Aphrodite IX is a beautiful gynoid killer whose memory is erased after each kill to keep her and her masters safe. She ultimately overcame her programming and began protesting against those who used her.
She is the newest synthetic humanoid in the Aphrodite series. Her memory is usually erased once she is assigned on killing missions. Aphrodite IX is a science fiction comic book series published by Image Comics and created by Top Cow in the United States.
It was created by writer David Wohl and artist David Finch and is set in the Image Universe. The first episode of the series was published in 1996. A sequel was released in 2013.
Kelly green hair and cosmetics, including a big beauty spot on one of her cheeks, form-fitting garments surrounded by ammo belts, and high, fitted lug-soled boots are all trademarks of the character. On her belt, she normally carries a large knife and one or more hefty handguns.
Aphrodite IX Origin
The Aphrodite Comics number 0 to 4 published in 2000 detail Aphrodite’s origin story, the story of her creation, and everything that went down during the time. Aphrodite IX comic issue #0 also provides us a sneak peek of some of David Finch’s rough sketches of Aphrodite and the inhabitants of the planet she resides on.
On November 30, 1999, issue 0 was released alongside an installment of Wizard magazine. Originally solicited as a monthly publication by Top Cow, just six issues, and one trade edition, have been published to date. Issues 1 and 2 were released during the 2000 publishing year. Finch was replaced by artist Clarence Lansang before issue number 3 was published in early 2001, and the comic features art by both artists; however, only two more issues were published during Lansang’s tenancy, number 1/2, a place-holder comic recapping earlier story events and comprising ten pages of “pin-ups” by different artists, and number 4, which continued but did not finish the story.
Issue number 0 shows us Aphrodite IX’s creation, as an unnamed voice talks to her about the universe and its mysteries. The voice declares that Aphrodite IX doesn’t need to know the truth, and in fact, it will probably be better if she doesn’t, as it would frighten her more than anything in her reality and prevent her from carrying out her creator’s plans for her.
It is difficult for Aphrodite IX to have free will, because she is constantly monitored, and programmed to obey commands, and all her actions were anticipated and calculated even before she was even born. She was made to be the perfect weapon; intelligent, powerful, and resourceful, with the power to topple empires with her brains and beauty. The voice declares that one day she will be told of her journeys and conquests, but until then, they shall lie beneath her consciousness, as it is safer that way for everyone involved.
The first comic issue of Aphrodite IX starts off with yet another unnamed voice talking about the beautiful main protagonist. The voice says that she is not just the future of technology, but the future of all of humankind. Aphrodite IX will be immortally young and beautiful, unlike humans who age and die eventually.
Aphrodite seems to be under the impression that she is in a dream, but her eyes suddenly flutter open, and she realizes that she was in fact, not dreaming. She falls to the ground roughly but is surprised that she is still alive. Then, much to her shock, she easily and swiftly overpowers a group of men attempting to arrest her, as the voice in the background encourages her to show the people what she is capable of.
As soon as she completes her mission, a mysterious aircraft takes her away and she regains consciousness once again as she is showering. She internally hopes that she is dreaming because if not, she believes the way she is living isn’t the best way to live. She is unsure about everything, even her surroundings until the man who took her away in the aircraft appears. He plays her a recording of her own voice, and her voice answers a lot of the questions she previously had. The man is revealed to be Burch.
He is apparently the only friend she has and the only person she can actually trust. Much to her shock, her voice also reveals that she is not human, but is instead a synthetic creation. The upside to this is that she’s strong and powerful and hence is paid to kick ass, but the downside is that almost everything she knows is forgotten 15 minutes after her mission is completed. Her next mission is to kill a councilman named Grazno Floyd, a name she is familiar with.
She attends a party in order to meet him and complete the mission, where she convinces him to take her on a ride on his official escape vehicle. She kills him in the vehicle in a split second, and her entire demeanor changes from playful and flirty to calculated and swift. The completion of the mission is the simple part for her, but what lies beyond is the true challenge.
In Issue 2 of the same series, Aphrodite finds herself in Neville Stewart’s bed, who she had met earlier at the party moments before assassinating the councilman, and he claims to have found her naked and unconscious next to a bike. He somehow knows her name even though she never told it him, and she is ordered to end his life, even though she finds it difficult to do so. Aphrodite again suffers nightmares of her past-a young girl with her creator who she calls “daddy”. Shortly after, she is sent on her first real mission, where she shows no signs of nervousness.
Her target is a gang of terrorists that have taken a deputy minister and her family hostage. The terrorists attempt to negotiate with her, but she kills all of them without much effort. In a surprising turn of events, we realize that the mission wasn’t to actually rescue the deputy minister, but instead to kill her and her entire family before the elections and make it look like a terrorist attack.
After her mission is complete, our heroine once again finds herself in her bed, and wakes up and goes out to look for answers. A taxi driver drops her off at a familiar location. Burch appears there when Aphrodite walks inside and he tells her this is their emergency rendezvous point, even though she doesn’t recognize who he is, and he asks her to meet him at her apartment, but their conversation is short-lived as they are ambushed from all sides by security forces trying to arrest Aphrodite, and Burch mysteriously disappears.
Aphrodite pleads with them to stop, but when they refuse to listen, she defeats all of them with great difficulty, as an unnamed voice in the background tells everyone that the future has already begun. As soon as she overpowers the army, a large figure approaches her and tells her to drop her weapons. Now, she faces her greatest foe, Abraxis.
Later, a man named Boz attempts to interrogate Aphrodite, and he lists off the names of the people she has killed, but Aphrodite has no recollection of any of them. She is saved just in time by Neville Stuart, and she has no memory of her origins. Neville does not seem to know either, but he is fascinated by her and pulls some strings to get her out of the sticky situation.
Both of them go to the Singletary tower, where Aphrodite hopes she to remember something. As soon as she steps inside, Aphrodite is suddenly flooded with memories of her murders, and she is shocked that she actually killed so many people in cold blood. Neville senses that someone is there, and Abraxis appears yet again, stating that Neville is to be arrested for helping a fugitive escape, only to quickly be defeated by Aphrodite.
She wants to trust Neville, but cannot do that yet, so she puts him to sleep because she does not want to be followed. She cannot go back home because the cops know where she lives. Yet, she resolves to go home and find out more about her missing memories. She asks Burch for information, and Burch tells her he doesn’t know who hired her and he has no knowledge about her true origins since he stole her from a lab where he used to get his prosthetics. He claims to have Aphrodite’s best interests at heart, but she does not believe him and asks him to take her to the lab.
On the way to the lab, Aphrodite has yet another flashback about Daddy, and we see that she was taken away from him by a mysterious woman who he calls “Madame Chairman.” When they reach the lab, they realize they have been followed. Burch tries to kill Aphrodite, as he believes she is no match against the chairman’s security forces, but Aphrodite manages to escape.
She starts to explore the lab, and finds many creatures like her, with horrifying faces and deformed bodies. Much to her horror, she also finds another woman who looks exactly like her, but she is unfortunately captured by the security forces before she can look any further. She then meets the chairman, who explains that the man she calls daddy was a doctor and her creator, that she was the one who told him to create Aphrodite, and that she was the one who used to order Burch to send Aphrodite on all the missions she went on.
She then sends Aphrodite on her next mission, to kill Neville Stuart. When Aphrodite attempts to kill Neville, he tells her he has always been on her side and pleads with her to remember everything from her past. She remembers that she was the one who killed her daddy, and the mysterious voice that she has been hearing all along was actually the chairman’s voice. Aphrodite is furious that Neville never told her, but she decides not to kill him and goes after the chairman instead.
The chairman pleads with Aphrodite to kill her, and she says that Aphrodite has no idea of the events she will set in motion if she doesn’t. But Aphrodite believes she has too much blood on her hand and refuses to kill her and promptly leaves. This signals the beginning of her story.
The architecture of Aphrodite’s brain causes continuous uncertainty about what she’s doing and for whom, which is worsened by successive spells of amnesia. While she grows aware of the fact that she is designed to be a killing machine capable of destroying a single high-security target or murdering a squad of armored government soldiers on her own, she finds the notion more and more repugnant and begins to have human-like dreams and wants.
This starts to erode her spirit but not her performance, as her training takes over when her masters or life conditions demand. When she searches for answers about her background and actual identity, she learns of a plot involving a hidden society of cyborgs aiming to subvert the official government.
Although she is tough as hell when the circumstance demands it, her disposition in private appears to be that of a childlike woman. She is locked in the physique of sex symbol bombshell, hoverer she’s actually like a lost wide-eyed teenager trying to find her way through the world.
Relaunch of Aphrodite IX
The plot of the new series featuring Aphrodite IX has a completely different storyline and is a few years into the future from the last book of the previous series. The Earth’s entire atmosphere has been severely damaged in the future, altering the planet’s appearance and splitting the human population into two warring groups: the Gen, who are genetically changed humans, and the Cyborgs, who are cybernetically improved, humans. Marcus, a genetically engineered human, unintentionally encounters Aphrodite IX inside a hibernation pod during an assault on a Cyber base when he is shot down, breaking the stasis pod and allowing Aphrodite to awaken. Aphrodite’s memory has been erased once more, and she has no memory of her past.
To Marcus’ amazement, three Cybers attack them, and Aphrodite IX quickly disarms and kills all of them. Marcus brings Aphrodite to the Gen stronghold’s protection. Meanwhile, the Cybernetics discover another guy in yet another hibernation pod where Aphrodite had been hidden and utilize their knowledge to improve and reawaken him. The man shows himself to be Aphrodite IX’s supervisor, Robert Burch. He has access to her neural link and can transfer information about people for her to murder, and he can be seen entering her mind and asking her to kill the Cybernetics chief.
Due to Burch’s influence, Aphrodite murders Marcus’s father without Marcus’s knowledge. They invade one of the Cybers’ bases in order to rescue the corpse of Marcus’s dragon-like beast, which he did not want to be examined by the Cybers, and capture a high-ranking Cybers officer in the process. Burch then re-enters Aphrodite’s mind, leading her to flirt with Marcus, much to the displeasure of his fiancée Lina. Burch then instructs her to murder Marcus’ mother and release the captured Cyber, which she does, causing Marcus and his followers to assume the freed prisoner murdered her. Aphrodite IX then awakens with a bloodied knife in her hand and no memory of what transpired.
Aphrodite cleans herself up after the killing and shows how to quickly kill somebody with a knife. She wonders how she knew this and why she continues to blackout. She also muses about the voice in her brain that always blocking out her own views and admits that her interest in Marcus is more obligation than anything else. Marcus storms into the room and informs everyone that his mother has been assassinated.
Aphrodite wonders whether she can assist, and he informs her that he is forming a hunting crew to find Helen. Aphrodite and Marcus set off on wyverns in order to find Helen. They track her down and confront her in battle, which ends with Aphrodite killing her.
Burch then commands Aphrodite to murder Lina. She stumbles upon her at the Genesis Temple of Light. Lina is talented enough to just hold her own against Aphrodite, but the fight finishes with Aphrodite impaling her on a big spike before moving away. Lina is discovered to have been murdered by Aphrodite. She stays in stealth mode as she follows Marcus through the shadows. She eventually reveals herself to him and admits to killing his parents and Lina, but attempts to explain that it was not her decision.
Marcus attacks her in fury, only to be stopped by one of the dragons presents, who are famed for their empathic senses. Burch sends Aphrodite into war mode once more, this time defeating several of the security guards before putting Marcus in a prone position to execute him. Aphrodite opposes the orders and staunchly refuses to harm Marcus. She subsequently stabs herself in her own face before collapsing. Meanwhile, the warships of Speros are clearly seen above her, poised to strike Genesis City.
After breaking free from Burch’s captivity, she assists in the defense of Genesis and performs a crucial maneuver that leads to the annihilation of the Speros’ armies. Following the battle, much of Genesis cries for Aphrodite’s murder, including Lina’s father. Marcus, on the other hand, releases her and informs his troops that she has fled. Following her liberation from Burch’s control, she observes that her perception has shifted and that she no longer has affection for Marcus. Aphrodite IX, escorted by her Dragon, flees Genesis and enters the wild.
Unbeknownst to her as well as Marcus, Lina’s father has sent hunters after her. When Aphrodite awakens, she is ambushed by a swarm of robots, followed by a swarm of “desert ninjas,” whom she swiftly eliminates. It is later revealed that all these attacks were staged by an Aphrodite XV prototype to prove she was a true IX. When XV and IX are satisfied that she is who she claims to be, they form a team and transport her to a subterranean facility, where they discover hundreds of other Aphrodites inside stasis pods.
Aside from a little coin-shaped item implanted in IX’s skull, nothing strange is found in her body after various tests have been run. The tests also indicate that IX’s synaptic receivers are healing, much to Aphrodite IX’s dismay, as this means Burch will be able to regain control, but Aphrodite XV decides to assist in killing him because her protocol does not prevent her from injuring him. The two seek to infiltrate Speros through the catacombs but end up stumbling into a stasis pod carrying an Artemis IX. Upon fending off the defenses which for some reason see Aphrodite IX as a danger, the two continue their journey to Speros, unaware of the fact that Artemis has been awakened.
Instead of being discreet, the two decide that going in guns blazing is the best way to uncover Executer Jezebel, the new Executioner who succeeded the former after being condemned for failing to destroy Genesis. Aphrodite XV, dressed as IX, enters Speros with exposed weapons, prompting the troops to engage and finally defeat her. She is taken before the Executor as planned and she identifies herself as being XV before murdering the guards, while Aphrodite IX exposes herself as being one of the Executers’ men. XV murders Jezebel and then disguises herself in her clothes, and the two continue to pursue Burch.
What makes her so powerful?
Aphrodite is an interesting and rare combination of beauty and strength and is definitely not a character to be taken lightly. Aphrodite is superhumanly strong and can survive a free-fall from a building without injury. She is said to be capable of withstanding explosive pressures of up to 1.25 megatonnes. She is also superhumanly powerful, and based on prior models’ skills, she should be adept at performing feats of physical prowess and lifting up to 10 tonnes. She can take a Gen’s arm off with ease, destroy rag-doll robots using her bare hands, rip cockpits off flying spacecraft, shred titanium tentacles in half, and much more. Aphrodite IX has shown superhuman speed and athleticism on several occasions. She has been seen to do great gymnastic feats to evade gunshots and travel from building to building.
Aphrodite possesses a healing ability that enables her to regenerate fast from otherwise deadly traumas. She’s seen to heal gunshot wounds, take RPG rockets head-on, and also heal from explosives fired at close range in seconds. Her cybernetic portions, like her bio-matter, can recover. Aphrodite has demonstrated the ability to change her physical appearance. Her hair color and minor facial traits can be changed, but the green spot on her face remains constant. She has also proven the capacity to release synthetic pheromones that induce anyone exposed to them tobe drawn to her to the point of not attacking. She is a skilled shot who has been observed shooting foes in the head with little response time.
She is also a skilled hand-to-hand combatant with a solid understanding of martial arts. It has been reported that she is trained in all of the known earthly combat arts and weaponry. Following Aphrodite IX: Hidden Files, the object in her skull has been revealed to be the Coin Of Solomon, which is one of the 13 Artifacts. Unlike Aphrodite IV, the said coin does not appear to be armed, however, it did assist Aphrodite in discovering the Witchblade.
As a synthetic human, Aphrodite has a futuristic computer within her body that allows her to analyze her opponents and tell her what they actually are, what they can do, their weak areas, and other important information, as well as anticipatory combat analysis technology that lets her foresee a foe’s actions in combat. It can also adjust and translate languages in seconds, as well as scan tech and tell her what it is or how to utilize it. Her internal systems are also capable of adapting to a variety of settings and energy threats.
Aphrodite IX’s technologies also equip her with long-range sensors, which let her follow enemies that are out of sight and at least 15 minutes removed from her present location. She also has built-in stealth technology that works in tandem with her sensors, allowing her to avoid genetically engineered trackers and even shut off her own smell.
The extent of her power is unknown, and it is conceivable that this is just another feature of her stealth technology, but IX has demonstrated the capacity to render herself invisible to portable and city-level scanning technology. Aphrodite, like the remainder of the IX generation, is digitally conscious. When their present body is destroyed, they are transferred into a new body, as long as the facilities containing their forms and the replacement bodies are not destroyed.
Conclusion
Aphrodite is a rare comic character. She is beautiful and strong, but also empathetic and kind-hearted when she remembers all the murders she has caused and all the lives lost because of her. She is much more than her looks and her body, she saves Neville’s life even though she knows nothing about him at the time, and even spares the chairman, choosing instead to deal with the consequences of her actions.
She is also very humble and innocent and has a wide-eyed, childlike demeanor that has captured the hearts of people all over the globe. Mad House, the very animation studio behind Witchblade, had planned to turn Aphrodite IX into an anime series, but nothing has come out of it so far other than a promotional video. It will be interesting to see an animated Aphrodite IX as her character and storyline have a lot of potential that will definitelytranslate well on screen.