The Enchantress is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Bob Haney and Howard Purcell, the character made her first appearance in Strange Adventures #187 (April 1966).
Dr. June Moone is a freelance artist who becomes possessed by an entity originally known only as the "Enchantress" (originally once known as Succubus). The resulting merge creates a powerful sorceress considered to be one of the most dangerous black magic practitioners in the DC Universe. The character has often been depicted as both a villain and antihero, establishing herself as a member of various teams such as Shadowpact, the Suicide Squad, and the Sentinels of Magic. In more recent continuities, she is often cast as an ally and adversary for the Justice League Dark and a recurring member of the Suicide Squad.
The Enchantress would make an appearance in mainstream media, portrayed by Cara Delevingne in the 2016 film Suicide Squad as both June Moone and the Enchantress, the latter portrayed as a separate entity possessing her body. The Enchantress entity would also be portrayed by Samantha Liana Cole on the show Legends of Tomorrow, which is part of the Arrowverse. Enchantress and June Moone also make an appearance in the video game Injustice 2.
Publication history The Enchantress ("The Switcheroo-Witcheroo" as she was bannered on the cover) first appeared in the nine-page lead story of Strange Adventures #187 (April 1966), the National Comics (now DC Comics) flagship science fiction anthology title. She then appeared in two eight-page appearances in the same title: Strange Adventures #191 (August 1966) and 200 (May 1967), written by Bob Haney and drawn by co-creator Howard Purcell. The first two stories were reprinted in Adventure Comics #417 (March 1972) and 419 (May 1972), her only appearances in the 1970s.
Following this, the Enchantress appeared in two linked Supergirl tales in The Superman Family #204–205 (November/December 1980–January/February 1981). Writer Jack C. Harris and artist Trevor Von Eeden proposed to DC an all-female super-team named the "Power Squad" which would have included the Enchantress, but were turned down. The character appeared in a two-part story featuring the Forgotten Villains in the Superman team-up title DC Comics Presents #77–78 (January–February 1985). She was one of the super-characters in Legends #3 (January 1987) and 6 (April 1987), followed by the origin of the Suicide Squad in Secret Origins (vol. 2) #14 (May 1987) and the immediately following Suicide Squad series issues #1–8 (May 1987–December 1987) and 12–16 (April 1988–August 1988), written by John Ostrander; and The Spectre (vol. 2) #11 (February 1988).
Eleven years later, she returned in Green Lantern (vol. 3) #118 (November 1999) and Day of Judgment #1–5 (all November 1999), written by Geoff Johns with art by Matt Smith and Steve Mitchell. She next guest-starred in another DC Comics miniseries JLA: Black Baptism #1–4 (May–August 2001) by Ruben Diaz and Sean Smith (writers) and Jesus Saiz (artist) after which the Enchantress disappeared again until the Day of Vengeance miniseries #1–5 (June 2005–November 2005) by Bill Willingham. Willingham also used her character through the first 16 issues (July 2006–October 2007) of the Shadowpact series that followed directly from Day of Vengeance. Lilah Sturges wrote the title from issue #17–25 (November 2007–July 2008). During that time she also made appearances in the major DC Comics crossover series Countdown, in issues #29 (October 17, 2007) and 28 (October 24, 2007), the associated Countdown to Mystery #1 (November 2007), and one issue of The Trials of Shazam!, #11 (March 2008).
Since the cancellation of Shadowpact, the Enchantress has continued to make minor appearances in the DC Universe, including DC Universe Holiday Special (2008), and the miniseries Reign in Hell #2–8 (September 2008–April 2009). She appeared in Action Comics #885 (March 2010), part of a new cycle of stories by James Robinson which led up to the DC Comics 2010 limited series War of the Supermen.
When DC relaunched their entire line in September 2011, it included a new team comic book titled Justice League Dark which featured the magical characters of the DCU: Shade, the Changing Man; Madame Xanadu; Deadman; Zatanna; John Constantine and Mindwarp. Their first enemy was the Enchantress gone mad.
Fictional character biography June Moone was a freelance artist who was invited to a costume party at an old castle, and stumbled upon a secret chamber where an unknown magical being (later named as Dzamor) empowered her to fight an evil presence in the castle. Saying the words "The Enchantress", her appearance changes from the blonde-haired June to the black-haired and costumed Enchantress and defeats a minotaur creature from a tapestry. Soon after, she defeats a monster at Cape Kennedy and a mirage of a demonic creature manipulated by a crook.
In her next appearance, however, the Enchantress is a misguided character fighting Supergirl, who prevents her gaining omnipotent magical power and cancelling all other superpowers on Earth, twice. Her villainous side takes over after this, and the Enchantress then continues her career as a member of the Forgotten Villains and part of the army of supervillains during the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event.
Suicide Squad
She is next recruited into the newly formed 'Task Force X', soon to be known as the 'Suicide Squad', on the chance that she could keep her villainous side in check. In her first mission, she uses massive magical energy to defeat Brimstone, which sends her over the edge and she becomes temporarily truly villainous. During her tenure with the Suicide Squad, June Moone's control over her Enchantress side becomes weaker, and she destroys at least one mission because of this; teammate Deadshot is tasked with taking her out should she get beyond control. Eventually, Madame Xanadu diagnoses that June's loss of control is because she began using her powers before she could control them, and the only way to counteract this is not to use them until her aura, which protects her from the evil influences in magic, regains its power.
Madame Xanadu gives June a necklace that she cannot remove which, together with a ring to be held by someone else, creates a feedback loop preventing the Enchantress from using magic for evil as a temporary measure. She also raises an army to destroy the town and perform terror attacks as stated in the first mission. June then discovers that her Enchantress persona is, in fact, a separate evil entity from another dimension fused with her, not simply a manifestation of magic. She learned this when she and other Squad members joined Nightshade on a mission to free her homeland, the Nightshade Dimension. There, she found out that the Incubus, who took over that dimension, is the brother of the Dzamor, who merges with her to give her the power of the Enchantress. The Incubus rips his sister out of June, leaving her powerless. Shortly afterwards, June disappears from the Suicide Squad for unknown reasons.
Day of Judgment
Eleven years later, after a storm caused by war in Hell, June breaks free from the Ostrander Mental Institute in New Jersey, where she has been for an indeterminate period of time. Refusing to join with the superheroes fighting a demon invasion on Earth and in Hell, the newly freed Enchantress is possessed by Deadman to manipulate her into helping the fight in Hell. Once there, June's Enchantress persona is murdered by Sebastian Faust as a purely evil act, the only way to reignite the fires of Hell.
JLA: Black Baptism June Moone is left in a semi-catatonic state after the removal of her Enchantress persona and is committed to 'Elysium Fields Sanitarium' outside Detroit. Faust removes her from the sanitarium and reunites her with her Enchantress persona – who had not been killed by him and has been masquerading as 'Anita Souleata', a succubus working with a group of Mafia-styled demons to create a gateway to Hell and resurrect Hermes Trismegestus, a mad sorcerer who wanted to destroy life on Earth. When June and the Enchantress are re-combined, a new entity called the Soulsinger is temporarily created, which fades away shortly after, leaving the Enchantress behind – once again a separate entity, but cut off from her powers. June Moone is taken to be looked after by Doctor Occult.
Day of Vengeance
Ragman digs the Enchantress out from under a destroyed forest after the Spectre, bent on killing all magical beings and places on Earth, kills nearly 700 sorcerers, only breaking off when attacked. The Enchantress divines the seduction of the Spectre by Eclipso/Jean Loring, mentally from the safety of the pocket-dimensional Oblivion Bar, where many magical entities have gone to escape him. She then leaves to challenge the Spectre on Earth, having first created a gun that can kill her should she turn evil again and offering it to Ragman. When she overloads again while channeling power from nearly everyone on Earth with magic capabilities to Captain Marvel so that he can defeat the Spectre, she is put out of action by a punch from Blue Devil instead. Recovering quickly enough to devise a plan to lure the Spectre into a trap, the Enchantress helps with the reconstruction of the Rock of Eternity in Gotham City, after facing Doctor Occult, who has been possessed by the spirit of Envy. During the Day of Vengeance series, Enchantress, Ragman, Blue Devil, and a number of other magical entities form the "Shadowpact" super-team.
Shadowpact
The Shadowpact are summoned by the Phantom Stranger when the town of Riverrock, Wyoming is entrapped in a giant bubble of blood and endangered by "the Pentacle", a team of supervillains, whose goal is to sacrifice the townspeople to summon the Sun King, an ancient rogue god from another dimension. Thirty-seven people perish before the Shadowpact manage to defeat them; the Enchantress is able to tap into the magical powers of Strega, one of the Pentacle and destroy the bubble from within. She incapacitates or possibly kills one of the Pentacle, the White Rabbit, after he leaves them and frees the Shadowpact, considering him too unpredictable to work with. Due to unexpected side effects of the magic spells needed to defeat the villains, the outside world believe that the Shadowpact has been dead for a year and they are honored with a team statue set in a park in Metropolis.
The Enchantress then helps the Ragman defeat an assassin sent to kill him, in the course of which they are attacked by the Wild Hunt of legend and temporarily transformed into mystical hellhounds. Shortly after, she helps heal Nightmaster after he is stabbed during a fight with Etrigan the Demon. After the Shadowpact are seconded to Checkmate to infiltrate Kobra's organization, she then helps foil Doctor Gotham's plan to destroy Chicago by entering his inter-dimensional cloak and destroying the artifacts contained within. She takes an apprentice, Laura Fell, the Warlock's Daughter before they both unwittingly almost allow a race of mindless creatures called "the Unbound" to reach Earth while creating a portal to the Land of Nightshades, where Nightmaster, Nightshade and Ragman are trapped. She frees her colleagues and the inhabitants of the Nightshades Dimension by creating a magical virus to combat the mage-created virus that created the Unbound – mixing a possessed creatures' soul with the essence of Nightmaster's virtues. When Nightmaster decides to stay in the Nightshade Dimension, Enchantress kisses him. On returning to Earth, she participates in the final battle against the Sun King.
The Shadowpact, including the Enchantress, helped Captain Atom return to Mirabai's dimension – where Sam Lane has moved the main base of his secret anti-Kryptonian 'Project 7734'.
The New 52