian government had used his space warping powers to explore the void leading to this realm but all members of the crew that accompanied him were killed. Stuck in the strange dimension, Mikhail had helped to seal the rift off but dozens of the natives were killed by the energy he accidentally released in the process. The portal now opened once more, Mikhail and the X-Men together sealed it again while leaving back to Earth. The team invited Mikhail to stay at the mansion and Colossus eagerly anticipated to let his family know of the good news. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #284-286]
Piotr's joy was short-lived, however, as before such a family reunion could be arranged Callisto arrived at the mansion, warning that the Morlocks had gone mad now that they were left leaderless after Masque's recent demise. The X-Men hurried to their aid but matters only became worse when Callisto became unstable after losing her beauty to the Healer's touch and joined forces with the similarly crazed Mikhail, whose mind had suffered in his years of absence. Sensing a kindred spirit in Callisto, he accompanied her to the tunnels where he assumed 
leadership of the Morlocks, hoping to atone for the deaths of his crew and the people in that other dimension. Strangely, though, Mikhail concluded that there was no place on Earth where the Morlocks wouldn’t stick out as monsters, so he lead them in an apparent mass suicide and all were last seen swept away as the tunnels flooded. Colossus tried his best to argue with his brother, but in vain. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #291-293]
Not long after, Piotr's parents were killed by Russian agents who wanted to recruit Illyana and catalyze her latent mutant abilities to battle the Soul Skinner, whose telepathic control did not work on children. Though too late to save the Rasputins, the X-Men found a way to defeat the Soul Skinner and rescue Illyana before her physiology was permanently altered by the genetic accelerator she was strapped in. Now orphaned, Illyana moved back to the states with her brother and stayed at the mansion in Westchester. The hits kept coming for Colossus, as Illyana contracted the deadly Legacy Virus, the fatal disease that kills mutants through their genetic code. [X-Men (2nd series) #18-19, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #300]
Piotr was already grieving the loss of Callisto, his parents and brother. Matters only got worse when he suffered a serious head trauma in battle with the X-Cutioner, which forced him to remain in armored form. Now, he was denied to feel his sister’s skin when they hugged and little Illyana tried to comfort him as much as he did her. [Uncanny X-Men Annual #17, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #301]
Illyana's inevitable death was the final straw: Piotr become cold and withdrawn. He burned all his paintings. When Magneto came to the mansion during Illyana’s memorial service, asking for recruits for his Acolytes, Colossus saw an opportunity. Believing Xavier's dream had failed him and, more importantly, his family, Piotr decided to try out another approach. When the other X-Men all powered up Bishop for a strike against Magneto, Colossus attacked Bishop and then left with Magnus to journey to Avalon to join his Acolytes. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #303-304]
Days later, though, he did mask the X-Men's presence from Avalon's sensors when they staged a commando raid on the space station. When this ultimately led to Magneto's brain-death at the hands of Xavier himself, Colossus continued on with the Acolytes under a sense of responsibility to the man he had betrayed. Thinking that the head injury caused by the X-Cutioner was the cause for his changed behavior, Xavier and Excalibur managed to trick Piotr into coming to Muir Island by having Kitty contact him, claiming that she would like to join the Acolytes as well. Upon arrival, Colossus was detained and brought to the lab complex, where they performed a procedure to undo the damage done to his brain. The operation was a success as afterwards Piotr could transform to flesh and blood again. He finally let out his bottled up emotions in a conversation with Kitty.
Nevertheless, Piotr chose to remain with the Acolytes, believing he could do the most good in their midst. Even among them as one of them, Colossus was treated aloofly by the majority of the group. Over time, he did gain the respect of at least Voght, Scanner and Cargill when he stood up to the extreme views of Exodus, the self proclaimed hair to Magneto, who, still comatose, was tended for by Colossus. [X-Men (2nd series) #25, Excalibur (1st series) #71, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #315]
When Holocaust engineered the fall of Avalon, Colossus managed to get himself and Magneto into an escape pod, which came to settle in Antarctica. Magneto disappeared in the crash but Piotr was found by Callisto, alive and decades older having lived in another dimension with Mikhail and the Morlocks ever since their supposed deaths. Mikhail had meant his statement literally – the Morlocks had no chance of happiness on Earth, so he took them off Earth. However, in this dimension, dubbed the Hill, time moved faster and a new generation of Morlocks had grown up. A renegade group of them,
called Gene Nation, had come back to earth and committed acts of terrorism. Colossus and Callisto asked the X-Men for their aid in helping capturing them and, in the end, Callisto returned them to the Hill. During the fight, Colossus had come to realize that he was as wrong in blaming Xavier for Illyana’s death, just as Callisto was for blaming the Morlocks‘ fate on Storm. Though invited to return to the team, Colossus declined, wanting to come to terms with his mistakes first. [X-Men (2nd series) #42-44, Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #325]