Ares (New Earth)

Mars is the immortal martian ruler who has a long going animosity with his lover Aphrodite, which mostly plays out with them sending various representatives of their ideologies against each other. Going most often by his Roman name Mars but acknowledging the Greek's name for him as Ares he sets his champions against Aphrodite's Amazons until their retreat to Paradise Island following their betrayal by Hercules. Despite their differences and centuries long conflict he and Aphrodite meet for casual conversation and debate regularly, and will lounge together while watching their human champions and those they believe to represent their ideals come into conflict.

During the days of ancient Greece he had his subordinate Count Conquest rescue infants abandoned to the wilds in Sparta, with them raised as child soldiers on Duxo. These children were used to attack Paradise Island as they were not only human, which meant killing them would violate the Amazons' oath, but children whom the Amazons would be loath to attack. The Amazonettes and immortal girls of Infanta, who had also been rescued as abandoned infants, helped subdue the children from Duxo and they were brought to Infanta for rehabilitation and an immortal life of peace.^[2]

When the Amazons' champion Wonder Woman entered the wider world during WWII he fought her himself on many occasions while his generals usually fought her and her allies using human intermediaries. She defeated him at every opportunity.

Earth-One, Ares/Mars of Olympus

Mars was an enemy to his granddaughter Wonder Woman. He allied with other powerful beings like Hephaestus in his attacks on humanity.

New Earth, Ares of Olympus and Areopagus

He is the son of Zeus and his wife Hera. Despite being Zeus's son, Ares never fit in with the other gods of Olympus and created his own realm, the Areopagus. Aphrodite, the patron of the Amazons, swore that her women would save the world with love from the hatred and warfare of Ares.

Ares did his best to destroy the Amazons, once using Hercules against them. In modern times he attacked them again, but Hippolyta's daughter Diana was brought into the world just in time to fight Ares. This attack took the form of an American military aircraft, assigned to Steve Trevor but driven by one of Ares' human puppets, crashing into Paradise Island. Ares's plot at this time was to fire nuclear missiles between the United States and Russia, simultaneously, provoking World War III, but Diana managed to make him see, trapped in her Lasso of Truth, how this chaos would lead to his own disappearance, with Ares having no one to worship him.

Although Ares abandoned those plans that time, he later managed to possess an unimportant human criminal, Ari Buchanan. Possessing Buchanan's body, he changed his name to Ares Buchanan, and began climbing the business ladder, by providing hi-tech weapons for gang wars. As Buchanan, he had a relationship with his lawyer Donna Milton (who was Circe in disguise, although not even she knew it then), conceiving a daughter named Lyta. Lyta was shown to possess a great amount of magic, which she was still learning to wield. However, Ares didn't care much about Donna, shooting her while she was pregnant. Circe survived, and as Donna, she used the last of her forces to shoot a gun, which produced a sort of mini-black hole that absorbed Ares.

In recent years, as opposed to ancient times, the roles of various gods have altered somewhat, according to modern practices and beliefs. Because of this, the actual faith-based power that Ares's father Zeus received has proved to be very much diminished. On the other hand, other gods such as Athena, Aphrodite, and Ares began to gain more power due, respectively, to the appearance of the computer age, to love never diminishing, and to conflict remaining consistent. Thus the three godly siblings eventually teamed up and took over Olympus, as the godly home's new masters.

Realizing that conflict was the source of his greatest strength, Ares changed his title to the God of Conflict. To celebrate this change he altered his appearance to a more approachable visage. His time, under this title, proved to be short-lived, as the god Hades was also overthrown, and Ares was all too eager to take up the mantle of God of the Dead. Accordingly Ares took over the kingdom of Hades, leaving his sister Athena, to rule over Olympus.

Family Reunited

Realizing that a crossroads for the Gods of Olympus was soon to be reached, Ares confided in his half sister Cassie Sandsmark about a future war. In exchange for additional powers, he requested in return only her love. He then traveled to Themyscira and kidnapped his daughter, Lyta, who was under the protection of the Amazons. Discovering this fact, Circe confronted Ares, and was surprised to learn of his new godly title. She agreed to remain as his consort and to raise their daughter Lyta in the Underworld.

Ares had gifted Cassie with a powerful lasso, able to expel Zeus' lightning in times of anger, for her to use in her persona as Wonder Girl. Ares afterward appeared to Cassie repeatedly, in order to warn her about "the coming war." The Teen Titans were thrown ten years into the future, where Cassie had inherited the mantle of Wonder Woman after Diana's death. She was also referred to as "Ares' Champion."

Ares appeared to Cassie for apparently the final time, and he revealed that the gods were leaving this plane, and that Zeus was reclaiming the power he had granted Cassie as well. In exchange for acknowledging their relationship as siblings and becoming his champion, he offered her some of his power, saying only that she would be "more powerful than [she's] ever been." The full extent of Cassie's powers was not revealed at that time, and she retained all of her former powers.

During the events of Amazons Attack it was discovered that Ares had left Circe and kidnapped their daughter to raise on his own. As he and Lyta were only spoken of during those events, their whereabouts are yet unknown. Cassie later was confronted by Ares' son, Lord Lycus, whom Ares had sent to interfere with Cassie's powers.

Death

Shifting himself into the future, Ares stole the dead body of Wonder Woman and brought it back into the early 21st century. He then manipulated several villains to use the body to create his new bride and chief agent Genocide. He then imbued this new creature with his own magical dominance, causing the new being's persona to be more deadly but also completely obedient to him. Ares' plans to destroy Wonder Woman went awry when Diana was able to destroy Genocide, leaving the monster's dead body to drown in the ocean. Angered, Ares commanded a son of Poseidon to cause a swarm of deadly sea creatures to attack Themyscira and the new island nation of Thalarion. During this battle Diana deduced that Ares was the grand manipulator behind the attacks, and confronted him. Not allowing Ares much time to gloat in his latest masterpiece of war, Diana took a battle axe and used it to strike Ares' head, splitting his helmet in two. Ares fell to the floor uttering in his last breath, "Amazon what have you done?"

Post-Mortem

Ares has since appeared to Diana, sans helmet, his head crudely stitched together, to reveal he has gone to some level of the afterlife reserved for the gods, where he is being tortured by all those who have died in all the world's wars. Despite being gone from the mortal world, he revealed that he was still manipulating events to lead to the end of the Amazons. This new plot involved the birth of five male children, via five random Amazons. Once they were born he took them under his wing, before being banished from Themyscira both in body and spirit, by his father Zeus.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Darkness Manipulation: Ares can summon darkness and can choose targets to become visibles into this condition.^[3]
Decelerated Aging: Olympians do not age the way a normal human does.
Dimensional Travel: Ares can travel between Olympus and Earth and he can summon enchanted weapons from the Areopagus.
Teleportation: He can teleport himself anywhere he wants.
Energy Projection^[3]
Flight: Ares can wrap himself in dark energy to fly.
Invulnerability: Olympians cannot be physically harmed by conventional means.
Magic: Olympians have the power to manipulate vast amounts of magic energy to nearly any effect they desires.
Metamorphosis: Olympians can alter their physical form into any shape that they can choose.
Mind Control: Ares can directly control the minds of his living followers; they will degenerate and show cadaverous features, then die when the effects pass away.^[3]
Necromancy: When Ares was also recognized as the Death God of the Greek Pantheon he had control over the dead.
Power Distribution: Olympians can bestow a portion of their power unto others.
Pyrokinesis: Ares can summon a flame which burn souls.^[4]
Size Alteration: When the war is abundant, Ares can grow to giant size. ^[5]
Superhuman Strength
Superhuman Speed
Molecular Reconstruction: He can turn any hard material into a weapon or armor. Ares can control and bend solid objects and substances to his will.
Superhuman Stamina: Olympians can operate for prolonged periods of time without tiring.
Telepathy and Illusion Casting: Ares can mentally communicate with his worshippers, transmitting his image at interdimensional range, and possibly can do the same to any other intelligent being. ^[4] He can also show what happen in other places by creating a illusion inside his cape. ^[3]

Abilities

Weaponry
Occultism
Martial Arts: Every Martial Art form is at his command. He knows all the military wisdom of the ages... the strategy and tactics of each battle from the beginning of time.^[6]
Leadership

Weaknesses

Power Loss: Ares will gradually lose his powers without worshipers, but he can derive indirect worship from the wars.^[3]
Amulet of Harmonia: Ares is vulnerable to any attack from a person who uses the Amulet of Harmonia.^{[citation needed]}

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Crystal Orb: Ares can watch other places with this artifact.^[4]

Notes

This character or object is an adaptation of Ares, a character or object in traditional stories. These include, but may not be limited to religious texts, myth, and/or folk lore. More information on the original can be found at Wikipedia.org.
His Latin avatar is Mars.
Ares states that compared to modern man he is a dabbler in war.^[7]

Ares (New Earth)

Contents

History

Earth-Two, Mars of Mars