Colossus comics - Powers and abilities - Encyclopedia II

Colossus possesses the ability to transform his entire body into a form of organic steel, named by some sources as analogous to Osmium but of still unknown composition.

In this transformed state, Colossus' body gains around a foot in additional height and his body mass is at least doubled. The source of Colossus' gain in height and muscle mass is unknown but possibly extradimensional.

While in his armored form, Colossus possesses significant superhuman strength. As a teenager, Colossus was able to lift (press) 70 tons. As he matured and further developed his powers, he's now in "Class 100" Power Level (able to lift in excess of 100 tons). The full limit of his strength has never been revealed. Aside from this great strength, in his steel form he possesses a high degree of invulnerability to conventional injury. Colossus' armored form can withstand extreme temperatures, falls from great heights, high caliber machine gun shells and large amounts of explosives without sustaining injury.

A side effect of his armor's strength enhancing effect is a vastly greater muscle efficiency than an ordinary human. While armored, his muscles generate considerably less lactic acids than those of ordinary humans granting him superhuman levels of stamina in all activities. He can exert himself at peak capacity for several days before fatigue begins to impair him. Colossus' armored form is also invulnerable to rusting under Earthly conditions. Colossus has demonstrated very little need, if any, to breathe while he is in his armored state and there's no known limit as to how long he can remain in this form. His Armored form has shown great resestance to Magical spells and has proven to be especially harmful to Magical beings such as when he faced a manifistation of Babba Yaga and when he faced The Advasary.

Colossus cannot transform a single portion of his body into this armored state, he must either be completely transformed or remain within his normal state. If Colossus is rendered unconscious, he will automatically revert to his normal state

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Powers and abilities", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page