Hercules (DC Comics)
fictional Olympian god in the DC Universe
Hercules (also known as Heracles and Herakles) is a fictional Olympian god in the DC Universe based on the Greek demigod and hero of the same name. Hercules is also the son of Zeus and the half-brother of the superhero Wonder Woman.
Hercules first appears in All Star Comics #8 (January 1942) as part of a Wonder Woman story, and was created by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter, in the first of several incarnations. Later versions appeared in Superman #28 (May 1966), created by Jerry Siegel and Ira Yarbrough, Wonder Woman #105 (April 1967) and Hercules Unbound #1 (October 1975) created by Gerry Conway and José Luis García-López.
Fictional character biography
Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths
Hercules is shown as a muscle-bound man wearing a lion-skin. The Amazons are slaves to Hercules, who is able to escape by tricking Hippolyta (spelled 'Hippolyte' in the original issue) into giving him her golden girdle on the bequest of Ares (referred to as 'Mars', the Roman version of the war god) who hates the Amazons. Centuries later, a picture of him, during Wonder Woman's time, shows him as the God of Strength with black hair and a beard.
In the pages of All-Star Comics #8 (published in January 1942), Hercules appears alongside other characters from Greek mythology in the first appearance of Wonder Woman. Hercules is depicted as a brutish 'hero' who represents masculine violence, and one of his 12 labors is to enslave the Amazons under Queen Hippolyte. "In the days of Ancient Greece", relates Hyppolyte to her daughter, "we Amazons were the foremost nation in the world.
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