Name: The Chequerians (King and Knight)
First Appearance: Wonder Woman #55 (1952)
Creators: Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru
Abilities: Grandmaster Chess players. Possesses cosmic technology that is capable of exhibiting power comparable to one million suns.
Backstory: Advanced aliens from the planet Chequerana. The Chequerians hailed from an ancient civilization where Chess was serious business and everything was decided through a chess match.
Eventually the low stakes of the typical Chess game was not enough for this advanced race, leading to them making the stakes…To the death! And thus so it was that their population dwindled until a grand chess tournament reduced their entire civilizations population…Down to two.
Knight and King the last two remaining Chequerians would for millenia avoid facing one another, least their race go extinct. Mourning that they would be unable to play chess ever again. That is until one of them got the brilliant idea to play a game of Chess…Without killing one another!
This startling revelation broke a painful stalemate for the two surviving Chequearians, however they soon found that the lack of stakes compared to their fights to the death left the game feeling hollow. Thus with some brainstorming they decided to use their species ultra advanced technology to convert the Milky Way Galaxy into a chess board.
Dividing up the multitude of stars, planets, and other astral bodies between them, they would play Chess using the heavens themselves! Any time they would move a celestial chess piece to intercept an opponents piece, it would bring about the destruction of both pieces, thus warranting a large number of replacement pieces.
Caring not for the lives of others as they enjoyed a thrilling game of Chess.
