The Gollywomp was the Predator that hunted the swamps of Bayou Lafourche, Louisiana, in July 1931 in Predator: Strange Roux, the 1996 Dark Horse one-shot by Brian McDonald and Mitch Byrd. Local trappers took it for the Gollywomp of Cajun legend, a cursed man who skinned people to wear their hides. It stole muskrats from trap lines, hung skinned bodies in the trees, killed two younger trappers, and then drowned in quicksand after stripping its gear for a fair fight with LeBlanc. LeBlanc pulled the corpse out and cooked its head into gumbo.
Biography
Bayou Lafourche Hunt
The Gollywomp hunted Bayou Lafourche in July 1931 without a bio-mask, wearing plate armor over mesh and carrying a long spear. It lived off the swamp, pulling muskrats from trap lines, opening them with its wristblades, and eating the meat raw, a habit that links it to wider Yautja eating habits. It hung at least one skinned human body high in the trees with dead muskrats tied to it, and its huge upright tracks in the mud were first taken for an alligator's.
Those tracks drew three trappers onto its ground. The oldest, Mr. LeBlanc, blamed a local legend called the Gollywomp, once an ordinary man named Big John who was half turned into a bullfrog by a voodoo woman he later killed. The hunter's skinning matched LeBlanc's story of a cursed man who took people's hides in search of one that would fit, which is how it came to carry the legend's name.
Shotgun Ambush
The trappers found the Gollywomp in a clearing, crouched over a steaming pot and cleaning a human skull as a trophy beside a human skin pegged on the ground. It was caught unmasked and off guard. LeBlanc turned back, and the blond trapper fired a double-barreled shotgun into it. The blast tore away several of its dreadlocks and wounded the side of its head, and green Yautja blood ran down its face as it roared. It answered with a thrown spear that pinned the blond trapper to a tree, then followed the two survivors into the water despite the wound.
Flight And The Second Trapper
In the reeds the trapper in the orange cap shot the Gollywomp in the face at close range. It went down, rose again covered in blood, and switched to ranged weapons, throwing small blades into a tree and a smart disc that dropped the trapper in the mud. When LeBlanc hit it in the head with a rock and called himself the bigger man with more skin, it shot him through the shoulder with a wrist-mounted speargun and finished the younger trapper on its wristblades. It then repeated the dead man's last words, the same voice mimicry tied to the Yautja laugh in other hunts.
Bleeding from the shotgun wounds and the torn dreadlocks, the Gollywomp did not leave the swamp. It followed LeBlanc's blood trail to finish the hunt and found him waiting on the far side of a muddy creek.
Quicksand Duel
LeBlanc waited on a fallen log with a wooden stake, his shirt soaked from the shoulder wound. The Gollywomp chose to meet him on equal terms. It drew its wristblades across its own arm to match his wound, stripped off its wrist gauntlets and armor, and broke a thick branch for a club, in line with the Predator honor code. When LeBlanc dared it to come, it charged across the creek bed.
That charge ended the hunt. The ground gave way, and the Gollywomp sank to its waist and then its chest in quicksand. It copied LeBlanc's laughter from the bank as it went under, and when only bubbles remained LeBlanc pulled the body out.
Final Fate
Later he stood in his shack with his arm in a sling, stirring a pot that held the hunter's head with corn and vegetables while the headless, gutted corpse hung behind him, and he praised Mister Gollywomp for a fine pot of gumbo. That end left the hunter among the headless Predators of the comics.
Appearance And Traits
The Gollywomp hunted unmasked for the whole story, with mottled pale skin, black dreadlocks, copper plate armor over mesh, and no cloaking device in sight. Mitch Byrd's art shows a hunter at home in the swamp, eating muskrats on the spot and cleaning skulls by a fire rather than stalking from a high canopy. The shotgun blast that tore its dreadlocks also showed those locks as fleshy growths that bled green when cut, a detail later used in wider talk of Yautja dreadlocks. It mimicked human speech and laughter, and it chose to wound itself and drop its gear rather than finish LeBlanc with ranged weapons.
Weapons And Armor
In the bayou fight the Gollywomp used a thrown spear, wristblades, throwing blades, a smart disc, and a wrist-mounted speargun that put a hole through LeBlanc's shoulder. It wore plate armor and wrist gauntlets over mesh but never a bio-mask, never a cloak, and never a shoulder cannon in the story. Before the creek charge it cut its own arm, removed its gauntlets and armor, and took up a wooden club so the duel would match LeBlanc's wound and stake. That choice left it without tech when the creek bed turned out to be quicksand.
Behind The Scenes
Brian McDonald wrote and Mitch Byrd penciled the hunter for Dark Horse's November 1996 one-shot Predator: Strange Roux, with inks by Jasen Rodriguez, colors by James Sinclair, letters by Sean Konot, and a painted cover by Paul Lee. The comic never gives the Yautja a true name. LeBlanc and the other trappers call it the Gollywomp after the local Big John legend, and that nickname is how later reference works label the hunter. The story is one of the few Dark Horse tales that shows a Predator eating in the field and one of the comics in which a human cooks and eats Yautja flesh afterward.
The one-shot carried the A Decade of Dark Horse anniversary mark and was later collected in Predator Omnibus Vol. 3 and in Predator: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 1. Its July 1931 setting places it between the 1926 Everglades hunt and the 1936 Kenya hunt on the Predator timeline, and the drowning connects it to other swamp and water deaths among Earth hunters.
Conclusion
The Gollywomp was the unmasked Yautja that hunted Bayou Lafourche in Predator: Strange Roux and was mistaken for a Cajun swamp legend. It killed two trappers, wounded LeBlanc, then stripped its gear for a fair fight and drowned in the quicksand he had chosen for that duel. LeBlanc cooked its head into gumbo, and the comic left the hunter without a true Yautja name beyond the legend the humans gave it.
Appearances
- Predator: Strange Roux (Dark Horse, November 1996)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Comics | Predator Lore
