ADONIS
Real Name: Adonis
Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Olympus) Olympian god (apotheosized)
Occupation: God of desire
Group Membership: Gods of Olympus
Affiliations: Aphrodite/Venus,
Persephone,
Zeus,
presumably several other Olympian gods, briefly various human women
Enemies: Ares
Known Relatives: father (name unrevealed)
Aliases: Don A. Donis
Base of Operations: The extradimensional
realm of Mount Olympus; sometimes Earth;
formerly Ancient Greece
First Appearance: Venus#14/5 (June, 1951)
Powers/Abilities: Adonis possesses the
conventional powers
of the Olympian gods including vitality and
functional longevity; it's unrevealed if he has the corresponding
superhuman strength and resistance to injury (see comments). As the
god of desire, the very handsome and perpetually young-looking Adonis
has the mystical ability to arouse desire and romantic longing in
others; the only known
being immune to his gaze is the goddess Venus.
Of note is that he has
no heart and thus can suffer no heart-directed injury.
He was formerly
a human with no apparent noteworthy skills beyond his own good looks and charisma.
Height: 5'10"
(by approximation)
Weight: Unrevealed (see
comments)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown
History:
(FF: Fifty Fantastic Years (Persephone entry)) -
Aphrodite/Venus rescued the young mortal Adonis from his enraged father
and placed him in the care of Persephone, the queen of Hades. But
Persephone became attracted to the handsome youth as he grew and Venus
grew jealous. The two goddesses feuded until Zeus intervened. Zeus
decreed that Adonis spend a third of the year with Persephone, a third
of the year with Venus, and a third of the year to do as he pleased.
But Venus used her magic girdle to make Adonis spend his three months
with her as well, angering Persephone, who then told Venus' lover Ares
of Adonis. Enraged, Ares sent a wild boar upon the youth which killed
him and sent him to Tartarus, the Hellish pit in Hades.
(BTS) - Adonis was released from Tartarus and became
a god in Olympus.
(Venus#14/5 (fb) - BTS) - Around 1951 and not having
seen Venus for a long time, Adonis traveled to New York on Earth (not
realizing Venus was there too) to prove he knew more about love than
the goddess of love Venus. He took on the simple alias Don A. Donis and
seduced women in the social set over two weeks, with many women
ditching their boyfriends or husbands in hopes of pursuing him further.
(Venus#14/5) - Whitney Hammond and Venus learned of
the new Casanova in a newspaper society page. After secretly observing
Donis in action at the elite Club 77 and later speaking to a spurned victim,
Venus planned to stop his overly amorous ways before they became too
destructive. Donis was soon seduced by Venus, but a
jilted woman tracked them down and shot Donis; he was uninjured as he
had no heart for the bullet to hit.
The next day, Venus had the smitten
Donis come to her apartment, only to be confronted by past women he had
seduced and left. Venus told him she knew his true identity and
instantly transported him back to Olympus and into his godly robes,
where he discovered and finally recognized his challenger. Adonis was not punished, just advised
to choose a better alias next time.
Comments: Created by Bill Everett.
It's assumed that the mortal Adonis killed by Ares
later became the god in Olympus. I consider it very likely that his
release from Hades was assisted by its queen and his former admirer,
Persephone. As a god, he has powers, but it's unrevealed if these are
to the full extent as other Olympians (given he was "upgraded" to god status).
Greek-Roman
mythology has him firmly as a mortal, not a god, while other
sources indicate he represents a death-resurrection cycle, with
Adonis' subsequent resurrection championed by Aphrodite. In myth, his
parents are King Cinyras of Cyprus and Myrrha.
Per Ovid's telling
of the myth, Aphrodite cursed Myrrha to lust after her own father, and
she had sex with him in complete darkness for nine nights before he
discovered her identity and chased her with a sword. The gods
transformed Myrrha into a myrr treek, and in the form of tree, she gave
birth to Adonis.
--Snood
This profile was completed 1/29/2021, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 20th anniversary 's celebratory event.
Profile by Grendel Prime.
CLARIFICATIONS
:
Adonis is the inspiration for but otherwise has no known connections to:
Adonis is linked by worship to:
images:
(without ads)
Venus#14/5, p6, pan4 (main image)
p3, pan5 (headshot on Earth)
Appearances:
Venus#14/5 (June, 1951) - Bill Everett (writer & artist), Stan Lee
(editor)
FF:
Fifty Fantastic Years (Persephone entry) (November, 2011) - Jeff
Christiansen, Mike
O'Sullivan, Stuart Vandal (head writers/coordinators), Jeff Youngquist
(editor)
First posted: 09/18/2021
Last updated:
09/17/2021
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel Copyright info
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