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Superman finally meets his match as one of Wonder Woman’s oldest and most powerful foes literally makes the Man of Steel her guinea pig.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for “The Acquaintance” from Wonder Woman: Black and Gold #2, on sale now from DC Comics.
Superman is well-known for his invulnerability. Although most would point to Kryptonite as his sole weakness, he has another lesser known vulnerability that a Wonder Woman villain just highlighted in the most bizarre way.
The story “The Acquaintance” by Rachel Smythe and Becca Carey from Wonder Woman: Black and Gold #2 sees the Princess of the Amazons searching for her fellow Justice Leaguer, who has gone missing. Journeying to Superman’s last known location brings her to the house of one of her oldest foes, the powerful sorceress Circe.
Circe takes Wonder Woman into her home, casually catching up on the goings-on of the gods as she takes her to her fellow hero. What Diana finds however is not at all what she expected. Into the scene rolls a small ball with an adorable guinea pig inside. It doesn’t take long for Diana to realize that the tiny creature at her feet is the Man of Steel magically transformed into a rodent.
Circe was created by Robert Kanigher and Harry G. Peter and first appeared in 1949’s Wonder Woman #37. Initially, she was just a sorceress with an axe to grind against the Amazons, particularly Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyta, but was later retconned to be descended from the Greek Gods. Her grudge with Wonder Woman began when a prophecy told her the Amazon princess would one day be her undoing. Although she’s been portrayed as a more malicious villain in the past, famously inciting the War of the Gods, recently she’s appeared as more of a trickster. She even helped Diana on a couple of occasions and doesn’t make any attempt to fight her here. Still, that doesn’t stop the sorceress from indulging in one of her favorite pastimes — turning people into animals.
Circe’s ease in manipulating Superman here is due to his inherent weakness to magic. Since he’s often fighting more interstellar adversaries, he doesn’t often deal with magic. However, when he is confronted with magic, the results are often detrimental, as seen in this short story.
Turning Superman into a guinea pig is a simple matter for a powerful sorceress like Circe. This isn’t even the first time she’s done something like this to the Man of Steel. Superman and Circe have crossed paths a few times during the Silver Age, and she partially transformed him into a lion when he refused to marry her.
Turning Superman into a guinea pig is seen as nothing more than a joke for Circe and her choice of animal speaks to how she views the Man of Steel in general. Where most see a powerful foe, this strong goddess simply sees an opportunity to practice her magic — a literal guinea pig. She even whispers, when she thinks Wonder Woman won’t hear, that she’ll keep turning mortals into animals because it’s “fun” and “convenient.” It just goes to show that Superman, who may seem like a massive threat for many villains in the DC Universe, is nothing more than a plaything for powerful magic users.
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