Doctor Doris Zuel is a brilliant doctor, medical researcher and engineer from Gateway City who, in a bid to cheat her own death, created a machine that enabled her to transfer her mind into the body of a comatose woman.
Discovering her new body had increased strength, endurance and the ability to increase its size to become a multi-story giantess, Zuel decided to use her newfound abilities for money and hired herself out as the muscle-for-hire mercenary Giganta.
Background[]
Dr. Doris Zuel physician and researcher based in Gateway City Memorial Hospital. While a brilliant mind, Zuel suffered from an incurable blood disease for which science did not even have a name for and was expected to be dead within 5 years. Unwilling to have her contribution to medical science be to have her name given to the disease that killed her, after exhausting all avenues from conventional research for a cure, Zuel researched body-to-body consciousness transferral with her assistant, Bronson.
Her desperate attempts, using rats, apes and monkeys as test subjects, resulted in a working prototype, but by that point she was in great pain and days away from dying.
After a disasterous encounter with the demon Neron, a comatose Wonder Woman (Diana) was brought to the hospital where Zuel worked and, seeing an opertunity to transfer her consciousness into "the most perfect female body on Earth" and having only minutes left to live, Zuel quickly wheeled the comatose amazon into her laboratory while the rest of the world was distracted by the affects surrounding the Genesis incident and launched the procedure. However, Diana's body died during the procedure and Zuel's consciousness became trapped within the consciousness transferral machine as the procedure was also halted due to the intervention of Hippolyta and Cassandra Sandsmark. Without a consciousness within it, Zuel's body also died.
While the lab was sealed off as a crime scene by police, Bronson realised that Zuel’s consciousness was trapped within the machine and she transferred Zuel’s consciousness into the largest animal she could find in the lab, a gorilla named "Giganta".
Furious and distraught over being in the body of an ape, as she attempted to escape the hospital while in the body of a gorilla, Zuel tried to distract the police by throwing Bronson off the roof, however, the distraught assistant was saved by Wonder Girl. While fighting the young hero with her gorilla strength, Zuel noted the girl's enhanced strength and stamina and mused that if she could not have Wonder Woman's body, then perhaps the body of the young girl would suffice as a substitute. Shot by Gateway Police Officer Michael Schorr, Zuel had to flee before she could abduct Wonder Girl.
Desperate to return her mind to a human body, Zuel came across the Balthazar Circus; a traveling circus that had had several members of its troupe cursed by an unnamed shaman. Taking advantage of this, Zuel abducted the troupe's 'strong woman' (named Olga) who had been rendered comatose by the curse and succeeded in transferring her mind into the woman's body as the woman's mind was transferred into her ape body. As the ape ran away, Zuel examined and appreciated her new healthy body, which stood taller and stronger then her original disease-racked body. As she admired her newfound body's strength and muscled physic, Zuel soon discovered that she could increase her body's size at will and become a multi-story high giant; with her strength and stamina also increasing as her size increased, although she also lost intellect the larger she grew. Taking the time to master her new-found abilities, Zuel decided to take advantage of her powers and strength and began hiring herself out as a super powered mercenary. Naming herself "Giganta", Zuel made her "debut" during Circe's all-female villain attack on New York City and the male hero populace. As Circe's forces were opposed by Wonder Woman and the planet's female heroes, Zuel found herself once again fighting Wonder Girl but was easily defeated by the heroine and Empress (Anita Fite) due to her lack of experience with fighting at giant size.
Giganta was later recruited by the Atlantean Queen Clea of Venturia to form a modern rendition of Villainy, Inc. to aid her in conquoring Atlantis, which had disappeared during the Imperiex War. While attempt to use transdimensional transportation to find it, the team accidentally teleported to Skartaris instead. Undeterred, Clea set out to conquer this lost land with Zuel acting as her main enforcer. While the team stormed the land's capital city, Wonder Woman arrived and led a rebellion against them which saw to their defeat. After the Sorceress Supreme of Skartaris cast a spell on the members of Villainy, Inc. to make them unconscious and small enough for transport, Wonder Woman eventually returned to Earth and jailed the villainesses on Themyscira.
Managing to escape the island, Zuel continued her mercenary work; joining the horde of villains who attempted to cash in on President Luthor's bounty on Superman. Some time later she fought Wonder Woman in New York after hearing that she was now blind after fighting Medusa. While initially gaining the upper hand, the Flash (Wally West) intervened and Zuel became ensnared in Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth and was defeated.
Giganta was an early joiner of Alexander Luthor Jnr's Secret Society of Super Villains, participating in many of their operations. As part of the Society, she takes part in the "Battle of Metropolis", a final confrontation between multiple heroes and villains during the final moments of the Infinite Crisis incident. During the battle, Zuel faced Elasti-Girl, the size-changing member of the Doom Patrol. The Society ultimately loses this battle.
One year after the crisis, Zuel had managed to gain employment as a professor at Ivy University in Ivy Town. However, when Circe engineered a massive attack to lure Wonder Woman out of temporary retirement, Circe offered Zuel enhanced powers that enabled her to retain her intellect no matter how large she grew. Agreeing to having her power enhanced, Zuel attacked Donna Troy (who was currently operating as Wonder Woman) on Circe's instruction alongside Cheetah and Doctor Psycho. With Steve Trevor captured, Donna Troy defeated and Wonder Girl attacked, Zuel began rampaging through New York City's Times Square whilst wearing Troy as a pendant to lure out Diana. While the demigod Hercules arrived and defeated her, Zuel was teleported away by Circe before the NYPD could even consider how to arrest the giantess and reappeared alongside other combatants to fight Diana on Aeaea. While gaining the upper hand with their sheer numbers, Zuel and the other villains were all defeated thanks to the timely arrival of Diana's allies in the hero community.
On top of her mercenary work, Zuel continued to work as an academic professor at Ivy University and became involved in a war between science/order and magic/chaos within Ivy Town and became infected by the cancer god, M‘Nagalah. While thus possessed she enthusiastically dated the new Atom (Ryan Choi), the new arrived professor of nuclear physics.
Influenced by the god, Zuel trapped Choi in a perfectly sealed capsule and swallowed him. However, diminutive aliens attacked Zuel and managed to reclaim Choi. The god forced Zuel to return to the fray and fight enemy giants, but Choi put an end to the war.
Now freed from the possession of the Cancer God, Zuel found that she actually enjoyed being with Choi and the pair chose to continue dating.
Pursuing both her career in education, her job as a mercenary and her growing relationship with a prodigious new hero, Zuel continues to rise to the challenges she faces, both figuratively and literally.
Combat Statistics[]
- Giganta (New Troy Central Station)
- Giganta (Kahndaq)
- Giganta (Knightsdome Arena)
- Giganta (Brothers in Arms)
- Source-Empowered Giganta
Involvement[]
- Giganta is one of the hallucinations the Bludhaven Avenger summons during his second battle in the Bludhaven Alert.
- Giganta is one of several magic-based beings whom Felix Faust has captured in his plan to resurrect Black Adam's wife, Isis in the Kahndaq raid.
- Giganta is one of the iconic villains who fight the Anti-Monitor and his minions in the Attack of the Anti-Monitor anniversary event.
- Giganta is one of the holographic projections during the Titans Training Sim.
- Source-Empowered Giganta is one of the bounties in Doomed Washington, D.C..
Heroes[]
- Wonder Girl is captured by Giganta and Circe for a ritual of mind transference to permit Giganta an Amazonian body. She absorbs Wonder Girl's power, then attacks the player. After a bit, Wonder Girl will revive, and attack Giganta with you. Since Giganta focuses her attacks on Wonder Girl mostly, it is an easy fight.
- Giganta may appear in the Knightsdome Arena to confront Jesse but instead is seduced by his power and defends him from the New Heroes attempting to stop his Envy ritual.
- Giganta is one of the random iconic encounters for heroes in Alternate Metropolis during the Brothers in Arms operation.
Villains[]
- Wonder Girl is captured by Giganta and Circe for a ritual of mind transference to permit Giganta an Amazonian body. Giganta becomes greedy and tampers with the ritual, transferring her powers to Wonder Girl rather than the other way around. It's up to newly recruited exobyte members of the Society of Super-Villains to reverse the spell and defeat Wonder Girl so that Giganta can escape!
- Giganta is a taskmaster for villains in the villain stronghold in the Gotham Wastelands.
Trivia[]
- Giganta first appeared in Wonder Woman #126 (October 1997)
- Giganta is voiced by Lana Lesley.
- Giganta's suit is specialized to grow with her and enhances her invulnerability. Even at normal size, it is bulletproof and resistant to extremes of heat and cold. That suit also has built-in protections in the knees and elbows, and reinforced shoes with shin guards and shock absorbers reinforcing the ankles. Before she gained her bodysuit, Giganta was limited to wearing a two-piece leopard-skin top and loincloth skirt that wrapped around her bust and pelvis but left her genitalia exposed when viewed beneath the skirt. Although the material had similar size-altering properties as her suit, there was not enough material to cover her completely and she was forced to go nude beneath the makeshift skirt; scandalizing many of her victims, opponents and onlookers who inadvertently look up her skirt when she is in her giant form and discover that she was not wearing underwear.
- Giganta has admitted that she has a sexual fetish for small men and "size play" and enjoys holding people in her hands when large, often getting an urge to crush them tightly in her grip "With affection, though. Like a fatal hug, endearing and enduring." She may also have a slight vore fetish, expressing a desire to place people in her mouth when giant. She is specially attracted to people like The Atom who can shrink their size. She also likes to increase her own size slightly when flirting to stand dominantly against or over whomever she is attempting to seduce.
- According to Ryan Choi, Giganta has a tongue piercing.
- Giganta has a soft spot for farm animals and is a vegetarian due to ethical opposition to cruelty against animals.
- Giganta wants to be important, to be seen, to be noticed. She gets jealous of women who garner more attention than she does, such as Wonder Woman. Giganta is very proud of her size and power and likes boasting about how tough she is. Her pride in her body and her desire to show herself off is possibly why she was seemingly untroubled with wearing a skirt with no underwear in battle or when she is faced with the possibility of exposing herself to others when her growth powers cause her clothes to rip open and render her completely naked when in giant form as she enjoys showing off her unique body and its assets. That being said, the Metal Men once defeated Giganta by accidentally ripping her suit open and exposing her breasts in the middle of Chicago. She readily agreed to turn herself in if they acted as a makeshift bikini.
- The limits of Giganta's growth powers are unrecorded, however, she can easily reach the height of 25-stories (350 feet (107.5m)) with little effort. Her natural height (when not using her powers) is 6'6" (1.98 m).
- In addition to her strength, stamina and size-changing powers, Giganta designs and builds her own medical instrumentation, and is a proficient technologist.
- According to Hearts of Darkness: Episode I (Briefings) briefings, S.T.A.R. Labs has released Giganta's body swapping research to the public as "they saw no harm in releasing the research since only a miracle could make it work."
Gallery[]
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