If you have played the Marvel vs. Capcom games, you have probably at least heard of Shuma - Gorath. However, very few people know much about him outside of the games. This thread has all of his appearances (I think), but if you have one I don't, feel free to post it.
Shuma-Gorath is an extradimensional demon, and a Lord of Chaos.
Millions of years ago, he came to earth to feed upon the fear of primitive humanity:
He was banished to another dimension by the time - travelling sorceror Sise - Neg. He mentions how even he couldn't kill Shuma-Gorath, because it would start absorbing his power, so the best he could do is banish him:
For an idea of just how powerful Sise-Neg was, he destroyed and recreated the entire universe, and Shuma-Gorath was the last source of power he needed to absorb to do so (after absorbing the power of Merlin and destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and absorbing the power of their mages)
Eventually, he hypnotizes a human who stumbled into his cave into reading the spells from his books to free him, along with the spells of Vannatar and Kulan Gath:
Shuma-Gorath's next attempt to invade earth (and the 616 universe as a whole) came some 10,000 years later when he employed a number of servants such as
Note that Shuma-Gorath was able to place a spell on Nightmare that prevented him from revealing his master (and Nightmare is a god who rules an entire dimension).
Finally, Shuma-Gorath manages to manifest himself in the 616 universe, using the Ancient One's mind as a gateway. Doctor Strange fights him, and is forced to destroy the Ancient One's ego in order to prevent Shuma-Gorath from fully manifesting in his universe. Thus, Shuma is stranded back in his own dimension again:
Some years later, Doctor Strange was forced to destroy all of his artifacts to defeat the alien sorceror Urthona, who had stolen them. This caused many of the spells binding evil forces he had previously defeated to be undone, allowing them back into the universe. Strange's magic was also weakened from the destruction of the artifacts, and he was forced to use black magic to defeat the new threats. He temporarily became a disciple of Kaluu, the Ancient One's evil counterpart. After fighting and defeating many enemies, and slowly but surely going down the path of darkness by being forced to kill and use black magic, Strange and Kaluu came to confront Shuma-Gorath.
"Here the demons we know - Mephisto, Satannish - would be like mice in a great temple." This wasn't even Shuma-Gorath's home dimension, just one of his lesser realms!
Here Doctor Strange fights Arioch, another servant of Shuma - Gorath. He has infinite power and can become as strong as he wishes to be, but Strange steals his power and merges with him, getting a large boost for his fight with Shuma:
The battle begins. Shuma - Gorath creates a voodoo doll of earth itself and only Strange's spells prevent the earth from being destroyed. Also Shuma - Gorath reveals that if Doctor Strange defeats him, he will become him:
A view of the battle from another perspective, it affects the Fantastic Four as well. A sorceror they are battling comments that the fight could collapse all the nether - realms:
Doctor Strange/Arioch returns to the lesser dimension where he left Kaluu (remember, this was the plane where Mephisto and Satannish would be "like mice entering a great temple"). He explains that in order to avoid becoming Shuma-Gorath, he had to destroy his own Ego like he did to the Ancient One, making him lose his sense of self:
Kaluu comments that Strange has absorbed so much power fighting Shuma - Gorath that if he returned to earth in his current state, entire galaxies would be destroyed:
He also mentions that no sorceror had ever before destroyed a Lord of Chaos, not even Agamotto (remember, Agamotto is the guy who was toying with Galactus once):
Kaluu brings Strange/Arioch slowly down the dimensional planes, allowing him to gradually bleed off his excess energy. The extradimensional sorceror Enitharmon the Weaver helps him as well, and he regains his sense of self when he separates from Arioch:
Shuma-Gorath's most recent appearance was when the sorceror Nicholas Scratch tricked the Fantastic Four into reading a spell to free him. It turned out that Shuma was not actually dead, merely much weakened, and still confined to his home dimension until the FF unwittingly free him. Even in this weakened form, he still easily defeats the Fantastic Four and the Salem Seven, until Doctor Strange shows up:
Strange teleports him to Stonehenge, the one place where he can be defeated. They fight off-panel, and Strange manages to banish him back to his dimension again, but is incredibly beat up and injured in the process. He collapses from exhaustion:
Lord Mar-Vell invokes Shuma's name when doing his ritual, possibly implying that he is one of the many-angled gods who are behind the Canververse invasion:
Well its either that or he gets a black eye, and no Shuma fan wants to see there old big eye sent home with a blacky after waiting so long by inferior beings.
Well, the bright side is that being forced back by the Spear of Destiny isn't a low showing. Because it pierced the side of Jesus it has plot-device status written all over it in Marvel and DC.
But some little things about the arc irked me. Such as the 'sacred sea-flowers of Sise-Neg' which so happened to be in a scan you posted. Sacred sea-flowers?
Here are some more scans of Shuma-Gorath from Journey into Mystery #627. The first scan appears to be Shuma-Gorath using the form he chose during the Hyborean era.