WANTED: Earth-Two's Most Dangerous Super-Villains
Giganta
Personal information
Real Name: Giganta
Residence: Mobile
Occupation: Professional Criminal
First Appearance (Golden Age): Wonder Woman #9 (June 1944)
Character History
The early life of the great ape named Giganta is shrouded in mystery. Unless captive gorilla births were possible much earlier on Earth-Two than elsewhere (the 1950's), it is likely she was born in Central Africa and captured by procurement agents for American zoological parks. In 1944, she was the largest gorilla in the US, living at the National Zoo in Washington DC in a cage by herself since failed attempts to breed in captivity had cost her her own offspring. In the summer of that year, a chance encounter occurred in which Major Steve Trevor took his niece Dotsie to the zoo and changed the course of Giganta's life.
As Dotsie tried to pet the great ape, Giganta seized her and, enraged at attempts to reclaim the girl, broke free of her cage and fled. Quickly pursued by Wonder Woman, Giganta stumbled onto the campus of Holliday College, interrupting a lecture on evolution by college researcher Professor Zool. In the ensuing melee, Dotsie was freed and Giganta was subdued by Wonder Woman, Trevor, the Holliday Girls and Giganta's arriving caretakers. Trevor declares the ape a menace and wants her immediately euthanized but her caretakers cite her rarity and beg an alternative fate. Zool reveals he has been working on a device that can accelerate and decelerate evolution and proposes to use it on Giganta, evolving her into a more human, civilized form. Zool's experiment is a success and Giganta emerges as a large, auburn-haired female. Initially sedate as she is dressed and freed, she quickly turns on her perceived captors and a melee again ensues. In the resulting fight, Giganta escapes but the evolution machine is activated and fearing they are all about to be devolved, Wonder Woman throws the device out the window.
Recovering their wits, the assembled humans find themselves in more primitive still human forms but when they step outside, they find that the machines evolution wave has affected most of the surrounding area, changing every living thing back to it's prehistoric form. As dinosaurs attack, the newly devolved humans flee and find Giganta hiding in a cave where she was shielded from the rays. While they plot their next move, Wonder Woman seeks peace with Giganta so they can solve their mutual predicament but Giganta rejects her and flees to find male-dominate tribes in the trees. Together she works with the Tree-Men to capture Wonder Woman and her "tribe" to be sacrificed to a Tyrannosaurus that the Tree-People have idolized. Wonder Woman escapes and using her golden lasso, tames the dinosaur and free her compatriots.
Later finding Zool, they traverse a
more Pleistocene wilderness and find the evolution machine and use it again to
move time forward. This time, evolution of society advances into a Golden
Age of civilization and again Giganta, betrays the group and makes common cause
with a male society who find her attractive. Like a serpent in the garden,
Giganta plants the seed of greed in the otherwise pacifist men, awakening a
desire to wage war against their more peace-loving neighbors. While scoring
some initial successes, Wonder Woman turns the tide against Giganta's forces and
defeats her, albeit at the cost of the Golden Age, as people are now enchanted
with the idea of evil and self-service. One more turn of the
evolution machines advances civilization to Ancient Greece and leads Wonder
Woman to ally with her mother Hippolyta against Achilles' forces while Giganta
remains captive. With the Amazon's successful and Giganta in tow, one more
turn of the device returns everyone to the 20th Century (Wonder Woman Vol. 1
#9).
1948 found Giganta a prisoner on Reform
Island, the penal colony on which the Amazons of Paradise Island attempted to
re-educate criminal women into productive citizens. One of the captives
there was the Saturnian invader Eviless, who stages a revolt and liberates
Giganta and many of Wonder Woman's other adversaries. The assembled
criminals adopt the name Villainy Inc. and quickly attack their Amazon captors.
Wonder Woman arrives and the tide turns, leading to the re-capture of most of
the escapees. Giganta and Clea, Queen of Atlantean Venturia escape and
make their way to Washington DC, ambushing Steve Trevor in an effort to steal a
submarine and return to Atlantis. Finding Trevor's resistant, they abandon him
and find Wonder Woman at the laboratory of Professor Zool at Holliday College.
They capture her and convert Zool and the Holliday Girls into gorillas before
setting off to snag an abandoned submarine. They get out into the ocean before
Wonder Woman and her gorilla comrades break free and turn the tables, capture
the two villainesses and returning the gorillas to human form. Clea and Giganta
are then returned to Transformation Island (Wonder Woman #28).
The activities of Giganta in later years are unclear and her ultimate fate on Earth-Two is unknown.
Powers and Abilities
The Giganta of Earth-Two is an imposing physical specimen, significant taller, more muscular and athletic than typical human females. She has sufficient strength, speed and agility to engage in hand-to-hand combat with Amazons and retains an animal cunning that defines her personality. The limits of strength, endurance and longevity are unknown.
Weaknesses and Limitations
While physically imposing, Giganta could be overwhelmed by superior force. She possessed no particular immunity to magic, leaving her vulnerable to Wonder Woman's lasso and the girdles of submission used on Reform Island. Finally, a result of her simian origins, Giganta is not particularly well-educated and while sly, not intelligent in the most civilized of senses.
Multiversity
Earth-One
On Earth-1, Giganta again starts out life as a gorilla who is ultimately evolved into womanhood by Professor Zool's technology. In this case however, she is a zoo animal who falls under the spell of Dr. Psycho, masquerading as faculty at Holliday College. Psycho uses telepathy to magnify Giganta's attraction to Steve Trevor and then once she is evolved into a large blonde woman, turns her loose on Wonder Woman. The two fight over Trevor but Giganta is eventually subdued (Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #163). A short time later, Giganta is freed and hired by The Collector, an eccentric millionaire interested in ancient artifacts, to steal Wonder Woman's golden lasso. Giganta takes the lead and attempts to steal it from the sleeping Amazon but Wonder Woman was feigning and quickly "wakes" to thrash her adversary and hand her back over to the authorities. The Collector's other agents are likewise promptly defeated and he himself is sent to jail (Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #168). The later activities of Giganta on Earth-1 are unrevealed.
On the
post-crisis Earth, Giganta's history is radically altered. In this
timeline, the scientists Doris Zuel is dying of a rare blood disorder and seeks
a way to transfer her mind into a more healthy body. When she collapses
before she is successful, her lab assistant uses her technology to put her into
a giant gorilla named Giganta, a process said to be irreversible. She
then goes on a rampage before being ultimately captured by Wonder Woman (Wonder
Woman Vol. 2 #136). When she next appears, she is a red-head giantess
50 feet tall who outwardly resembles her Earth-2 counterpart, albeit with the
ability to change her size to extreme degrees (Wonder Woman Vol. 2
#175). Through actions that remain unrevealed, Doris Zuel in her gorilla
form happened upon a circus performer named Olga who had the ability for
unknown reasons to change her size. Zuel finally completed her mind
transference experiment and adopted the body of Olga but retained the name
Giganta.
The Giganta of this world is a professional criminal with an international
reputation. She joined this world's current incarnation of Villainy Inc.
as well as several iterations of the Secret Society of Super-Villains (Wonder
Woman Vol. 2 #180, Villains United #5, Final Crisis LS)
. She has been an agent of the Suicide Squad and affiliated with the
Secret Six (Secret Six Vol. 3 #21). At one point she lived in Ivy
Town and developed a relationship with Ryan Choi, the current incarnation of
the Atom (All-New Atom #3-7) and when he is murdered, she exacts painful
revenge on Dwarfstar who had commissioned his assassination (Secret Six Vol.
3 #28).
Current Earth-0
The Giganta of current mainstream Earth appears outwardly very similar to the prior Earth-0 version. A different origin is offered for the incarnation of Giganta, still being Doris Zuel but curing her blood disease with an experimental treatment that gives her size-changing powers at the cost of her intellect (Trinity of Sin: Pandora #10).
Earth-29
The Bizarro-Universe is home to the Legion of Fun, a group of criminals opposed to Htrae's Bizarro League and Bizarro-Giganta, about whom little is known, is a member (Superman Vol. 4 #43-44).
Appearances
|
Issue |
Comment |
Reprinted in |
|
1st Appearance, vs. Wonder Woman |
Wonder Woman Archives #4, Wonder Woman: The Golden Age Omnibus #2, Wonder Woman: The Golden Age TPB #3 |
|
|
Wonder Woman #28 |
w/ Villainy Inc., vs. Wonder Woman |
Adventure #416, Wonder Woman Annual #1 (1967), Wonder Woman: A celebration of 75 years, Wonder Woman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, Wonder Woman: The Golden Age Omnibus Vol. 4 |