Created in the image of the Olympian Goddess of Love, the siren with a soul joins the Agents of Atlas, after being mistaken for Aphrodite herself. Taking on her identity as Venus, she becomes an adventurer, peacemaker, and matchmaker, using her siren song for good.
Siren With a Soul
In ancient Greece, the elder goddess Gaea forbids the elder god Phorcys (a gigantic sea monster) from attacking mortals. He bypasses this ban by mystically creating his sirens, magical females whose hypnotic singing voices would lure sailors into fatal accidents, providing meals for Phorcys. To maximize their charms, Phorcys had crafted these sirens in the image of the goddess Venus, AKA Aphrodite. Most of these sirens were gradually slain, but at least one survived into modern times. When the secret society later known as the Atlas Foundation sends two ships to rescue their dragon Mr. Lao in Morocco in the late 19th Century, the surviving siren targets the ships for Phorcys. She sinks one ship using her siren song, but the second ship’s crew includes the mystic Yao, AKA Ancient One, who magically imbues the siren with a soul. Newly sentient and fully conscious of her many murders for the first time, the horrified siren flees.
Wandering in despair for days, she finds shelter at a convent. She stays there for 20 years, helping with chores, and the nuns regard the ageless girl as miraculous; however, when their choir sings in a town festival, the siren joins in, sending the visiting clergy into fits of ecstasy. Disturbed by the incident, the nuns ask the siren to leave the convent.
By the late 1950s, she wanders to the USA, where the goddess Venus (Aphrodite) had recently ended a years-long sojourn among humanity. People soon mistake the siren for the real Venus. Embracing this new identity and repressing any memory of her old life, the new Venus picks up where the goddess left off as a crime-fighter, joining FBI agent Jimmy Woo’s short-lived team of government-backed heroes, the G-Men, in 1958.
Hypnotic Voice
Venus shares Aphrodite’s ageless, perfect beauty and potentially limitless lifespan, but lacks her counterpart’s superhuman strength and durability, so that she can be injured or killed more easily. The siren’s ability to survive crushing undersea pressures is mystical in nature, not a physical trait. A superhumanly swift swimmer, she can see, hear, breathe, and speak underwater. She heals rapidly and has a heightened degree of heat resistance. She can slightly alter her appearance at will, changing her hair color or eye color.
Her hypnotic voice affects those around her (especially men) whenever she speaks, often making them pleasantly dazed and suggestible. By consciously trying to vocally mesmerize others, especially if she sings, she can compel people to do or think almost anything. However, certain strong-willed or mentally anomalous individuals can resist. While singing, she often projects a huge illusion of herself, usually naked and surrounded by shimmering lights and mist, which helps reduce her listeners to a state of euphoric bliss. Her song can show people visions of their innermost desires, or a sad wail can induce crippling despair by showing them visions of their greatest pains and losses. She can emotionally soothe people by humming and is fluent in numerous languages.
When Venus receives the Cestus, an enchanted girdle, from Aphrodite, and confers her Goddess role onto Venus, she gains new abilities, such as faster healing, charming any creature, and transforming weapons of war into peaceful objects.
Agent Allies and Constant Criminal Foes
Venus joins FBI Agent Jimmy Woo’s G-Men in the late 1950s and becomes a crime-fighter alongside Robert Grayson, AKA Marvel Boy, M-11, AKA Human Robot, and Kenneth Hale, AKA Gorilla-Man. When she helps the Agents of Atlas free President Eisenhower from the villain Plan Tzu, AKA Yellow Claw, the U.S. government disbands the group, though they reform later to fight Yellow Claw yet again. They add Aquaria Neptunia, AKA Namora, to their ranks, who soon reveals Venus’ past as a legendary Siren. Destroying her confidence, Woo brings her back to her senses. As such, Venus reconnects with her past life and some of her powers as well.
A Siren’s Deadly Story in a New Life
Literature professor Derek Schiller spotted her during her time with the G-Men and became obsessed, spending decades studying reports of her. Dropping out of sight, the siren resurfaced in the 1970s as a humanities professor and peace activist at Pepperdine University, using her Olympian predecessor’s old Vicki Starr alias before disappearing again. Learning of how the isolated Valley People tribe in Kenya was locked in a bloody ethnic war with foreign refugees, she moved there and lived among the tribes as a missionary for years, helping the two sides make peace, partly by guiding the warring tribes to intermarry. Their valley became a peaceful paradise where Venus was beloved as a goddess.
In recent years, Jimmy Woo reassembled Department Zero, who became the Atlas Foundation’s senior agent after he inherited its leadership. Forced by wary teammate Namora to remember her horrific siren origins, Venus quickly recovered from this trauma with Woo’s support and continued to use her powers for good.
Venus continued to work with the Agents of Atlas after a turn of events when Woo inherited the mantle of Genghis Khan from Yellow Claw. In taking over the Atlas Foundation, which Yellow Claw ran, Woo and his Agents of Atlas worked at bettering the secret society by fighting crime.
After a contest with Aphrodite, who initially regarded the siren as a cheap imitation and an unwanted rival for humanity’s affections, the goddess declared the siren the new Olympian goddess of love and gave her an enchanted girdle known as the Cestus.
Venus and the team later teamed up with Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, against Atlas Foundation rogues who refused to change from criminal to clandestine operatives on the up-and-up. At first, Spider-Man fought Gorilla-Man not realizing he was friend, not foe, but Venus used her siren song to calm him. After their success in beating the rogue Atlas agents, Marvel-Boy wiped the web-slinger’s memory of the event to keep their efforts secret.
When the Skrulls invaded Earth, the Agents of Atlas fought against them, and in the battle, Namora was captured. The Agents freed her, but the Skrulls attacked again with Woo asking Venus to use her siren powers to kill them. She refused, not wanting to kill them, and Woo asked Human Robot to do it instead.
While assisting Delroy Garrett, AKA 3-D Man, discover his origins alongside the team, she discovered that the Cestus from Aphrodite could charm their dragon advisor, Mr. Lao. Venus realized that her influence seemed to now work on almost any creature. When she was shot by an arrow through the back, she healed quickly and attributed it to Aphrodite’s gift of Goddess-hood.
