CUPID
Real Name: Eros (Cupid is his Roman name)
Occupation: God of love and loyalty, Archer for Venus
Legal Status: Citizen of Olympus
Identity: The general populace of Earth is unaware of the existence of Cupid except as a mythological character.
Other Aliases: Himeros, Anteros
Place of Birth: Olympus
Marital Status: possibly Widowed
Known Relatives: Aphrodite (mother); Hephaestus (father); Psyche (wife, allegedly deceased), Voluptua (daughter); Harmonia (half-sister); Deimos, Phobos (half brothers); Aeneas (half-brother, deceased); Hercules, Apollo, Ares, Hermes, Dionysus (uncles); Athena, Artemis, Hebe, Eileithyia, Discord, Persephone, Helen, Pandia (aunts); Asclepius, Pan, Triton (cousins); Zeus (grandfather); Hera, Dione(grandmothers); Hades, Poseidon (grand-uncles); Demeter, Hestia (grand-aunts)
Group Affiliation: Gods of Olympus
Base of Operations: Olympus
First Appearances: Avengers I #283
History: Eros is the son of Hephaestus, the smith-god and Aphrodite, the love-goddess. Raised predominantly by his mother, he was groomed into being his mother's ally in affairs of the heart especially in schemes that benefited her. Upset that Apollo was considered the favorite of Zeus, Aphrodite had Cupid smite Apollo with love for the divinity Daphne and then smite Daphne with indifference to Apollo. Annoyed by the incontinence of his nephew, Apollo told Cupid to leave archery to older more masterful gods. Cupid also fired the arrow that made Medea, priestess of Hecate, fall in love with Jason of the Argonauts, and caused Helen of Troy to fall in love with Aphrodite's young ward, the Trojan Prince Paris, but he did balk at forcing the Phoenician princess Psyche to fall in love with a mortal beyond her dignity.
Aphrodite hated Psyche because he beauty rivaled her own, and she sent Cupid to smite her with love for a peasant. Cupid complied begrudgingly, but as he readied his arrow, he was distracted by Psyche's beauty and scratched himself on one of his own arrows. Overcome by the spells in his arrows, he fell in love with Psyche himself and spirited her off to live in secrecy with her to hide her from Aphrodite.
Psyche awoke to find herself in a strange land on earth where servants tended to her needs, but were kept from disclosing the identity of her new husband. Cupid always came to her under darkness to share their marital bed, but he never revealed his godly identity to her. Furthermore, he told her to never look upon him directly or to try to learn his identity because it would bring disaster upon them both. When Psyche began to miss her sisters on earth, Cupid instructed Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, to bring them to Psyche. Psyche's sisters gave her the suggestion to sneak a look at her secretive husband by candlelight as they slept. After her sisters departed, Psyche did so, but the hot wax from her candle woke him. Realizing she had not been able to show devotion, Cupid departed and fled the palace they had shared not knowing he had left her with child. Aphrodite chided him for his betrayal and rendered him mortal as punishment.
Psyche meanwhile suffered on earth as Aphrodite gave her impossible tasks to carry out under restrained time limits, but her tasks, such as assorting grains and shearing wool from man-eating sheep, were made easier by gods such as Gaea and Zeus who used tricks of convenience to help her. Always ready for death over her guilt, Psyche was sent by Aphrodite to the Underworld to fetch water from the Styx, but one of Zeus's eagles fetched it for her. Aphrodite then sent Psyche to obtain beauty ointment from Persephone in the Underworld, but Zeus spoke to her through a tower to warn her of distractions Aphrodite would create. She followed the instructions to the letter and succeeded in her task, but when she opened the package from Persephone, she released a spell that cast her into a death-like sleep.
By now, Cupid regained his godhood and hurried to spare his wife from his vindictive mother. He discovered Psyche in her coma-like state and wafted the spell back into its package with his wings. Waking Psyche with a kiss, he then petitioned before Zeus that Psyche be made a goddess. As goddess of fidelity and adoration, she gave birth to his daughter, Voluptua.
Cupid never forgot the degree of harassment Aphrodite had given Psyche. Under unrevealed circumstances, Psyche allegedly died or was taken from him. In modern years, he was manhandled by the Avengers as they sought Aphrodite's protection from Zeus, but he became convinced by Aphrodite that the Avenger Mockingbird was the reincarnation of Psyche and abducted her, later trying to recondition her as his beloved. Aphrodite, however, had been enthralled by Ares the war-god, and Hercules with the help of the Avengers forced Cupid to discover the truth. Cupid gave Hawkeye, Mockingbird's husband, one of his magic arrows as a token of himself, a gift from one archer to another.
In order to prove to his mother that he had not lost his match-making skills, Cupid was charged with finding a suitable mate for the time-traveling warrior Mahkismo. Under the watchful eyes of Dionysus, Cupid tried to match the warrior with Jennifer Walters, the She-Hulk, but Mahkismo interceded the arrow and abducted Walters to the future. The Thing of the Fantastic Four and Wyatt Wingfoot followed and learned that Mahkismo was planning to kill off the women of the Twentieth Century, and stopped his plans. Cupid, however, removed the effects of his arrow from Mahkismo after seeing how much damage it had caused. Whether Aphrodite used Cupid to quell Mahkismo's warrior blood lust is unrevealed.
In modern years, Cupid has often been called upon by mortal mystics and
magic-users for spells involving love and attraction, such as Alex Russo and
Sabrina Spellman. In several of his appearances on Earth, he has taken the form
of a cherub and even engaged in mischief, such as distracting Alex's bother, Max
Russo, with repairing his arrows.
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 410 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Unusual Physical Features: Cupid has two white wings on his back with
a wingspan of twenty-five feet.
Strength Level: Cupid possesses superhuman strength enabling him to lift (press) 25 tons under optimal conditions.
Known Superhuman Powers: Cupid possesses the conventional physical attributes of the Olympian Gods. Like all Olympian Gods, he is immortal. He has not aged since reaching adulthood and cannot die by any known conventional means. He is immune to all known terrestrial diseases and is invulnerable to conventional injury. If wounded, his godly life force would enable him to recover with superhuman speed. It would take an injury of such magnitude that it dispersed a major portion of her bodily molecules to cause him a physical death. Even then, it might be possible for a god of significant power such as Zeus or Aphrodite or a number of gods of equal power working together to revive him. Cupid does have some superhuman strength and his own Olympian metabolism gives him far greater than human endurance in all physical activities. (Olympian flesh and bone is about three times as dense as similar human tissue, contributing to the Olympian’s superhuman strength and weight).
Cupid also has a number of minor mystical skills consisting of, but not limited to traveling between worlds, such as from Earth to Olympus, and to change form. He can attain a state where he appears invisible to mortals, but not to gods, whether they are form Olympus or not. He can grow two wings at will, although it has also been assumed he can keep them invisible until he requires them. with these wings, he can easily attain sub-orbital flight and carry up to two people at once. He has shown great acrobatic skill and grace in flight.
Abilities: Cupid has extensive archery skills in shooting love arrows, mystical projectiles imbued with his powers to cause affection for the first thing his victims see. These arrows generally turn into energy on impact, but Cupid can reform them into arrows. He also carries arrows of indifference which can cause those subjects inflicted with them to show lack in interest in others.
Comments: This bio describes Cupid as he has appeared in the Marvel Universe, Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, Sabrina The Teenage witch and Wizards of Waverly Place; it is unsure if he has appeared in the DC Universe.
Cupid was played by Karl Urban on "Xena" and "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys," by Patrick T. Brien on "Sabrina The Teenage Witch," by Mark DeCarlo on "Witches Of Waverly Place" and by Robert Morse in "The Twilight Zone."
The name Cupid seems to actually be more of a title for Eros, derivative of cherubim, a type of angel. It represents any of several cherubic love-spirits that existed before Aphrodite was even born, and watched her rise from the sea at Cythera. With this title, Eros was supposed to be their leader.
The myth of the floating baby with wings came from the idea that the spirits of the future born visited earth to match up their future parents which probably explains why there was so many of them as opposed to only one Eros.
Clarifications: Cupid has no known connection to:
Last updated: 03/22/13