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Circe
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Real Name
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Circe
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First Appearance
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Wonder Woman (Vol. 1) #37 (September/October, 1949)
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Creators
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Robert Kanigher, Harry G. Peter
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Team Affliation
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Injustice Gang
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Aliases
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Cassandra Colchis, Donna Milton
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Base of Operations
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Her island
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Powers
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Powerful Witchcraft
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Skills and Abilities
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Master sorceress
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Tools and Weapons
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Many magical artifacts
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Circe is a villainess in the DC Universe and an enemy of Wonder Woman. She is the same Circe who appears in the epic poem the Odyssey by Homer.
Origin[]
Circe was a witch granted powers by the goddess Hecate who fled after murdering her husband and practiced magic until she became vastly powerful, halting her age with her mystical powers and learning to manipulate people to her advantage.
Biography[]
Pre-Crisis[]
Circe's childhood is largely unknown. Circe first appeared as a centuries old witch who kept herself young with a potion called vitae she created with plants and herbs. Circe lived on the island Aeaea where she learned her magic and practice the art of turning men into animals that resembled their inner selves. In response to her crimes, the Queen of the Amazon Hippolyta exiled Circe into an island in space known as Sorca where she could "do no harm."
Circe eventually returned and having heard a prophecy that Hippolyta's daughter Diana would lead to her death, she went about trying to destroy her. She fails, but vows again to defeat Diana (now known as the superheroine Wonder Woman). Later, she gained the help of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca to defeat Wonder Woman in the jungle of Tropidor. When Tezcatlipoca fired magical lightning bolts at Wonder Woman, she used her magical bracelets to deflect them, inadvertantly setting on fire the magic herbs that Circe used to keep herself young. This fulfilled the prophecy and Tezcatlipoca trapped Circe in a mirror, where she was taunted by a reflection of herself as a crone for all eternity.
Post-Crisis[]
Following the event known as the Crisis, history was destroyed and re-written, including Circe's past. Sometime previous to 1,200 B.C., Circe was the princess of Colchis who was exiled by her own people after murdering her weak husband. Exiled, she found herself on a small island called Aeaea, where she could accumulate great magical powers, but only within the island. Circe prayed for power and it was eventually granted to her by the goddess Hecate, who wanted to use Circe in her plans for revenge against the Greek Pantheon. Hecate offered Circe immortality, eternal beauty and magic power if Hecate could take her soul, to which Circe agreed. After the exchange, Hecate's body was destroyed but left behind an enigmatic warning: "Upon the death of witch and the birth of witch, Hecate, by name and choice, shall repossess her soul." Not heeding the warning, Circe razed Colchis in a day and turned its citizens to animals with her power. Her feared reputation spread through ancient Greece as she fanned the flames of mistrust between men and women.
Initially, when the Amazon race of wise warrior women came to be, Circe was concerned that their existence would threaten her plans but heeded in taking action, with the war god Ares claiming he would take responsibility for their destruction. After Heracles brought low the Amazons, but peace was reached when before an attack on Athens, Amazon Antiope and the city's hero Theseus reached peace and were married. Circe decided to further her goals by having Theseus' previous wife Ariadne magically transported into their bedroom so she could murder Antiope while she slept as revenge. This played into Circe's plan as it set Theseus and the Amazons against each other, each blaming the other for the tragedy.