CUPID
Real
Name:
Eros (Cupid is his Roman name)
Occupation:
God of love and loyalty, Archer for Venus
Legal
Status:
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: Widowed
Known
Relatives:
Aphrodite (mother); Hephaestus
(father); Psyche (wife, allegedly deceased),
Voluptua (daughter); Harmonia, Leila
(half-sisters); 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
Group
Affiliation:
Gods of Olympus
Base
of Operations:
Mt. 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, she allegedly died or was taken from him. Manhandled
by the Avengers as they sought Aphrodite's protection from Zeus, he was
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 his Uncle 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.
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
fifteen 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
Comments:
The
name Cupid is actually more of a title. It represents any of several cherubic
love-spirits
that existed before Aphrodite was even born, and watched her rise
The
myth of the floating baby with wings came from the idea that the spirits of
While
it isn't obvious in the story, it maybe assumed that Cupid and the
Clarifications:
Eros, primeval god of love, the son of Nox,
Eros
(Starfox), one of the Eternals of Titan, @ Iron Man I #55