Calypso

Background

”To Salvage My Honor!”

In the Caribbean, Kraven the Hunter is practicing his spear throwing accuracy. A nearby woman watches him and is impressed but is sorry that he is only attacking a mannequin dressed as Spider-Man instead of the real thing. She taunts him, saying he is wasting his skill and he should return to New York and defeat his enemy. Kraven looks somewhat skeptical and she insinuated that he can’t do it. Soon their ship was arriving in New York harbor. Spider-Man was already at the harbor, investigating Deborah Whitman’s claim that thugs were shaking down her uncle’s small shipping company. Kraven spotted his prey but wasn’t ready to face him. Calypso saw his hesitation and unlocked the cages of the most dangerous animals on the ship. Seeing them run wild, Kraven immediately went about returning them to their cages.

After the animals were rounded up, Calypso told him she saw Spider-Man open their cages. Kraven was doubtful and she replied by slapping him and calling him a coward. He told her that he could crush her and she asked if he could crush Spider-Man. He still looked unsure and she asked if he was Kraven the Hunter or just a shadow of who he used to be. He agreed and later came to the Daily Globe newspaper and ordered them to announce that he was challenging Spider-Man and that they should meet at the place a spider tracer would lead him to. Later, Spidey showed up at the Museum of Natural History. Calypso enjoyed the fight from the shadows and thought on how she and Kraven enjoyed the thrill of the kill. Kraven briefly had the upper hand and demanded Calypso to watch as he finished Spider-Man. Spider-Man dropped a dinosaur skeleton onto him and the fight was over. Calypso was taken away by the police. (Amazing Spider-Man #209)

”The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”

Calypso’s opinion of Kraven had become important to him, as he couldn’t let go of the fact that he had been defeated in front of her. He claimed that until he had successfully beaten his enemy, his honor would be lost. Without honor, he was unworthy of her love. She told him to hunt again if he must but he already had her love. She threw weapons to Kraven during the fight and kept interfering with Spider-Man’s spider sense by using jungle drums. Spidey was going to go deal with her but Kraven refused to let him “sully Calypso’s person with your insect like touch!” She hit Spider-Man with a drugged dart, which left him dazed. Kraven was furious that she meddled. She tried to kill Spider-Man with a spear and Kraven again stopped her, asking how she could love a failure that needs help. He also asked how he could love a woman that didn’t understand honor or dignity. They were then taken away by the police. (Spectacular Spider-Man (vol 1) #65)

”Torment”

In one of Kraven’s abandoned mansions, Calypso used her ritual fire pot, jungle drums and prayers to unholy spirits to summon the Lizard from the East River. She added her own blood to the cauldron. (Spider-Man (vol. 1) #1)

She continued to mix her potion, with a spider, body ashes and a reptile in a container of fresh blood. At that moment, Spider-Man’s spider sense buzzed to the point of distraction. A pounding in his head made it impossible to concentrate and slowed his reflexes. The Lizard attacked him suddenly and in the fight, the creature seemed to have died after falling into a metal piece of debris. At the mansion, Calypso allowed a tiny spider to crawl around a vial of liquid, telling it to lull itself into false security. (Spider-Man (vol. 1) #2)

The Lizard had survived and again attacked Spider-Man. His senses were still haywire and his mind was clouded but he fought back against the Lizard. In the mansion, Calypso told her pet to take its time and not make it too easy. They would make an example of Spider-Man but she wanted him to suffer. As the Lizard prepared to tear Spider-Man’s throat, Calypso again reminded him to stop. She called to it, telling it to return to her. It obeyed despite its want for blood. (Spider-Man (vol. 1) #3)

Spider-Man awoke in a filthy alleyway, having been thrown there by the Lizard. When he awoke he saw the ghost of Kraven standing above him. Spider-Man’s grip on sanity began to loosen and his mind went back to digging out of his grave after being buried alive by Kraven. She enjoyed seeing him struggle and ended the Kraven illusion. She had been standing where “Kraven” had been and she order Lizard to carry him with them. It briefly hesitated, until she ordered it again to follow her. Even she didn’t know how long it would obey her. He awoke at the mansion and she admired his persistence. Spider-Man wanted to know where Kraven had gone. She told him that Kraven was dead and his weakness had killed him. He was unworthy and didn’t have the right power.

Spider-Man tried to reason with the Lizard, telling Dr. Connors to fight her influence. The creature smiled at him and then lunged. Calypso stopped it and promised that it would soon feast. Going into a trance, she listened to the rhythm of the magic as her potion controlled and tormented at the same time. Trying to buy time, Spider-Man asked her what was the point of all of this. She didn’t answer and didn’t move. Bad guys love to rant and talk about their plans but she was unnervingly silent.

She meditated on her past, of growing up on a small Caribbean island. The tribal elders had power that she envied. She studied the magic obsessively and savored every ritual. She would soon be her own master and then came the ceremonial baptism. She had claimed her first sacrifice. Years later, she met the Hunter. They pleased each other and when he left, she needed a new focus for her lust. She needed to increase her power and did so by sacrificing her younger sister. She had taken her second sacrifice and first soul. She had taken many souls but was going to add another. Channeling evil spirits, she told the Lizard that it was time.

Before it could kill him, Spider-Man broke from his binds and knocked the creature across the room. The burning fire pots were toppled and a gas line, exposed by the Lizard smashing into the wall, was ignited. (Spider-Man (vol. 1) #4)

All of them survived the explosion but Calypso was bleeding out. She again focused her power into Spider-Man, searching for him in the rubble. The magic found him and he attacked them before they could attack him. He was still weak and the Lizard was hungry. Calypso laughed at the sound of breaking bones but was confused by the spiders survival. The poison should have killed him, so she decided to speed the process. Spider-Man managed to defeat the Lizard by seeming to break its neck with steel chains. He tried to come for her but she used her magic to collapse the weakened structure. It crumbled on top of her, hoping to kill him along with her. She could always be resurrected and had an infinite number of tomorrows. He escaped the failing building. Later, the police found no bodies. (Spider-Man (vol. 1) #5)

”Devil Ge Rouge”

The next time she appeared, she was following a man named Yves Chapoteau. She had brought a zombie called The Nameless One from Haiti, which she had taken from her sister after killing her. Chapoteau sought help from Matthew Murdock, claiming to be a refugee. Murdock helped Chapoteau escape from an immigration official, who warned him that the man he was protecting was a gun smuggler and had dangerous people looking for him. Calypso waited with the Nameless One nearby, eager to capture Chapoteau and collect his bounty, as she had done with other Haitians. She was interrupted by Hellspawn, Daredevil’s evil doppelgänger. Having only gotten descriptions of Daredevil from Kraven, she mistook the creature for the vigilante. It attacked her but she killed it after biting its tail off, poisoning it and stabbing it with it’s own horn. The creature disappeared and she assumed it was Daredevil’s soul. Elsewhere, Daredevil saved Chapoteau from Haitian assassins and was attacked by the Nameless One. They fought to a draw until the zombie killed itself, refusing to be her slave. It’s body also vanished and he was confronted by Calypso, who disoriented him with her voodoo. (Daredevil #310)

Daredevil fled her after a brief fight but had already breathed in her poisons. He made it back to his apartment and removed his costume. He became delirious and collapsed in the street. He died and was taken to the morgue, where his body was taken by Calypso’s servants. She performed a voodoo ritual and revived him but as her slave. He was sent to go after Chapoteau, who making a weapons deal with Russian immigrants. Chapoteau came to Murdock’s office and realized he was Calypso’s slave. He told Murdock that she was collecting bounties on refugees to pay a Haitian magician to return Kraven to life. He went to fight her at noon, when she didn’t have a shadow and would be weak. During the battle he smashed the jars of those whose souls she had collected and they attacked her. The building collapsed she seemed to be dead but Murdock was skeptical. Later, two people are digging up someone’s grave. (Daredevil #311)

”Dead Men Walking”

She was returned to the Land of the Living by Standard Technique Number Seven from the comic writer's book: exhume the body and perform a Voodoo ritual, attempting to use Glory Grant as a sacrifice victim. (Peter Parker: Spider-Man Annual ‘97 #1)

”Resurrections”

In New Orleans, Calypso was speaking with a witch doctor named Papa Doc Kabel. She wanted him to resurrect Simon Garth, a semi-mindless zombie and he refused. She even offered to sleep with him and he was still unwilling. He had been Garth’s friend and used his magic in the past to give him some amount of control of himself. Calypso called him a hypocrite for claiming he was Garth’s friend but also having killed him. She killed Kabel and captured his soul in a magical glass jar. Using the Amulet of Damballah, she resurrected Simon Garth from his grave, as well as the Hellspawn doppelgänger (Daredevil had his own doppelgänger, just as Spider-Man did) and ordered them to fight. She wanted to test the zombies strength and he didn’t do well. Hellspawn escaped and attacked Calypso but she defended herself and the creature fled. Zombie pulled itself together (literally since its jaw had been knocked off) and pursued Hellspawn. Before he left, he smashed the glass jar containing Papa Doc’s soul. She learned that the undead can’t gain independent thought through selfishness but can only gain free will with acts of love. (Daredevil Annual #9)

”The Savaging”

She soon arrived in Colorado and forced a Guardsman at the Vault (a high tech prison for super criminals) to gain access to the imprisoned Curt Connors. She actually proved quite capable of using her voodoo to get through the heavily armored Guardsmen to get to Connors. Her magic was less successful in controlling the Lizard once she forced the transformation, as Dr. Ashley Kafka had made significant progress with Dr Connors since the last time she and the Lizard had met. The monster quickly overpowered and killed her before escaping. (Web of Spider-Man (vol. 1) #110)

”Son of the Hunter”

Mistaking Alyosha Kravinoff for his father, Calypso slept with him. Alyosha laughed at her mistake afterward, spurring her to take revenge on him for her humiliation. (Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #250)

After blowing up the brownstone housing Alyosha and Spider-Man, she attacked him with a tribe of Caribbean Indians. Using their drums and a voodoo dust to control Kraven and Spider-Man, she forced the two to do battle to the death. (Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #252)

Spider-Man was about to deal a death blow to the young Kraven, when he regained control at the last moment and threw a spear at Calypso. It caught her in the arm, breaking her concentration, and the spell. Kraven and Spider-Man defeated the tribe, while Alyosha’s pet lion nearly killed Calypso. Golyadkin only stopped when commanded by Alyosha. Kraven forced Calypso to let Spider-Man go, much to her annoyance. Alyosha and Calypso then went back to his father's home, where he killed her and the tribe. (Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 1) #253)

Image Gallery

Appearances

Cover Date	Appearance Information
Nov 1990	FB: Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #4
Oct 1980	App: Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #209
	(First Published Appearance)
Apr 1982	App: Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #65
Aug 1990	App: Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #1
Sep 1990	App: Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #2
Oct 1990	App: Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #3
Nov 1990	App: Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #4
	Origin
Dec 1990	App: Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #5
Nov 1992	App: Daredevil (Vol.1) #310
Dec 1992	App: Daredevil (Vol.1) #311
Year 1993	App: Daredevil (Vol.1) Annual #9
Mar 1994	App: Web of Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #110
Sep 1997	App: Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #249
Oct 1997	App: Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #250
Dec 1997	App: Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #252
Jan 1998	App: Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #253
	Killed by Al Kravinoff

Thanks To

 This profile was completed with information used with permission from the Appendix of Marvel Universe website, mantained by Jeff Christiansen (Snood). If you want to find out about that odd-ball character you've only seen once, or even about that character you haven't ever seen, that's the site you're looking for. An impressive amount of obscure characters await you there!

 The assistance of the Marvel Chronology Project is gratefully acknowledged.

 Some of the above information is extracted from the various versions of the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe and the more recent Marvel Encyclopaedias.