Circe

Publication history

Golden and Silver Age

Circe first appeared with blonde hair and flowing red robes in 1949’s Wonder Woman #37, written by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Harry G. Peter. Her first Silver Age appearance, with black hair and a yellow gown, saw her battle Rip Hunter in 1959’s Showcase #21, written by Jack Miller and illustrated by Mike Sekowsky. (On the cover of this issue, her hair was rendered as dark green and her gown white.) Three years later, Robert Kanigher, who had written the Wonder Woman story in which the Golden Age version of Circe first appeared, pitted her against the Sea Devils in Sea Devils #3, illustrated by Russ Heath. Here she was illustrated in a white gown and with green hair, just as she was on the cover of Showcase #21.

Also in 1962, Circe would begin to appear as a recurring character in Superman and Supergirl stories in Action Comics, Adventure Comics and Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane. In these appearances, which continued throughout the 1960’s, her hair was colored black and her gown pale pink, and she was depicted using a scepter to channel her magical powers. She was presented as a precarious ally of Superman and Supergirl, although one who occasionally lapsed into full villainy. She figured significantly in the origin and exploits of Comet the Super-Horse, a human-turned-animal character who was, somewhat alarmingly, presented as both a love-interest for Supergirl, as well as her pet and steed. Circe also expressed an unrequited romantic interest in Superman, which sometimes led her to rash and dangerous plots. She would reappear as an unambiguous villain, this time in a green gown, in 1972’s Justice League of America #102.

Bronze Age

After appearing as an unidentified figure lurking in the shadows in 1983's Wonder Woman #302, Circe would return to battle Wonder Woman, getting a Bronze Age makeover along the way, in Wonder Woman #312-#313, written by Dan Mishkin and illustrated by Don Heck, followed by multiple appearances in Wonder Woman over the next two years. Heck’s rendering of Circe, colored by Nansi Hoolahan, composited several elements of her Golden and Silver Age designs, including the pink gown and scepter from her Superman and Supergirl appearances, and the flowing red robe from her 1949 debut. Now depicted with short-cropped auburn-red hair and allied with the treacherous Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, the Bronze Age Circe re-established the character as a weighty adversary for Wonder Woman, and would go on to reappear in 1985’s Who's Who in the DC Universe as well as Crisis on Infinite Earths, the 12-issue limited series that rebooted DC Comics’ continuity.

Modern Age

Circe would be re-imagined in June 1988, by creative team George Pérez and Greg Potter as part of their reboot of the Wonder Woman mythos. This version, with red irises, dark violet hair, and attired in a sultry green gown, would become one of Wonder Woman's principal Post-Crisis foes. With the goddess of witchcraft Hecate as her patron, Circe featured significantly in a number of Wonder Woman-related storylines throughout the Modern Age, including as the principal antagonist in DC Comic’s 1991 company-wide crossover event War of the Gods. Her look would be updated by illustrator John Ross in 1994’s Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #88, lightening her hair to lavender, and outfitting her in a revealing green bodysuit. Ross’s redesign accompanied a brassier, wise-cracking characterization by Christopher Priest which would be largely retained by future Wonder Woman writers, including Phil Jimenez, Gail Simone, Allan Heinberg and Greg Rucka. The Ross/Priest version of Circe had staying power and, with some design detours, remained the character’s central formulation until DC Comics’ 2011 continuity-reboot The New 52.

The New 52 Circe was introduced in 2011’s Men of War (vol. 2) #2, as a stoic nude temptress with blood-red hair and chalk-white skin, written by Ivan Brandon and illustrated by Tom Derenick. Going forward, Circe’s visual depiction would vary somewhat throughout the New 52, and into the subsequent DC Rebirth continuity reboot. Derenick’s white-skinned Circe was refined for 2016’s Trinity monthly series, adding actual clothes – a black corset and red skirt – and red braids. However, this depiction proved to be a deceptive glamour, as the post-Rebirth Circe apparently revealed her true countenance in 2016’s Wonder Woman (vol. 5) #20 in a story written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Bilquis Evely. In a surprising visual turn for the character, Rucka and Evely style Circe in contemporary clothes with a lesbian chic aesthetic. The short-cropped auburn-red hair of the character’s Bronze Age design returns, accompanied by a wardrobe of fitted blazers, sharp open-collared shirts and black jeans. Rucka also restores Circe’s irreverent, wise-cracking sense of humor, and obliquely suggests that the character may not be heterosexual.

Fictional character biography

Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths

In the original DC Comics continuity (prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths), Circe is a centuries-old enchantress who is kept young by an elixir called vitae. It is made from a special combination of plants and herbs. While living on the island Aeaea, Circe gains magical powers. Being a lover of animals and despising men, Circe spends centuries luring male sailors and travelers into her clutches, then turning them into the animals that best match their personalities. Eventually, the Amazonian queen Hippolyta punishes Circe by banishing her to Sorca, "an island planet in space, where she could do no harm".

Upon her return to Earth, Circe tries to destroy Wonder Woman, having heard from an oracle in ancient times that the daughter of Hippolyta will be her undoing. Unlike many of Wonder Woman's other Golden Age foes, Circe does not repent when her plot fails, and a legendary enmity is born.

In Captain Marvel Adventures #66, set on Earth-S, it is revealed the evil immortal Oggar gave Circe immortality 3,000 years ago when she was a beautiful Graecian princess, hoping she would marry him. However, because he refuses to also grant her eternal youth for spurning his love, Circe slowly ages into a hideous old woman. Bitter and angry, she learns sorcery to restore her youth and also to lash out at men by transforming them into mindless beasts. Captain Marvel and Oggar battle on her island, and she turns Billy into a goat before turning him back. She finally helps Captain Marvel defeat Oggar by turning him into a boar. He jumps into a bluff and apparently dies, meaning she finally dies happily as his spell wears off.

A woman claiming to be a descendant of the original Circe later appears and gives Superman an evolution serum, which temporarily and partially transforms him into a lion after he does not agree to marry her. She leaves the planet by the time Superman returns to her island. Realizing the serum contains kryptonite, Superman theorizes the original Circe may have been from Krypton.

In ancient times, Circe is responsible for changing Biron the centaur into a horse and later gives him super-powers as Comet the Super-Horse. She is depicted as more heroic during her appearances with Comet and Supergirl. She also has encounters with Lois Lane and Lana Lang, and battles Rip Hunter, who meets her during his time travels. Catwoman once used Circe's wand to turn Superman into a cat, but he is turned back by an Egyptian mummified magic cat's paw used by Lana Lang.

Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths

Following Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wonder Woman and Superman are rebooted. All of Circe's prior continuity is erased and she is reintroduced with a revamped history.

Circe is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Perseis. Circe is a powerful witch and former princess of Colchis. A beautiful, violet-haired, red-eyed sorceress, she is known for turning people into animals (which are called bestiamorphs), as well as for powers of mind control. Circe has been a devoted follower of the goddess Hecate for thousands of years. She has lived on the island of Aeaea where she became a powerful being in both magic and in influence over portions of man's world. During his adventure to her island, Circe fell in love with Odysseus and bore him three sons: Agrius, Latinus, and Telegonus.

Though Circe's patron goddess Hecate was an offspring of the Titans, she was not considered one of the main Twelve Olympians. Zeus gave Hecate much respect, but she did not hold much favor with others on Olympus. As such, she married the god Hades, but their marriage did not last and Hecate was demoted as handmaiden to her former husband's new wife. Because of this, she left the realm of the gods and agreed to render her soul to her most devoted servant Circe. This caused Circe to attain her current goddess-level of power and immortality.

When Hecate transferred her soul to Circe, she said the words: Upon the death of witch and the birth of witch, Hecate, by name and choice, shall repossess her soul. In addition to being goddess of witchcraft, Hecate is also a goddess of the moon. When Circe learned that Wonder Woman shared her name with moon goddess Diana, she decided that Hecate's cryptic warning must refer to her. Fearing that Diana would steal Hecate's soul and power, Circe decided to destroy her.

Once Diana learned of Hecate's pronouncement, she too felt it pertained to her, but of course Diana has no desire to have the soul of Hecate possessing her body. This issue is central to the conflict between the two women.

Circe's most ambitious gambit was inciting war between the various pantheons of gods throughout the DC Multiverse, becoming known as the War of the Gods. Circe's overall ploy was to gain the power of all the warring pantheons after they had defeated or destroyed one another. Another plot of the war was to disgrace Diana and the Amazons in the eyes of the world by portraying them as terrorists, allying herself with the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall to this effect. True to her nature, Circe eventually betrayed them as well. Over the course of the war, Circe succeeded in killing Hermes, who had since been in a severely weakened state from being away from Olympus for so long and temporarily devolving Diana herself out of existence by reverting her back into the clay from which she had been formed. Finally realizing the truth of Circe's deceptions, Earth's heroes launched an assault on New Olympus, which Circe had conquered and pitted the gods of the Olympian and Roman pantheons against them. Elsewhere, with the aid of the Spectre, Deadman, and the Phantom Stranger, Diana was restored to life and in a concerted effort with Donna Troy, used the amulet of Harmonia to open a portal into an alternate universe where the Titans of Myth resided. This caused the soul of Hecate herself to withdraw from Circe's body, which rapidly aged and crumbled to dust. Hecate then attempted to take possession of Diana, but was destroyed by the Lasso of Truth.

The New 52

In The New 52 reboot of DC's continuity, Circe is re-established as a pale, red-haired sorceress with a vendetta against Queen Hippolyta and the Amazons. She allied herself with Magog and used her magical abilities to manipulate Superman into battling Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman broke Superman out of the mind control, and the pair defeated Circe and Magog.

DC Rebirth

After the events of DC Rebirth, Circe's history was altered. Seven years after Diana left Themyscira to become Wonder Woman, the C.E.O. of Empire Industries, Veronica Cale, performed a ritual to summon Circe to exact her revenge on the gods Phobos and Deimos, who had taken the soul of Cale's daughter Isadore. After bargaining, Circe agreed to help Cale. She gave her detailed instructions and then returned to her lair to begin her spell of binding.

Circe later confronted Wonder Woman in Al-Doha, Qurac. She spoke in Diana's native Amazonian language, which surprised the warrior. After killing several soldiers, Circe tricked Wonder Woman into wrapping her lasso around the witch, enabling her to complete the ritual to bind Phobos and Deimos into the forms of dogs. Circe then teleported back to Veronica Cale and Doctor Cyber, Cale's ally. Circe then revealed to Cale that her daughter's soul was not in the soulstone as she previously believed. Circe communicated to Phobos and Deimos in their animal forms, discovering that Isadore's soul had been taken by Ares, who was imprisoned on Themyscira. Circe refused to help Cale any further, as she realized to free Cale's daughter would involve freeing Ares from his prison.

Years later, Circe allied herself with Lex Luthor and Ra's al Ghul after discovering the Pandora Pits. The trio fought a creature that emerged from the pits, representing their fear and hatred towards Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman. They managed to defeat the creature by combining their powers.

Though Luthor leaves immediately afterward, Ra's remains behind and Circe explains that the pits contain an army of demons which require a sacrifice to be released. The pair is interrupted by Etrigan the Demon, who has detected the pits. During the confrontation, Ra's cuts Etrigan and his blood touches the pits. They then absorb him and separate him from his human host, Jason Blood. Etrigan is also turned into a giant demon and attacks a nearby town, accompanied by an army of demons. Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman arrive and enact a spell to trap Etrigan inside Blood again, though the spell requires their sacrifice. Circe intervenes and saves them, knowing she needs them alive for her plan. Ra's and she teleport away to Antarctica where the Pandora Pits have reappeared. They then greet the Red Hood, Artemis and Bizarro, having lured them to the location.

Circe and Ra's then have the pits possess the Red Hood and the Outlaws and send them to attack Gotham, where they battle Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. John Constantine, Zatanna, and Deadman are summoned by Batman to assist them. Zatanna and Deadman are swallowed by a possessed Red Hood and teleported to the Pandora Pits in Antarctica. John Constantine follows them and tricks Circe into using Deadman to possess Superman, all in a bid to buy time for his allies.

Powers and abilities

Circe is a goddess-level witch of vastly powerful magical/mystical energy and strength; as such, she is immortal. She is able to transform reality and solid matter through magic and spells. Among other things, she can alter minds, fire destructive magical energy blasts, create illusions, revive the dead (as she did with Medusa), teleport, and transform objects and beings. Her "signature move" is transforming men into various animals, like when she turned Odysseus' men into pigs. She can also use her transformative magics on herself, which further multiplies her natural abilities to superhuman levels, therefore giving her superhuman strength, endurance, agility, reflexes, superhuman speed, and resistance to most bodily injury. This makes her more of a match for Wonder Woman.

Circe also possesses a magical mirror, often referred to as "the Mirror of Circe", that allows anyone holding it to alter their features into that of another. It is considered a forbidden object by the Olympian gods but has been stolen several times and used by Hercules. Circe also can magically summon, lure, and seduce men towards her with her enchantingly beautiful, seductive, melodic hypnotic calls, vocalized melodies, lullabies, or songs, similar to that of a siren. She can also project strong bursts of purple fire from her hands.

Other versions

An alternate universe variant of Circe appears in Flashpoint.

Circe appears in Sensation Comics featuring Wonder Woman.

Circe was intended to appear in the second volume of The Legend of Wonder Woman prior to its cancellation.

Circe appears in Absolute Wonder Woman. This version was banished to an island in Hell for her crimes against the gods and given an infant Diana by Apollo, as the Amazons had been imprisoned for eternity for their own crimes. Though initially planning to leave her to die, she decides to raise Diana as her own after seeing her strength.

In other media

Television

Circe appears in the Justice League Unlimited episode "This Little Piggy", voiced by Rachel York. This version was previously imprisoned in Tartarus by Hippolyta for changing people into animals before she is later paroled on the condition that she not harm Hippolyta.

Circe appears in the Justice League Action episode "Luthor in Paradise", voiced by Laura Post.

Circe appears in Creature Commandos, voiced by Anya Chalotra. This version is a rogue Amazonian sorceress, who seeks to become the ruler of Themyscira, and the leader of the Sons of Themyscira.

Video games

Circe appears as a boss in Justice League Heroes: The Flash.

Circe appears as a boss and playable character in DC Universe Online, voiced by Michelle Forbes. This version is a leading member of the Secret Society based in Metropolis.

Circe appears as a character summon in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure.

Circe appears as a playable character in DC Unchained.

Books

Circe appears in Monster Magic, by Louise Simonson and published by Capstone as part of their DC Super Heroes line of illustrated children's books.

Circe appears in Wonder Woman Is Respectful, by Christopher Harbo and published by Capstone in their DC Super Heroes Character Education line of illustrated children's books.

Miscellaneous

Circe appears in Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st Century #7. This version is the regent of New Themyscira, a Themysciran colony on Io.

Circe appears in Batman: The Brave and the Bold #7.

Circe appears in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A Crisis of Imagination #7.