Cheetah

New Earth

Born as the heiress of a vast fortune in Nottinghamshire, Barbara Minerva's life would change dramatically following an expedition she led into a dense African jungle. She was searching for the legendary lost city of the Urzkartagan tribe, but, on her adventure, her team was betrayed by their guides. The native Urzkartagans ambushed them, with only Minerva and one other, Dr. Tom Leavens, escaping alive into a nearby river.

Minerva and Leavens washed ashore to find themselves at the foot of the lost city, its people in the midst of a ritual. One of the other members of their research team was captured and offered as a human sacrifice to their god Urzkartaga by the high priest Chuma. The ritual had been intended to restore the health of an ailing woman, who was regarded as an avatar for their cheetah god. Before the ritual could be completed, an outside tribe attacked the village, slaughtering everyone but Chuma, who was saved by Minerva. Due to a grenade blast, Minerva and Chuma became trapped within the temple with no hope of surviving.

While they were trapped together, Chuma explained that the ritual, which could only be performed on the full moon and required a blood sacrifice, would have turned the old woman into a cheetah god and restored her youth, having lived for centuries before her murder by the invading tribe. Dr. Minerva demanded the ritual be done to her so she could have her chance at power and immortality, but Chuma refused, further explaining that a human sacrifice was necessary for it to proceed. When Minerva's research partner successfully found them and dug the two out of the cave in, aggressively, Dr. Minerva immediately murderer him and drank his blood to initiate the ritual to begin.

Chuma obliged and performed the ceremony, but the native invaders returned, putting the survivors into danger once again. By the time the invaders reached Chuma and Minerva, the ritual was complete, and Dr. Minerva had been transformed into a feral cheetah-woman. Mercilessly, the Minerva attacked the native tribe, slaughtering and devouring them all before she reverted back to human form. Grateful for her new powers, Minerva brought Chuma with her back to England.

Unfortunately, there was an unforseen side effect to her transformation. The ritual had called for a virgin woman to become the Cheetah, and Minerva did not qualify. Hence, rather than grant her youth and vitality, after the transformation she became weak and frail. Only on the night of the full moon, when she became her feral alter ego, was she strong again.

After Wonder Woman made her debut in Boston, Minerva learned of the Golden Lasso that Diana wielded. She coveted the lariat and tried to trick Diana into losing it but to no avail. Since she failed to gain it as Barbara Minerva, she tried to seize it by force as Cheetah. Still inexperienced at fighting such a powerful adversary, Diana might have lost if not for the intervention of her friend, Dr. Kapatelis. Minerva was not deterred, however. Following the Invasion! crisis, Minerva used two Khunds to steal the Lasso from Diana.

Once the Lasso was in her possession, Minerva became obsessed with the history of it. Knowing that Diana would soon figure out that she and Cheetah were one and the same, she left Chuma to poison the princess while she left for Africa. Leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, Cheetah found the city of Bana-Mighdall, home of the rogue Amazons. Wonder Woman pursued her there. When Minerva reverted to human form, she was worse off than ever. The plant from which an ingredient was gathered for the ritual transformation began to die. Chuma arrived and found his mistress at death's door. He guessed that the god was jealous of divided loyalties he perceived in Minerva and proclaimed that the only way she would be healed was to kill both Diana and the queen of Bana-Mighdall. Becoming Cheetah once more, she killed the queen and got into a fierce battle with Wonder Woman in the midst of an all out assault by the rogue Amazons. Diana defeated her, and Chuma was killed by the Amazons. Minerva survived the destruction of the city and was taken into custody.

While in prison, still wracked with pain, Minerva was approached by a messenger of Circe. He gave her a potion that transformed her permanently into the Cheetah. Whereas before she had worn a suit and was not totally in control while in Cheetah form, now she was totally transformed and remained in complete control. The spell also allowed her to take on a human appearance while still being in full possession of her Cheetah powers. Unfortunately for Minerva, the potion had made her a slave to Circe and her schemes. Hoping to betray Circe, Cheetah went to the Gotham City Grand Hotel trying to steal the goblet that Circe was going to use against the Amazons of Themyscira. All hell broke loose that night and after killing Hellene and wounding Philippus, two Amazons, Cheetah fled. She turned up to tell Inspector Indelicato the whole truth and where Diana could find her missing mother, hoping Wonder Woman would defeat Circe.

She was part of a new Injustice League alongside Lex Luthor and The Joker, which would launch an assault on Green Arrow and Black Canary's wedding. She was one of the villains deported to the Hell Planet during the events of Salvation Run, and has since rejoined the Secret Society of Super-Villains under the command of Libra during the Final Crisis.

Minvera formed her own branch of the Secret Society of Super-Villains with herself at the head for the sole purpose of creating the villainous Genocide.

During the events of Final Crisis itself, Minerva remained free of the Anti-Life Equation, and formed a relationship with Snapper Carr after she saved his life and he aided her in evading the Justifiers and joining with Checkmate.

Later on, Barbara was directly responsible for the creation of Genocide along with T.O. Morrow and also helps Doctor Psycho switch bodies with Sarge Steel, the director of Department of Metahuman Affairs.

Prime Earth

According to Wonder Woman's false memories, Barbara Ann Minerva was raised in a group home in Idaho, run by a woman named "Aunt Lyta". The group home, Amazonia, was run along the lines of a cult, where the occupants were trained to view life as a hunt, and all other people as either competitors or prey. On her last day there, she killed her brother in a fight to the death, proving her worth to their sacred cause: retrieving the God-Killer Knife.

Building a series of false identities, Barbara Minerva got a job in Washington, D.C. as an expert in antiquities, and searched. Her life was immensely enriched by meeting Wonder Woman, a member of the Amazon culture she had been raised to admire, but when Wonder Woman laughed at her beliefs, Barbara decided to bring her down. She convinced Wonder Woman to let her into the Black Room, A.R.G.U.S.' special containment facility for magic artifacts, stole the God-Killer Knife, and stabbed herself in the chest in the name of her goddess.

This act empowered her, turning her into a cheetah woman, with the cheetah's characteristic hunting prowess and speed. She would spend the next six years committing criminal acts, though Wonder Woman was frequently on hand to stop her, always believing that the knife had somehow corrupted her and that she could be saved.

Barbara's true origin is vastly different. In truth, she was born in Oakstone Abbey, Nottinghamshire, the only child of Lord and Lady Cavendish. After the death of her mother, she became more and more introverted. Under the guidance of her tutor, Ms. McLeod, she became interested in Greek mythology, especially the Amazons. Her father considered it escapism, and would rather teach her the world was cruel and unfair.

She wasn't deterred, and at 26, she had received two PhDs and was working as an archeologist in Ukraine. Though she was mocked by her colleagues, she found her first solid evidence of Amazons: the tomb of Lysippe, 12th Queen of the Amazons. Unfortunately, heavy rains caused the cave to collapse. Some of her research was stolen by foreman Viktor Yakuvic. She chased him around the Mediterranean, until she came to Tunisia. She had traced a route which she thought was the route the Amazons followed. But when she found Viktor's corpse and received nourishment from an old crone, she realized she had it backwards: the route was not where they migrated to, it was where they came from. However, when she came to the end of her track, an uncharted island in the Black Sea, she found no sign of civilization.

Disheartened by her failure, Barbara went on to teach archeology at a university. She was contacted by Etta Candy to help translate the unique dialect of Diana, who had recently arrived on U.S. soil. Barbara befriended Diana and taught her about the culture of mankind. After helping Diana settle into her role as Wonder Woman, Barbara was contacted by Veronica Cale, who offered to fund an expedition to Africa to investigate the plant god Urzkartaga. Diana was worried for Barbara's safety and gave her a GPS beacon to contact her if she was in trouble, but Doctor Cyber deactivated it on Veronica Cale's orders. To distract Wonder Woman, Cale and Doctor Cyber staged disasters around the world. When Diana finally arrived to check on Barbara, she was stunned to discover that Urzkartaga had made her his wife and transformed her into the Cheetah. Cheetah was furious at Diana for abandoning her, and joined Cale's Godwatch team, which worked against Wonder Woman.

Five years after the creation of the Justice League, Cheetah was a member of the Secret Society of Super-Villains. In the wake of the Graves Incident, Cheetah got a final piece of data necessary to track down a tribe in the Congo who had been the original custodians of the God-Killer Knife. As she had before, Wonder Woman went to stop her - but this time, she brought the Justice League. Thanks to the interference of the larger group of heroes, Cheetah was caught. After being apprehended by the heroes, the Cheetah went to prison, where she contacted Black Manta, indicating that all was as it should be. She was subsequently chosen to join the "Suicide Squad", a black ops team of supervillains who worked for the American government.

Cheetah was broken out of jail by the Crime Syndicate and recruited to be part of their forces. Lured to Happy Harbor alongside every other supervillain, she was in the audience when the Crime Syndicate revealed that they had killed the Justice League. As proof they offered signature items, including Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth, which Cheetah immediately pocketed.

A loyal soldier serving the Crime Syndicate's brief takeover, she led a gang of animal-themed villains called the Menagerie, who terrorized New York from a hideout in Central Park. She was defeated by Steve Trevor of A.R.G.U.S., who needed the Lasso as part of a plan to save the world. A month later, Cheetah was hired by the billionaire activist John King to kill Green Arrow. Due to the intervention of a small army of masked heroes, she was unsuccessful. Cheetah was subsequently depowered by a strike against the magicians of Earth by a group of Elder Gods.

After Wonder Woman's realization that she was unable to go to Themyscira or Mount Olympus, she travelled to Africa in search of Cheetah. She was met with aggression from Cheetah's forces, and ultimately Cheetah herself. The battle continued until Wonder Woman revealed to Cheetah that she was unable to locate Themyscira and needed her enemy's help. In exchange for Minerva's help in finding Themyscira, Wonder Woman agreed to help her kill the god Urzkartaga, Cheetah's husband, and end Minerva's curse. The pair battled their way through Urzkartaga's minions, the Bouda, and defeated Andres Cadulo, a worshiper of Urzkartaga that planned to sacrifice Steve Trevor to the plant god. With the help of Steve's forces, Diana and Cheetah were able to kill Urzkartaga, freeing Barbara from the curse of the Cheetah. Once she reverted back to her human form, Minerva agreed to help Wonder Woman find her way back to Paradise Island. She revealed to Wonder Woman that the island of Themyscira was divine in its nature instead of it being a physical place.

Veronica Cale's Godwatch team began their assault on Wonder Woman, and Barbara helped Diana, Steve and Etta Candy defend against Godwatch's forces. Barbara agreed to meet with Veronica and urge her to put a stop to Godwatch, as she had been a member when she was Cheetah. During their conversation, Cale urged Minerva to become the Cheetah once more, this time without Urzkartaga's control. Barbara refused, so Veronica ordered Colonel Poison's team, who had since closed in on Steve and Etta, to proceed with their attack. Barbara was forced to watch the assault by Doctor Cyber. In order to spare the lives of her friends, she agreed to accept the curse of the Cheetah once again and was transformed by Cale. After her transformation, Veronica used Cheetah to open a gateway that led to Tartarus, the realm beneath Themyscira in which Ares and Veronica's daughter Isadore were imprisoned. However, Cheetah was unable to enter the gateway herself, and she realized she had been manipulated by Veronica. Cheetah sought her revenge, breaking in to Cale's home and seriously wounding her. Wonder Woman arrived before she could kill Veronica and attempted to appeal to the humanity within Cheetah, but Barbara retorted that she didn't want her old life back and that Cheetah is who she is. Cheetah continued her attempt to kill Cale, but Wonder Woman continued to restrain her, until Cheetah broke down in tears at who and what she had become.

Cheetah was one of the members handpicked by Lex Luthor to form the new Legion of Doom. She was tasked, together with Black Manta, with the mission of killing Poseidon, thanks to one of the seven forces freed by the Source Wall's rupture, the Tear of Extinction, that Cheetah used on her claws. After killing the Olympian, Cheetah took part in the retaking of the Totality inside the Hall of Justice, during the drowning of the Earth. She also destroyed the Graveyard of Gods, which was a key part to continue the unlocking of the Totality itself.