Enchantress(June Moone)
Enchantress is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by Bob Haney and artist Howard Purcell, and first appeared in Strange Adventures #187 (April 1966). The character has periodically been depicted as taking the role of an antihero. The Enchantress made her live-action cinematic debut in the 2016 film Suicide Squad, portrayed by Cara Delevingne.
Publication History(1)
The Enchantress ("The Switcheroo-Witcheroo" as she was bannered on the cover) first appeared in the nine-page lead story of Strange Adventures #187 (April 1966), the National Comics (now DC Comics) flagship science fiction anthology title. She then appeared in two eight-page appearances in the same title: Strange Adventures #191 (August 1966) and #200 (May 1967), written by Bob Haney and drawn by co-creator Howard Purcell. The first two stories were reprinted in Adventure Comics #417 (March 1972) and #419 (May 1972), her only appearances in the 1970s. Following this, the Enchantress appeared in two linked Supergirl tales in The Superman Family #204–205 (November/December 1980–January/February 1981). Writer Jack C. Harris and artist Trevor Von Eeden proposed to DC an all-female superteam named the "Power Squad" which would have included the Enchantress, but were turned down. The character appeared in a two-part story featuring the Forgotten Villains in the Superman team-up title DC Comics Presents #77–78 (January–February 1985). She was one of the super-characters in Legends #3 (January 1987) and Legends #6 (April 1987), followed by the origin of the Suicide Squad in Secret Origins vol. 2 #14 (May 1987) and the immediately following Suicide Squad series issues #1–8 (May 1987–December 1987) and #12–16 (April 1988–August 1988), written by John Ostrander; and The Spectre vol. 2 #11 (February 1988).
Since the cancellation of Shadowpact, the Enchantress has continued to make minor appearances in the DC Universe, including DC Universe Holiday Special (2008), and the miniseries Reign in Hell #2–8 (September 2008–April 2009). She appeared in Action Comics #885 (March 2010), part of a new cycle of stories by James Robinson which lead up to the DC Comics summer 2010 event 'War of the Supermen'.
When DC relaunched their entire line in September 2011, it included a new team comic book titled Justice League Dark which featured the magical characters of the DCU: Shade, the Changing Man; Madame Xanadu; Deadman; Zatanna; Mindwarp and John Constantine. Their first enemy was Enchantress gone mad.
Fictional Character Biography(2)
June Moone is the Enchantress, a powerful magic-user who has been both a super-hero and a super-villain. The "Enchantress" is usually portrayed as a separate personality than June, trapped inside her and desperately trying to get out. For a long time, June could only use her magical powers when she released the Enchantress.
Strange Adventures
June Moone is a freelance artist dating importer Alan Dell, when Dell invites her to a party at the haunted Terror Castle. There is a secret chamber that she falls into, where a strange being called Dzamor grants her magic powers. By speaking the word "Enchantress" she can change from blonde-haired blue-eyed June Moone into the raven-haired green-eyed Enchantress. In her first adventure, the Dzamor has her rid Terror Castle of an ancient evil presence. Alan is attracted to the Enchantress, and June does not reveal that they are the same person. Enchantress saves the life of Alan Dell again when he is attacked by an underground monster. Alan and June stumble on a group of gangsters robbing a museum. June turns into the Enchantress again and defeats the gangsters when they steal a magic artifact.
June takes a job teaching parapsychology at New Athens in Santa Augusta, where her coworker Linda Danvers is secretly Supergirl. This location is the center of an astral alignment where she can gain omnipotent power, but this causes earthquakes that devastate the surrounding area. Enchantress believes endangering the town is necessary, because this power will allow her to protect Earth better. Supergirl stops her by kicking the moon out of alignment, and Enchantress swears revenge on Supergirl. Enchantress tricks Supergirl into moving the moon back in alignment, and nearly gains omnipotent power again. Supergirl does not trust Enchantress with omnipotent power, and fights her to reverse this phenomenon. Supergirl figures out June's secret identity, but June uses magic to erase it from Supergirl's mind.
Forgotten Villains
Enchantress became involved with the Forgotten Villains, a group built to oppose the Forgotten Heroes. This team consisted of unpopular villains who had been forgotten by history and society. The other members were Atom-Master, Faceless Hunter, Kraklow, Mr. Poseidon, Ultivac, and Yggardis the Living Planet. She was also among the villain army during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Legends
Enchantress is recruited by Amanda Waller to work in the Suicide Squad under Task Force X. It is stated that she became a voluntary member for personal reasons. They are sent to destroy Brimstone at Mount Rushmore. Enchantress contains the nuclear explosion, then Bronze Tiger knocks her out when she tries to betray the team. Enchantress does not leave when other members of the team are released from prison. Waller sends the team to assassinate Captain Boomerang when he threatens to expose the Squad. Deadshot tries to shoot Boomerang, but Rick Flag instead has Enchantress disable the Warhounds guarding him.
Suicide Squad
June decides to stay with the Suicide Squad, because Amanda Waller promises to help her learn how to control her evil side. Her psychologist Simon LaGrieve diagnoses her with schizophrenia. Their next mission is destroying the terrorist group Jihad in Qurac, and Enchantress neutralizes their operative Djinn. When Belle Reve is attacked by the Female Furies, June is under heavy sedation. Enchantress uses her powers again when they discredit the racist vigilante William Hell. June confides in LaGrieve that containing the Enchantress takes all of her energy, and the Enchantress tells the team that she grows stronger every time they release her. Despite this, she is sent on an undercover mission to Moscow. Enchantress goes on a rampage that alerts the Russian army, and Deadshot is forced to shoot her non-lethally. Enchantress nearly kills Pravda when they battle the People's Heroes, and tries to kill Deadshot in revenge, but Captain Boomerang knocks her out. Bronze Tiger takes June to see Madame Xanadu. Xanadu explains that June is not trained to use magic, so magic use has eroded her aura that would normally deflect evil influences. The erosion of this aura twisted the Enchantress into a monster. Her aura will build up over time if she does not use magic. Xanadu gives her a necklace and ring that will control the Enchantress, but warns that this will make the Enchantress more dangerous if she ever escapes. Xanadu tells Bronze Tiger that June is a mystical ticking time bomb, and her personas might merge over time. June is sent on a secret mission to Colombia, where she unsuccessfully flirts with the team's pilot Briscoe. Enchantress is supposed to destroy the cocaine stockpile of Xavier Cujo, but she turns on her handler Nightshade. The two women fistfight without using powers, until Nightshade puts Enchantress in a chokehold and forces her to submit.
Day of Judgment
Her next major appearance was during the Day of Judgment. In this story her personality had changed, making her less a villain, but still a far cry from being a hero. During the course of the story, the Enchantress portion of June Moone was murdered by Faust to re-ignite the fires of Hell. This left June in a passive, but not quite catatonic state.
June next showed up, with Faust removing her from a sanitarium. This also introduced Anita Soulfeeda, a succubus working with a group of Mafia-styled demons to resurrect Hermes Trismegestus. In the final act, Anita is revealed to be the Enchantress portion of June’s soul. When they are reconnected, a new entity called Soulsinger is created. At the end of the story, the Soulsinger entity fades, leaving Enchantress behind, but once again cut off from her powers.
Shadowpact
Most recently, as part of the build-up to Infinite Crisis, she and other members of the Sentinels of Magic joined the Shadowpact to combat a Spectre gone mad in Day of Vengeance. The group forms out of a large gathering of mystics, who had hid in the other-dimensional Oblivion Bar. The Spectre had already killed hundreds of powerful mystics and was not stopping.
Enchantress helps the team by mystically tapping into the mind of Eclipso, who was goading the Spectre along. They gain much information from this tactic, though Enchantress has to stop in the middle and rest, not being able to keep up the tactic for long.
The team leaves the Oblivion Bar as it is an obvious target for the Spectre. They travel to the site of the deaths of the other mystics, there to form plans.
During this, she worries she might become overwhelmed by use of her powers and turn to the "dark side". She entrusts her ally Ragman with a mystical pistol designed to kill her. He turns down the gun but tells her that his suit can take care of her if she really turns evil. Ragman then misunderstands the situation and tries to kiss her, something she mocks him for later in front of their other allies.
Enchantress and the others were summoned again by the Phantom Stranger when the town of Riverrock, Wyoming was entrapped in a large bubble of blood. She appears with a new costume, willing to help save the innocent people inside, endangered by a team of supervillains called Pentacle. Their goal was to sacrifice many of the townspeople in a very specific way in order to bring back the entity they followed. Thirty seven people perish before Enchantress and her allies manage to defeat the villains. During the fights it is noted each villain strongly resembles one of the members of the Shadowpact.
Due to unexpected side effects of the magic spells needed to defeat the villains, the outside world believed that the Shadowpact had been dead for about a year. Enchantress and the rest had been honored with a team statue set inside a park in Metropolis.
The New 52
In this new world, Madame Xanadu had separated June from the Enchantress using a nursery rhyme. Without June, the Enchantress becomes mentally unstable, and her magic begins wreaking havoc across Earth. At the same time, the distraught and terrified June seeks Deadman for protection.
Xanadu, knowing that the Enchantress seeks to rejoin with June, organizes a team, composed of Zatanna, John Constantine, Shade the Changing Man and Mindwarp; to stop her. Meanwhile, June and Deadman try to escape from the Enchantress's rampage, but they are attacked one of the Enchantress's husks.
Dispatching the husk, June and Deadman escape to a motel. There, they find a portal created by Shade, and Deadman decides to cross it, hoping that Shade can help them. Unfortunately, only Deadman crosses the portal, and the Enchantress's creatures surround June.
Fortunately, Constantine is nearby, having created a magic circle that can protect both from the Enchantress's magic. Deducing the rhyme that Xanadu used to separate her from the Enchantress, Constantine begins to repeat it. The rhyme will merge her and the Enchantress into a single being, although June doesn't want the Enchantress. June and Deadman beg him to stop, but Constantine completes the rhyme, and the Enchantress and June are merged. Although the crisis ends, the Enchantress has no idea of what happened, so Xanadu sends her to place where she can heal.
Powers and Abilities(3)
The Enchantress is a powerful sorceress. She appears to possess the ability to manipulate magical energy for any number of effects, from healing to teleportation, and can directly affect any non-living objects with her magic. She can also walk through walls.
A unique aspect of her power is her sensitivity to magic. She was able to link to the essence of Eclipso in the Day of Vengeance storyline, using the connection to speak Eclipso's thoughts to the rest of the group, and has also mystically tracked the Spectre by divining his magical trail. She has also been seen to remotely access another magic-user's power, as she did when she channeled the power of almost all magical beings on Earth through her to Captain Marvel to aid him in his battle with the Spectre, and again with Strega of The Pentacle, though all of the magicians she came into contact with allowed her to tap into them.
After the Strange Adventures run, the evil Enchantress side manifested whenever June Moone changed. Later, her evil side manifested only when was under great magical stress which overloaded her, and she returned to normal once the overload subsided. This is no longer the case since the 'Soulsinger' identity separated the evil Enchantress entity without her powers before dissipating, leaving June Moone with the Enchantress power but not the evil personality.
She has possession of Nightwitch's 'Herne-Ramsgate Cauldron', which allows her to find almost every magical creature in the DC Universe.
In the New 52 the Enchantress displayed a wide variety of magical powers, but due to being seperated from June Moon, they appeared at random and manifested across the planet in differnt guises. Such as animating the Sphinx in Giza into attacking tourists, creating dozens of June Moon doubles wandering around on the freeway. Her defenses were formiddable, easily seeing off Superman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg with a storm of old human teeth and later beating Zatanna off with a host of zombies. When June was finally brought to the Enchantress' location, she manifested as a colossal monster made up of the bodies of hundreds of June Moon's.
Supporting Characters
Allies
Enemies
Movie(s)
Suicide Squad(2016)
This is the third movie in the DCEU. It was directed by David Ayer. The movie featured Cara Delevingne as Enchantress, Will Smith as Deadshot, Jared Leto as Joker, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and various other actors. The movie performed well both critically and financially.
You can check out the trailer below
Sources
1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchantress_%28DC_Comics%29#Publication_history
2.http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/June_Moone_%28New_Earth%29
3.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchantress_%28DC_Comics%29#Powers_and_abilities