Giganta has gone from being a nobody to being one of Wonder Woman’s most renowned antagonists, but he is a figure that is underrepresented in comic books. Despite the fact that this adversary has only a few adventures, the intensity of her battles with Wonder Woman astounds viewers. Her unusual shapeshifting ability gives birth to the most untamed beast when combined with the intellect of a scientist.
Giganta, as a villain, makes it a point to use each opportunity she can to kidnap Wonder Woman. Even on the great warrior of Paradise Island, she has been successful in landing some tremendous punches, which may come as a surprise. In this video, we’ll learn everything there is to know about this underappreciated villain and why DC should consider placing her against the Amazon princess more frequently. So, without further ado, let’s get started with the video.
The first comic book appearance explored
Giganta made her first comic book appearance in Wonder Woman Volume 1, Issue #9, which was published in 1944. She was created by Wonder Woman’s creator William Moulton Marston. The story begins with Steve taking her niece Dotsie to the zoo. When they visit a rather savage female gorilla, Dotsie accidentally gets too close, and the gorilla snatches her inside her cage. And as though coming back to her animal instincts, the gorilla breaks out of her cage with Dotsie in her arms and makes a run for the forest.
Luckily, Diana saw this mishap taking place and changed into her Wonder Woman clothes in order to chase after the gorilla. In the meantime, at Holliday College, Professor Zool is taking biology classes. He claims that he has successfully discovered the secret of speeding up the process of turning apes into men. And as he finishes his lecture by saying, “Behind man appears the ape,” the escaped gorilla called Giganta actually appears behind him.
With Dotsie in her arms yelling for help, Etta Candy, the leader of the Beta Lambda sorority at Holliday College, makes her girls attack the gorilla. Their struggles are soon fruitful when Wonder Woman arrives and battles the gorilla to save Dotsie and the rest of the students. Through her strength, she is able to capture the gorilla, and they tie her up. Now that Dotsie is safe, Steve orders the zoo keepers to kill the gorilla.
But killing her is out of the question because Giganta is the biggest gorilla in their captivity and is worth a total of fifty thousand dollars. So, Professor Zool suggests subjecting her to his electronic revolutionize, which is supposed to turn her from an ape into a human being. Giganta is placed under a bell-shaped glass in Professor Zool’s laboratory. The glass is then supercharged with electronic current, and under the impact of hyperatomic energy, the gorilla’s body drastically changes, and the evolutionary transformation ends up being a success.
A beautiful girl appears before us instead of Giganta, the gorilla. However, the instincts of a gorilla are still present in this human form since she utters ape language and springs at Wonder Woman’s throat out of the blue. In a state of frenzy between the human gorilla and wonder woman, chaos takes over Professor Zool’s laboratory, and the electronic evolutionizer starts emitting strange violet flames.
Professor Zool then realizes that his evolutionizer has reversed, and it will devolve everyone present in the room into apes. So since Wonder Woman is less affected than the rest of them because of her amazon resistance, she throws the machine out of the window, but the people inside the room have already turned into cave people. Another major disaster that no one was able to comprehend was that the result of this machine was about to destroy the lives of countless people.
Apparently, when Wonder Woman threw the devolutionized machine out the window, it hyperatomized the air for miles, and nature went back 60 million years to prehistoric times. It devolved all the animals into their prehistoric ancestral forms. Even the crocodile devolved into a tyrannosaurus rex. So, along with Wonder Woman, the people ran toward the cliff for safety.
There they found Giganta, hidden inside a cave that ended up protecting her from the violet flames of devolution. Now finally being able to communicate with each other in the same cave language, Wonder Woman tries to convince Giganta to join their tribe. But she refused and went looking for the tree people who were being ruled by a chief man. Giganta is soon captured by the tree men and taken to the tree house of Aga, the chief man of the tribe.
She convinces them that she stands against the cave people and helps the three men capture them one by one. She also manages to get Wonder Woman captured by involving her in some small talk. But when Wonder Woman freed herself, she saw that all her friends had been taken captive, so she surrendered. The three men then decided to offer the cave people as a sacrifice to the gods of the forest.
This god is apparently a huge tyrannosaurus. Right before Steve is about to be devoured by the tyrannosaurus, Wonder Woman breaks free from her bonds, rescues Steve, and manages to get the tyrannosaurus under her control through her magic lasso. She used the 50-foot tyrannosaurus to free all the cave people and went in search of Professor Zool’s machine.
Later on in the story, while looking for the machine, Wonder Woman is once again attacked by Giganta, who tries to send her to her death by making her fight a sabertoothed tiger. But Giganta’s plans take a turn for the worse when Wonder woman gains victory over the tiger. Then she successfully ties Giganta with her lasso of truth, and now she is bound to obey every order given by Wonder Woman.
They find the machine and power it up by using electricity produced by a kite and a thunderstorm, just like in the old days. This results in millions of years of evolution passing by until the electricity gets cut off and the machine stops working. Now they are stuck in the golden age of love. They meet Queen Darla and King Aros, who don’t exactly rule a kingdom since this age knows no evil.
Eventually, the queen ends up freeing Giganta from Wonder Woman’s ropes, and Giganta starts her malicious planning once again, only this time with a much more evolved human mind. She creates chaos by making people protest against their king and queen. This ends in Wonder woman being again captured by Giganta’s unexpected plans. But it does not last too long as Wonder Woman is too smart to be outplayed by Giganta. And now that the power is in Wonder Woman’s hands again, Giganta is left at her mercy.
One day while Giganta is left alone with Professor Zool’s machine, still tied to the lasso, she tries to examine it in hopes of finding a way to make it time travel yet again. Fortunately, when a part of the lasso touches the machine, a spark ignites, and then she uses the lasso to turn on the evolutionizer machine. Now they have all time traveled into the land of the Amazons. Giganta still keeps on creating trouble for Wonder Woman, but towards the end of the issue, Wonder Woman is able to save the day by taking Giganta captive and turning back time to the 20th Century A.D. with the help of her lasso.
Some interesting origin stories about Giganta
In the Post Crisis origin story of Giganta, she did not become Wonder Woman’s nemesis by evolving from an ape into a human being. In fact, she was a human being, to begin with. Her name was Doctor Doris Zuel, and she was an employee at a medical facility where Wonder Woman had been kept since she was in a coma. However, her evil mind was already at work. Since she had an incurable illness, she decided to transfer her mind into Wonder Woman’s body. However, she was stopped by Wonder Girl and was declared dead.
But to everyone’s surprise, Dr. Zuel’s assistant discovered her soul in the buffer module of the transference machine. Now this is when a gorilla enters her story. In an attempt to save Dr Zuel, her assistant transferred her soul into the body of a gorilla named Giganta. Obviously, the doctor was not too happy with this change. So, she decided to steal the body of a strong red-haired woman from a traveling circus named Olga. She was also in a coma at the same medical facility.
Dr. Zuel then performed a swap by putting her soul in Olga’s body and Olga’s soul in that of the gorilla. After this transformation, Dr. Zuel realized something quite unique about Olga’s body. Apparently, it now allows her to change the size of the body and grow into a massive structure. Olga had acquired this ability long before Dr. Zuel took over her body. Now seeing this as an added bonus, Dr Zuel decided to obtain a completely new identity and started calling herself Giganta. Later, she became a member of the Secret Society of Super-Villains, a group of supervillains who went on to battle the Justice League.
In the New 52 version, she was again introduced with a new origin story. Although slightly similar to the previous version, this Doris Zuel has been suffering from a blood disease since childhood. It invoked significant trauma in her childhood days as she would constantly get bullied. But this is not her “villain origin story.” In fact, she grew up to become a doctor and helped countless people.
However, since her death was fast approaching, she managed to create a cure for her disease. This vaccine was not tested, but she chose to take it anyhow. It resulted in her condition being cured, but it also gave her the power to grow to gigantic size, and the side effects turned her into a person with a really terrible temper.
Giganta’s multiple appearances in animated series
Giganta’s character was introduced to us in a variety of animated shows, starting with Challenge of the Super Friends. This version of her is a member of the Legion of Doom who has had the power to change her size into a 50-foot-tall giantess since the beginning of the show. She exhibits superhuman strength in her massive size. Later in the series, it is also discovered that Giganta was originally a regular lady who stole the growth powder that gave the Apache Chief his abilities. She is voiced by Ruth Forman.
Next, we see her in the DC Animated Universe, where she is voiced by Jennifer Hale. Like the one in the comics, this version was initially an ape who was converted into a metahuman female. But despite her more savage portrayal in the comics, this Giganta acts comparatively in a more feminine manner. Although obviously, she is still hungry for battle and does an excellent job at that.
We also see Giganta in Justice League Unlimited. In the episode titled “To Another Shore,” Giganta is seen acting as backup for a fight when the Secret Society of Super-Villains is trying to take the dead body of the Viking Prince. But when Martian Manhunter makes an attempt to read her mind, she ends up in a coma. This happened because when Manhunter was probing through her mind, it activated a mind implant that Grodd had put in all the Society members to avoid important information from reaching the hands of the League.
Giganta also made appearances in a lot of animated films such as Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Lego DC Comics Super Heroes, and even Wonder Woman: Bloodlines. All the different versions of her character definitely point out her willingness to battle and get revenge.
What makes this towering lady such a powerhouse?
The first and most prominent power she has is that of being able to grow from average human size to an abnormally high height of several hundred. At one point, her height has also been recorded to be around more than 6’6, and she was able to achieve it within a matter of seconds. Her strength and toughness also develop into that of a superhuman level as she grows in size and surpasses that of a normal human being. In fact, in several instances, she has been almost able to crush Wonder Woman.
When she had just gained the ability to grow in size, Dr. Zuel would often lose her intelligence in the process, which turned her into a more brutal and vicious villain. However, after frequent use, she learned how to overcome that restriction and was able to maintain her proper intellect regardless of her size. Giganta’s ability to grow probably indicates a power acquired through magic because, scientifically, it seems impossible.
Her clothes also serve as an additional power source since they grow along with her when she changes size and acts as armor.
Giganta indeed serves as a powerhouse of rage and unparalleled strength in order to be called a fitting villain for Wonder Woman. Whether in her comic book origins or the later versions, Giganta has remained a loyal villain who would go above and beyond to support her team of other super villains. After all, she will look for any chance to go up against Wonder Woman, even if the Amazonian princess defeats her every single time.
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