PERSEPHONE

Real Name: Persephone

Identity/Class: Olympian god

Occupation: Queen of the Underworld, goddess of spring

Affiliations: Olympian gods, Pluto

Enemies: None

Known Relatives: Zeus (father), Demeter (mother), Hades (husband/uncle, alias Pluto), Hercules, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, Dionysus, Arion, Plutus, Philomelus (half-brothers), Artemis, Athena, Eris, Hebe, Eileithyia, Despoena (half-sisters), Poseidon, Chiron (uncles), Hera, Hestia (aunts)

Aliases: dread Persephone (name called by Homer), Persephoneia, Phersephone, Persephassa, Phersephatta, Periphone (alternate Greek pronunciations of name), Proserpina (classical Latin spelling of name), Kore (Core) (Roman name), Mania (Etruscan name)

Base of Operations: Mobile between Olympus and Hades

First Appearance: Avengers Annual#23 (August, 1994)

Powers: Persephone possesses the conventional powers of the Olympian gods including superhuman strength (Class 25, enabling her to lift/press approximately 25 tons), vitality, longevity, and resistance to injury.  She also has undefined mystical abilities to cross dimensions, cure the sick, create small electrical discharges, and influence the growth and prosperity of flowering plants.  In ancient times, her name was used to invoke curses as well as to send ghosts to Earth.

History: (Greek-Roman Myth) - Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the grain-goddess.  The god Hades fell in love with her and obtained permission from Zeus to take her as a bride without telling Demeter.  In fact, Zeus is reputed to have suggested abduction to keep Demeter from knowing the truth.  Abducted while in the presence of her friends the Sirens, Persephone was taken against her will to Tartarus where she pined for her mother and refused to eat.  Demeter mourned for her daughter for ten days before Hecate, looking to make trouble for Hades, told her the truth.  Unfortunately, while in the underworld, Persephone fasted by eating three pomegranate seeds.  As Zeus arbitrated the case, Persephone was required to spend parts of the year on Olympus and Hades.  Demeter also punished the Sirens by transforming them into birds and binding them to Anthemoessa as punishment for not reporting the abduction.

In later years, Persephone played an active role in dissuading Hades' whims against mortals as in allowing Queen Alcestis of Pherae to return to her husband.  Aphrodite also gave her a coffin with the spirit of Adonis in it to hide for her, but she peeked inside and fell in love with the youth.  Zeus arbitrated their feelings over him and forced them to share him separately.  Years later, Peirithous, the king of the Lapiths, and his good friend, Theseus, King of Athens, both made pacts to marry daughters of Zeus.  Theseus abducted the teenaged Helen (future spoil of the Trojan War) and Peirithous resolved to abduct Persephone.  Admiring the guts of the two, Hades invited the two to sit down from their journey into the underworld and they became captured in chairs.  Hercules rescued Theseus on his last labor, but Peirithous was forced to stay.

Years after the Trojan War, Orestes, prince of Mycenae, invoked Persephone to send the ghost of his father, Agamemnon, to watch the death of Aegisthus, his killer.

(Avengers Annual#23 ) - In modern times, the Olympians were nearly snuffed out by their ancient enemy Typhon, who had escaped Tartarus.  They were rescued by Hercules and his modern team of heroes, the Avengers. Zeus questioned Persephone about Pluto, suspecting that he had released Typhon himself, but she vouched for him, saying he had not departed her sight.  Unknown to Persephone, Pluto had actually granted the Asgardian god Loki with the power to free Typhon.

(Fantastic Four III#21) - Returning from a visit from her mother, Persephone issued an edict to Pluto to allow the young wards of the Fantastic Four to leave his realm unharmed.

Comments: Adapted by Roy Thomas and John Buscema.

Arion, the god of horses, and Despoena, goddess of fruit, are children of Demeter and Poseidon.  Plutus, god of wealth, and Philomelus, god of farming, were children of Demeter and the demi-god, Jasion.  They have yet to be seen in the Marvel Universe.

Persephone's hair color goes from dark in Avengers I Annual #23 to blonde in Fantastic Four III#21.  It can be surmised that Persephone's hair remains dark while in the underworld but becomes lighter when she visits her mother every spring.

Here are a few more comments from Kyle Sims:

No etymology, or source, has been found in Greek for Persephone's name, hence it is likely that her name is pre-Greek (which would explain all of her Greek aliases--everybody had a difficult time saying her name).  In fact, she may have been a pre-Greek goddess.

Persephone was first identified as Demeter's daughter in Hesiod's Theogony.

The myth of Persephone's abduction and Demeter's grief appeared for the first time in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.

There is another tale, an Orphic myth, about Persephone by the epic poet Nossus of the 5th century AD that falls outside traditional lore but deserves mention, nonetheless.  In it, Persephone was desired by all the gods yet kept secured at home by her mother.  She was taken to Sicily and guarded by dragons, but Zeus, in the form of a dragon, seduced her.  From this encounter, she eventually became the mother of Zagreus, the earlier form of Dionysus, whom the Titans tore apart.  This account is probably the source of the misconception that Persephone and Zeus are the parents of Dionysus.

by Will Uchtman and Nick Hill, the Squid

Profile updated/edited by Kyle Sims

CLARIFICATIONS:
Not to be confused with:

• Persephone, of the Spinsterhood, or her clone, @ Cosmic Powers Unlimited#3