PERSEUS
Real Name:
Perseus
Occupation:
King of Mycenae and Tiryns (c. 1290 – 1275 BC), Adventurer, former Heir to Argos
Legal Status:
Citizen of Argolis
Identity: The general populace of Earth is unaware of Perseus’s existence
except as a legendary figure of mythological origin.
Other Aliases:
Eurymedon, Slayer of the Gorgon
Place of Birth:
Argos (now part of modern Greece)
Place of Death:
Mycenae (now part of modern Greece)
Marital Status: Married
Known Relatives:
Zeus (father), Danae (mother), Rutulus (half-brother), Enarete (aunt), Oenomaus
(uncle), Hippodameia, Megapenthes, (cousins) Acrisius (grandfather, deceased),
Proetus (grand-uncle), Polydectes (foster-father), Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus,
Hermes, Dionysus (half-brothers), Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, Eileithyia, Hebe,
Discord (half-sisters), Andromeda (wife), Cepheus (father-in-law), Cassiopeia
(mother-in-law), Electryon, Sthenelus, Alcaeus, Mestor, Perses (sons),
Gorgophone (daughter), Hercules, Helen of Troy, Castor, Pollux (descendants),
Inachos (ancestor), Danaus, Lynceus (ancestors, deceased)
Group Affiliations: None
Base of Operations:
Mycenae, formerly Mobile (13th Century BC)
First Appearance:
Supergirl II #8
Origin: Clash of the Titans (1981)
History: Perseus is the son of Zeus, Ruler of the Olympian Gods, and Danae, an
Argive princess. Danae was the youngest daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos, who
had heard from an oracle that any son born to Danae would live to overthrow him.
Acrisius had Danae sealed up in a tower to assure she would never marry or be
courted by suitors, by Zeus fell in love with her after realizing her plight. He
visited her by assuming the form of a shower of gold to invade her tower and
romanced her. She gave birth to Perseus shortly thereafter, and after servants
delivering her meals discovered her with a child, Acrisius had Danae and Perseus
sealed in a great chest resembling a coffin and cast her out to sea.
Zeus instructed Poseidon to protect the chest,
and he allowed it to drift all the way to the island of Seriphos with birds and
creatures of the sea tending to Danae and her son’s needs. Dictys, a fisherman
and former heir to the throne of Seriphos discovered them and raised them in his
home. Danae re-named Perseus with the name Eurymedon to protect his identity as
heir to Argos, but Dictys’s brother, Polydectes, the king of Seriphos, instead
became enamored of Danae and saw her as his way of becoming heir to Argos. Danae
was an unwilling participant to this marriage, and Perseus was eager to side
with his mother to prevent this marriage. Comparing himself to Danae’s
brother-in-law, King Oenomaus of Pisa who owned a collection of prize horses,
Polydectes instead claimed he would sue for the hand of Oenomaus’a daughter,
Hippodameia, and called upon his subjects to contribute horses toward the bride
gift. This plan, however, was actually a ruse to place Perseus in a place where
Oenomaus wanted him. Not owning any horses to contribute, Perseus promised
Polydectes to name something he could contribute to the bride gift. Polydectes
then called on him to bring him the head of Medusa the Gorgon knowing full well
that anyone who saw Medusa was transformed to stone. In fact, no one had ever
returned alive from an encounter with the Gorgons.
Faced with the undaunted task, Perseus faced
Athena in her temple for guidance since it was she who had levied the curse on
the Gorgons. She told him to seek out the Hesperides for weapons powerful enough
to face Medusa although she herself was not allowed to reveal the location of
the Hesperides, the goddesses who protected Hera’s sacred garden, to even him.
Perseus then traveled to Libya to confront the Graiae, the sisters of the
Gorgons, on where to locate the Hesperides without telling them his intentions
to use their weapons against their sisters. The Graiae, themselves exiled
citizens from Olympus for covering for their sister’s covert activities, had
no reason to honor any reason to conceal the location of the garden, but Perseus
still held captive their crystal ball, a mystic eye used in their abilities to
make premonitions, to force them to reveal the location. After being told where
to locate the garden, Perseus returned their mystic eye and continued on his
way.
The Hesperides welcomed Perseus readily and
gave him several gifts such as a wallet protected from Medusa’s power and a
sword of enchanted adamantine that could slice through any substance. The god
Hermes loaned Perseus his talaria, winged sandals that allowed him to fly
through the air and a cap of darkness that rendered him invisible because he
wanted to protect him. He then informed Perseus where to locate Medusa and the
Gorgons.
Perseus located the Gorgons on the Libyan
coast surrounded by the statues of their victims and crept among them invisibly
while they were asleep. Using the interior of his sword as a mirror to avoid
looking at them directly, he successfully slew Medusa and claimed her head; in
the fracas, her offspring by the god Poseidon tore from her body in the form of
the winged horse Pegasus. Stheno and Euryale, Medusa’s sisters, rose up into
the air to confront their sister’s attacker, but being unable to follow
Perseus in his invisible state, they returned to mourn their sister.
Before returning home, Perseus stayed the
night with the Hesperides as part of a promise to return to them. His revelry
grew so loud that he attracted the attention of their father, the Titan known as
Atlas. When Atlas learned that Perseus was the son of Zeus, Atlas recalled upon
a prophecy that he would be slain by a son of Zeus and reacted to forcibly eject
Perseus from the garden. The prophecy actually referred to another son of Zeus,
and Perseus used the head of Medusa to protect him. Temporarily transforming
Atlas to stone, Perseus then made his escape, but Atlas revived believing he had
survived his fate; thus, leaving him unprepared to confront Hercules,
Perseus’s great grandson, the true son of Zeus connected to his prophecy.
Briefly staying in Chemmis, the home of his
ancestors Danaus and Lynceus, Perseus learned of the serpent named Delphyne, the
sister of Typhon, who terrorized the region. King Cepheus of Ethiopia had been
commanded to serve his daughter, Andromeda, to the serpent as punishment from
Poseidon for his wife, Cassiopeia, claiming to be more beautiful that any of the
sea-goddesses known as the Nereids. Using Medusa’s head, Perseus turned
Delphyne to stone, but he also claimed his right to claim Andromeda as his wife
as a reward. In his eagerness to save his daughter, Cepheus forgot that he had
promised the hand of Andromeda to his brother, Phineus. During a great banquet
in Perseus’s honor, Perseus and Phineus clashed against one another and
Perseus again used the head to turn his enemies to stone.
Perseus stayed in Ethiopia only until the
birth of his son Perses by Andromeda; the youth became Cepheus’s heir and
later conquered the tribes East, calling them Persians after himself. Rushing
back to Seriphos, Perseus discovered his mother had been delaying the marital
advances of Polydectes until his return. Using Medusa’s head one last time, he
transformed the dishonorable ruler and his allies to stone and placed Dictys to
the throne. He later returned the sandals and cap to Hermes and turned the head
of Medusa over to Athena. Andromeda came to join him and they had several sons
and heirs.
While attending the funeral games held in
honor of King Teutamides of Larissa, Perseus was reunited with his grandfather,
Acrisius. Bearing the old man no ill will, his reconciliation with him was
masterminded by King Teutamides. While Perseus was showing off his skill with a
discus, however, a breeze turned the discus off course and its blow killed
Acrisius, forcing the oracle to come true. Refusing to accept Argos under such
conditions, Perseus gave the throne to his cousin, Megepenthes of Tiryns, whose
father, Proetus, had convinced Acrisius to attend the games hoping for his
death. Perseus instead located and fortified the ruins of Mycenae, named for
Mycene, the daughter of his ancestor, the river-god, Inachos.
Several of his sons married daughters of Pelops, who had usurped rule of
Pisa from Perseus’s uncle, King Oenomaus. His daughter, Gorgophone, became the
mother of the Spartan King, Tyndareus, grandfather of Helen of Troy. His mother
had another son by Dictys named Rutulus, eponym of the Rutulian tribes near
Latium, an ancestor of Turnus, an antagonist of the hero Aeneas.
As King of Mycenae, Perseus entered into
conflict with supporters of the god, Dionysus, but eventually came to a truce
and honored sanctuary to him. Four of Perseus’s sons, Electryon, Alcaeus,
Sthenelus and Mestor, shared rule of Argos after his death. Electryon’s
daughter, Alcmene, was married to Alcaeus’s son, Amphitryon, and hence, any
son between them would be the true heir to Argos. Alcmene, however, was seduced
by Zeus, and the birth of their son, Hercules, was delayed by Hera, Queen of The
Olympian Gods, so that his cousin, Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus, would instead
inherit the throne. After Eurystheus’s death, the throne of Mycenae was taken
by Atreus, son of Pelops, and brother-in-law to Sthenelus, thus ending the
Dynasty of Perseus in Argos. Athena commemorated images she saw in the heavens
in their names that the adventures and characters in Perseus would never be
forgotten. (Some accounts claim that she actually placed their likenesses in the
heavens or that she created their likenesses out of the stars, but modern
knowledge of astronomy and meteorology would make these claims unlikely.)
Generations afterward, Medusa’s spirit
continued to exist taking on mortal bodies and transforming into duplicates of
her own, but Athena’s curse on her continued to make these bodies duplicates
of Medusa’s later hideous form rather than her original likeness as a goddess.
In one form, she encountered Hercules and the Argonauts the Isle of Fear, on the
Black Sea. Offered to be an immortal on Olympus by the side of Zeus, Perseus
instead traveled the earth in spirit form seeking and slaying Medusa in every
form she took. At one point, he turned her gaze on herself and turned her into
stone. A chard of this statue later turned up in the possession of Twentieth
Century warlock Lewis Vendredi. Medusa eventually tried taking possession of the
original Supergirl hoping to add her own Kryptonian power to her own as
protection against Perseus. Clashing with the Justice League as a result and
transforming them to stone, Supergirl retained her mind and body through force
of will long enough to get Perseus’s help in defeating Medusa and restoring
her victims to normal.
Height:
6’2”
Weight: 210
lbs.
Eyes:
Brown
Hair: Brown
Strength Level: Perseus possessed the normal human strength level of a man of his size, height and build who engaged in extensive physical activities.
Known Superhuman Powers: None
Abilities:
Perseus is an accomplished combatant in both armed and unarmed combat. He is
quite adept with a sword. An Olympic-class athlete, he is quite proficient with
a discus.
Weapons: Perseus usually carries a sword, but for a brief time, he employed a
number of objects with mystical powers. A sword given him from the Hesperides
was enchanted to cut through any substance and the wallet he received with it
was enchanted to protect him from the head of Medusa, the use of the head even
after Medusa’s death could turn anything caught in its glare to stone. Perseus
also used a cap and sandals belonging to Hermes. Wearing the cap rendered him
invisible to human senses, and the winged sandals, called talaria, enabled him
to levitate into the air and fly great distances. The height and distance
capable by the sandals is unrevealed.