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    Godiva

    Character » Godiva appears in 85 issues.

    Godiva is the premiere heroine from England. She is a stunningly beautiful woman who has meta-human hair capable of changing its shape to become wings so she can fly or become transparent to conceal herself.

    Short summary describing this character.

    Godiva last edited by abdullah5122 on 10/08/20 10:14AM View full history

    Origin

    Dora Leigh
    Dora Leigh

    The origin of Godiva's powers are unknown. Her hair-controlling powers have earned her the status of Great Britain's premier super-heroine. Her first recorded appearance was teaming with the Elongated Man to stop a bomb in London. She battled crime alongside the Global Guardians for many years.

    Creation

    Her first comic appearance was outside of the regular DC continuity in the comic book adaptation of the Superfriends television series. She remained here for some time until the Global Guardians were finally introduced to the main DC Continuity in DC Comics Presents #46. At the time the title was used as feature to team up Superman with various characters from the DC Universe, some of them famous, but in other cases either forgotten or obscure, which applied in this case to the Global Guardians. She is partially inspired by the legendary character from England, Lady Godiva. This legendary character according to her own legend had hair of an extraordinary length.

    Character Evolution

    Throughout her publication history Godiva has been a relatively obscure character who often showed up on panel for an international presence and nothing. Her most substantial character development has mostly been recently as a secondary character in Flashpoint and as a member of the new Justice League International. She is generally portrayed as a dedicated hero, though not one who feels comfortable dealing with global threats, instead choosing to focus her efforts on smaller crimes. With the Justice League International though she begins to understand her potential to do more.

    As a relatively minor character until recently, she had never been romantically involved with other heroes. This changed though however with her introduction in the more mainstream aspect of DC Comics. In Justice League International Annual (2012) she both breaks the underlying romantic tension with Booster Gold by kissing him before they part ways, and it is revealed that the Olympian and her had a relationship in the past, presumably while part of the Global Guardians.

    With the introduction of Justice League International, there was initially some confusion as to her identity. In the initial solicits for the cover of the first issue she was shown as a completely different and unidentified brown hair coloured heroine. It was only with the actual release of Justice League International #1 that the character was identified as Godiva and was shown on the cover as such.

    Major Story Arcs

    Aside from her early appearances as a member of the Global Guardians (which mostly are not in canon due to both their age, and the fact that many of them were linked to the Super Friends) throughout the majority of her publication history she has shown up as a secondary or background character. For instance, she teamed up with Wonder Woman to save Queen Bee from the clutches of another supervillain. Godiva also compared super-stretching abilities alongside the world famous Elongated Man. Apart from them, she worked with Jack O'Lantern against the Anti-Monitor's shadow demons in the Crisis of Infinite Earths defending Ireland. Godiva was the first hero to fight against the Toyman (W. Percival Schott), but barely escaped from that encounter with her life before he moved to Metropolis and matched wits with Superman.

    The Global Guardians characters saw a brief resurgence in the 1980s (including Godiva.) After the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, many comic book creators took advantage of the relatively clean slate in the DC Continuity to introduce changes to the overall medium which made the main characters much grittier. When it came to the Justice League though the opposite approach was taken by its creators Giffen and DeMatteis, with comedy often taking the place of action. One of the developments during this era was the launch of Justice League Europe and the first Justice League International. As the team expanded into an international role, the previous international team, the Global Guardians, was seen to be hostile to the new team and clashed with them periodically. It was eventually revealed that the Global Guardians had been brainwashed by the Queen Bee and they were freed of that control and returned to their heroic roles.

    She was seen in London during Flashpoint as a member of the Resistance against Wonder Woman and the Amazon rule. She has teamed up with many others, among them Lois Lane and Etrigan. This is part of the Flashpoint story arc which is part of DC continuity.

    Since the relaunch into the new 52 she has been chosen as a member of Justice League International. The team is first engaged in the Signal Masters story arc to stop the threat of the alien Peraxxus. As one of the weaker members of the team Godiva is not certain why she has been chosen for membership nor even what she can do for the team as she is not a prominent superhero. However, at one point the entire safety of the team is based on her actions as she controls her hair sufficiently enough for her to escape (this pays homage to the original Justice League of America story from the 1960s.) As a member of the team she continues to grow her role and eventually defuses an unexpected bomb outside of United Nations Headquarters. She is later partially injured in an explosion honoring and introducing the team to the public, though she is relatively uninjured compared to the rest of the team. As Booster goes to investigate what happened by himself she remains behind to care for the others. This causes the original team to break up somewhat, and even though they are soon bolstered by the arrival of others, the team breaks up for good soon after.

    Powers and Abilities

    Godiva can lengthen her long hair and cause it to take any shape as well as harden. She has been seen to do such things as change her hair to wings and fly, and harden her hair into a battering ram. She can also make her hair transparent.

    Other Media

    Godiva appears in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox as part of the resistance in London.

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