Editing Colossus (character) (section)

==Concept and creation==
Editor [[Roy Thomas]], in charge of reviving the X-Men for ''[[Giant-Size X-Men]]'' #1 (May 1975), told the creative team to go home and create some characters for the new team. [[Dave Cockrum]] recalled:<blockquote>
I just went home and Colossus was one of the first ones that came to mind. We needed a strong guy for the team, so I drew up a strong guy. The character's armor just kind of fell into place. He was accepted pretty much as-is, except that I had given him bare legs because it seemed only logical that if we're going to show him armored up, the legs should be bare like the arms. But [[Len Wein]] didn't like male characters with bare legs. So we decided that his costume would be blue when he wasn't armored up, and that we'd see his legs when he was armored up, due to the [[unstable molecules]] of his costume.<ref name="TyphoonDave">{{cite news | last = Meth | first= Clifford | date = August 1993 | title = How a Typhoon Blew in Success | work = [[Wizard (magazine)|Wizard]]: X-Men Turn Thirty | pages = 50–52}}</ref></blockquote>

Cockrum detailed more of the character's conception, "Colossus was loosely based on a character I had come up with in college, named 'Mr. Steel'"... As for why the character was chosen to be Russian... "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Everybody was into [[détente]] and it was supposed to be an international group and the way I drew it, he looked like a Russian, so why the hell not? That was really all there was to it."... "Len Wein chose Peter's name. I imagine he used [[Grigori Rasputin|Rasputin]] because...it's a recognizable Russian name."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cadigan |first1=Glen |last2=Ross |first2=Alex |title=The life & art of Dave Cockrum |date=2022 |publisher=TwoMorrows Publishing |location=Raleigh, NC |isbn=978-1-60549-113-4 |page=51}}</ref>