First Appearance: Wonder Woman 2 (1942 )
Creators: William Marston and H.G Peter
Abilities: Based on the Greek mythological figure (and the Roman counterpart, Mars), he is the Olympian God of War: immortal and virtually indestructible with all the supreme powers one can expect from a god.
Backstory: Ares has been Diana’s constant antithetical foe throughout the eras, and as a master of discord, who provokes fury and slaughter with his very presence, he is determined to thwart her mission of peace and understanding, but during the Gold, Silver and Bronze Ages, he was first known by his Roman mythological name: Mars.
His debut sees Mars seeking to realize his vision of eternal war and conflict in the world of man, but he is opposed by Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who seeks to realize a loving civilization. The men who worship Mars lie, cheat, steal, kill their weaker brothers, and sell women as slaves. When Ares taunts Aphrodite with his success, she answers by creating a new race of women to contend: the Amazons, stronger and more fearless than Mars’s men and fully upholding “Aphrodite’s Law”.
Mars retreats to the planet Mars with his chief deputies, the Duke of Deception, the Count of Conquest, and the Earl of Greed, where he enslaves Martians and the spirits of dead alike, by ferrying souls to the planet and implanting them into Martian bodies. He then tortures, humiliates or trains them as soldiers to fight in future wars. Mars then continued to tangle w/ Diana and the Amazons during the Gold, Silver and Bronzes Ages to start conflict and subdue the Gods of Olympus.
Post-Crisis, he was re-established as Ares, son of Zeus, worshipped by many on Earth as a god of Olympus (who never quite fit in). Eventually, faith waned and the gods stepped back from regularly interfering with humanity; But centuries later, the God of War returned to renew his crusade to provoke confrontation. And once again, Aphrodite and the Amazons stood in his way.
Throughout history, he has worn many faces and borne many names all possessing a never-ending hunger for destruction, growing stronger on malevolent psychic energy, and (often with the help of The Children of Ares), consistently encouraging war through his manipulation of mortals—which, of course, always brings him into conflict with the Amazons and their champion, Wonder Woman.
