CUPID

Real Name: Eros

Identity/Class: Olympian God

Occupation: God of love, Archer for Venus

Affiliations: Olympian Gods; Avengers, Avengers West Coast (encountered and fought both under mistaken circumstances); Mahkizmo, She-Hulk (former pawns)

Enemies: The Titans

Known Relatives: Venus (Aphrodite,mother); Ares (father) ;Psyche (wife); Harmonia, (half-sister); Deimos, Phobos, (half brothers); Aeneas (half-brother,deceased); Hercules, Apollo, Hephaestus, Hermes, Dionysus (uncles); Athena, Artemis, Eileithyia, Hebe, Discord, Persephone, Helen (aunts); Asclepius, Pan, Triton (cousins); Zeus (grandfather); Dione (grandmothers); Hades, Poseidon (grand-uncles); Demeter, Hera, Hestia (grand-aunts)

Aliases: Dan Cooper, Himeros, Anteros

Base of Operations: Mt. Olympus

First Appearances: (Atlas) Venus#1 (August, 1948); (Marvel) Avengers I#283 (September, 1987)

Powers/Abilities: Cupid possesses the conventional attributes of the Olympian Gods such as superhuman strength (Class 25), endurance and longevity. He also has extensive archery skills in shooting love arrows, physical projectiles imbued with his powers to cause affection for the first thing his victims see. Apparently, he can also move through dimensions and travel through time as when he traveled to Mahkizmo's alternate future.
Cupid can grow wings at will, and fly, carrying the weight of others. In addition, Cupid may be able to alter his apparent physical age. He has been seen as a teen and an adult within a short span of time, and is often pictured as an infant (cherub).

Weaknesses: Easily duped to be a pawn in other people's games. Also very proud of his skills as God of Love.

Physical Description: He appears as a highly attractive fair-haired and light-skinned man (not a baby!) of indeterminate age. He dresses in Greek togas and is never seen without his bow and arrows.

History: (Greek Myth) - Cupid is the son of Hephaestus, the smith-god and Venus, 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 which benefited her. He fired the arrow which 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. Scratching himself on one of his own arrows, he fell in love with Psyche himself and spirited her off to live in secrecy with her.

(Marvel Super-Heroes III#9 (fb) ) - Psyche's beauty caused mortal men to turn away from worship of Venus, whose temples fell into ruin. Venus sent Cupid to Earth to punish her by making her fall in love with an undeserving wretch. However, Cupid himself fell in love with her and married her. After Psyche proved her worthiness by outsmarting Venus, Cupid and Psyche lived happily for the rest of her brief mortal life.

(Astonishing#40/2) <1955> - Cupid (while posing or possessing one of the figures on a carousel) secretly dropped a ring to Marjorie and Jerry, a young couple, who were allowed to keep the ring because it belonged to nobody else.

(Spellbound#24/4) <1955> - Cupid was sent to Earth to make sur diminutive circus performer Tina Jones married fellow diminutive performer Joe Malden, who was deeply in love with her. Cupid though fell in love with Tina himself and after shooting her with an arrow became her love interest and the man she wanted to marry.

   Twenty minutes before the wedding Dan was called back home and vanished in front of Tina and the circus' owner Al. Cupid pleaded not to be forced to finish his job, but without a choice was sent back to Earth to clean up his mess. He shot Tina again while Joe was with her and a moment later she asked him to marry her. She had already forgotten Dan, who saddened by the fact, flew away as Cupid.

(Avengers I#283) - The Avengers came to Venus for assistance against Zeus, who blamed them for Hercules' severe injuries at the hands of Baron Helmut Zemo's Masters of Evil. Cupid tried to keep them away, but was tossed aside.

(Marvel Super-Heroes III#9) - Ares used the Amulet of Amuk to control and manipulate Venus. Venus convinced Cupid that the Avenger Mockingbird was the reincarnation of his lover Psyche. Cupid attempted to force Mockingbird to remember him, and battled and defeated the Avengers West Coast when they opposed him. Eventually, with the aid of Hercules, the Avengers stopped Cupid, and convinced him of the error of his ways. They traveled to Mt. Olympus, where they stopped Venus and Zeus from falling prey to Ares' plot. Cupid gave Hawkeye one of his magic arrows as a token of himself, to the finest archer he had ever seen.

(Sensational She Hulk I#36, 38-39) 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 Mahkizmo. Under the watchful eyes of his Uncle Dionysus, Cupid tried to match the warrior with Jennifer Walters, The She-Hulk, but Mahkizmo interceded the arrow and abducted Walters to the future. The Thing and Wyatt Wingfoot followed and learned that Mahkizmo was planning to kill off the women of the Twentieth Century, and stopped his plans. Cupid removed the arrow after seeing how much damage it had caused.

Comments: Adapted by unidentified writer and Art Peddy (artist).

The name Cupid is actually more of a title. It represents any of several love-spirits that existed before Aphrodite was even born, and watched her rise from the sea at Cythera. Aphrodite's son was always called Eros--He wasn't called Cupid until after the Romans started repeating the Greek stories. (Himeros and Anteros were alternate versions of this name). With this title, Cupid was supposed to be their leader.
Alternatively, per Greg O: "Actually as the entymology of the name implies Anteros (Anti-Eros) was almost the opposite of the match maker. He was the "revenger of slighted love". It could certainly be a title of Eros, but I have found mention of Anteros as a seperate deity in Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I think you are right about Himeros though."

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.

Also, his arrows were supposed to be more like arrows of mystical energy than actual arrows charged with magic.

In Greek mythology, Cupid petitioned Zeus to make Psyche a god so that she could live on Olympus. As a goddess, Psyche became goddess of fidelity and adoration.

While it isn't obvious in the story, it maybe assumed that Cupid and the She-Hulk were pawns of Aphrodite's to ruin Mahkizmo's plans.

Thanks to Ron Fredricks for adding Psyche's appearance in Venus#11, which indirectly pointed out she was one of the handmaidens in Venus#1 as well. Thanks to Gammatotem for pointing out Cupid's appearances in Astonishing#40 and Spellbound#24.

Profile by: William Uchtman and Snood.