Coldstone

Coldstone

Coldstone is the body that Xanatos and Demona created to house Othello's soul in, made half from pieces of shattered stone from Othello, Desdemona, and Iago in the Wyvern Massacre (Othello's being dominant), half from cybernetic parts.

History

They created it in the winter of 1994-95, bringing it to life through a combination of sorcery and science; in so doing, they also unwittingly resurrected Desdemona and Iago, whose souls were likewise confined in Coldstone because their body fragments were part of it, although they did not immediately reveal their presence. Othello's soul was the dominant of the three initially, thus rendering him the identity of Coldstone thereafter.

Demona and Xanatos then duped Coldstone into helping them against Goliath, Demona deceiving him into believing that Goliath was the one responsible for his half-machine condition that had so horrified him when he discovered it. Coldstone fought Goliath first at Times Square and then at the George Washington Bridge, but finally came to understand that he had been deceived by Demona, and saved Goliath from drowning in the Hudson River. He also blocked a shot meant for Goliath from Demona's laser cannon and fell into the river himself; Goliath and his clan mistakenly believed him to have drowned. ("Reawakening")

But Coldstone survived, and emerged from the river some months later, now controlled by a computer program that Xanatos had installed in him when he and Demona had first "revived" him. Under Xanatos' control, Coldstone broke into the Golden Cup Building and downloaded a series of files on secret weapons being designed for the military there; however, these files were protected by a powerful computer virus that began to destroy his memory banks. This triggered the surfacing of Desdemona and Iago's souls inside him, and both they and his original soul as Othello began surfacing at different moments, all controlling him. Goliath and his clan, re-encountering him, soon discovered his new condition, and Goliath had to enter Coldstone's mind through RECAP's virtual reality hook-up to save him. Iago tried to play Goliath and Othello against each other once again, but failed. In the end, the virus did enough damage to temporarily shut Coldstone down; the gargoyles took him back to the clock tower, in the hopes of someday being able to restore him. ("Legion")

Lexington worked hard at this task, but was unable to make any progress. Demona and Macbeth kidnapped Coldstone under the Weird Sisters' instructions, however, mainly as a decoy to hide the thefts of the Grimorum Arcanorum, Eye of Odin, and Phoenix Gate, but also to use briefly against the clan (while Iago was controlling him). For a time, Othello refused to regain control of his body as Coldstone from Iago and save the gargoyles and Elisa from their enemies, preferring to remain with Desdemona's soul in cyberspace, but at last (with a bit of prodding from the Sisters, masquerading as Desdemona) did seize control of his body, ousting Iago. He helped Elisa drive off Demona and Macbeth and free the clan, but then left New York, unwilling to remain in the area as long as Iago could regain control of him at any point and use his body to endanger the gargoyles once more. ("High Noon")

Coldstone's arm-cannon.

Coldstone wandered about the world, finally coming to reside in the Himalayas for a time due to its isolation. There he somehow encountered Master Dawa, a wise monk, who agreed to work with Coldstone in controlling his inner demons, namely the Iago soul inside him. In mid-1996, the Avalon World Tour brought Goliath, Elisa, Angela and Bronx to Tibet and they encountered Coldstone there. While Coldstone was happy to see his brother and excited to learn that his rookery children were alive and well on Avalon, he knew that he could not accompany Goliath and the others to Avalon and beyond as he was still a threat to his clan and his children if Iago gained control of the Coldstone body. Knowing Goliath and the others would not leave without him, Coldstone pretended to come under the control of Iago and fought the Travelers until they were unconscious. He may have then assisted in sending them aboard their skiff to Shambahla. ("Reunion")

Later, after Goliath helped thwart Oberon's attempt to kidnap Alexander, Xanatos decided to repay his debt to Goliath by finding Coldstone, bringing him back to New York, and constructing two additional robotic bodies to house Desdemona and Iago's souls in, Coldfire and Coldsteel respectively. He apparently tracked Coldstone down in the Himalayas using a built-in tracer device and used Steel Clan robots to capture him. Taking him back to Manhattan, Xanatos and Owen Burnett began attempting to transfer the two souls into the two robots using technology. When mere technology proved unable to transfer the gargoyle souls to these bodies, however, Owen had to step in by, as Puck, making "soul transference" one of Alex's magic lessons. The three gargoyle souls in Coldstone were temporarily transfered to Broadway (who housed Othello's soul), Angela (who housed Desdemona's soul), and Brooklyn (who housed Iago's soul). For a time, they were tempted to remain in their new gargoyle hosts, but at last Othello realized that he and Desdemona could not deprive Broadway and Angela of their own lives, and so let Alex transfer them back to Coldstone and Coldfire's bodies. Iago had, in the meantime, already housed himself in Coldsteel, and Coldstone and Coldfire, realizing that he had become more dangerous than before in this form, set off in pursuit of him. They plan to eventually join the Manhattan Clan, but only when Coldsteel is no longer a threat. ("Possession")

Characteristics

Coldstone most closely resembles the gargoyle Othello, his original dominant personality. Roughly half of his body has been replaced with robotics. Coldstone's wings, part of the left half of his head, his right eye, his right arm, most of his left leg, the end of his tail and much of his torso are all cybernetic parts, along with smaller pieces throughout his body. Most of Coldstone's robot parts resemble the corresponding parts on Othello, though he is missing the horn and hair on the left side of his head and his wings are smaller and more angular. Coldstone had a couple of feature borrowed from the Steel Clan, including a retracting arm cannon. Coldstone's robotics are metallic grey, red, and gold. His remaining body is re-animated stone, not flesh. (Hence Demona's line "You are cold stone brought to life.") This can be hard to tell, since Othello's skin color is very similar to Coldstone's current coloration.

Appearances

• "Reawakening" (First Appearance)
• "Legion"
• "High Noon"
• "Possession"
• "Reunion" (Flashback)
• "The Rock" (Flashback, No Lines)

Production Background

Voice Actor: Michael Dorn

Coldstone is often said to be the Gargoyles Universe's equivalent of Frankenstein's monster (with Xanatos taking the role of his creator, Frankenstein). Though Coldstone's story does not directly follow Frankenstein's, there are some major similarities. The creation of Coldstone is an obvious homage to classic depictions of the birth of Frankenstein's monster, right down to Xanatos's self-indulgent "It's alive!" line. Neither Frankenstein's monster nor Coldstone turn out exactly as their creators intended. The episode "Legion" is partly inspired by a TV movie version of Frankenstein Greg Weisman saw as a boy, in which the monster is put under hypnosis and the various personalties of the people whose corpses were used to make the monster being to speak, including one who quotes the Biblical line "I am Legion, for we are many". In the original novel, the monster escapes to the Arctic Circle, with his creator in pursuit. Coldstone, attempting to keep the rest of his clan safe from Iago, ended up in a similarly cold and desolate part of the Himalayas, where one of his creators eventually finds him.

Coldstone's blue-grey skin color is a bit of a mistake, or at least something of a problem. It's pretty much identical to Othello's skin color, but it is intended to be re-animated "stone," not the flesh of a gargoyle awake at night. Because Othello's skin color is virtually the same as Coldstone's, it's very hard to tell that Coldstone is intended to be living stone and not living tissue. This confusion can make Coldstone's design seem like something of a cheat when it's revealed that he was assembled from pieces of three different gargoyles. If you think that the visible non-mechanical parts of Coldstone are skin, you might wonder why he doesn't have any patches of skin that resemble Desdemona or Iago in color.

See also

• Coldstone at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
• Frankenstein's monster at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia