| “ | We end this now! | „ |
| ~ Kalypso challenges Shazam in the climax battle. |
Kalypso is the main antagonist of the 2023 DC Extended Universe superhero film Shazam! Fury of the Gods, the sequel to the 2019 film Shazam!.
She was the middle child of the Hesperides, who wishes to take back the powers her father gave to the Wizard Shazam.
By the 21st century, Kalypso comes across Billy Batson and his foster siblings, who fight crime as the Shazam Family, leading her to unleash a dragon over the city until they give up their powers. However, she betrayed her sisters and therefore subverts from Atlas' legacy, planning to conquer the Earth, kill Shazam and his allies, and even be willing to remorselessly destroy her sisters for interference until she was killed by Billy Batson.
She was portrayed by Lucy Liu, who also played O-Ren Ishii in the Kill Bill duology and the Lucy Liu Robots in Futurama.
Personality[]
Kalypso is a deceiving goddess who could be compared to Hades' evilness. She enjoys using dark powers against her enemies and intends to conquer Earth as an act of vengeance. Despite at first seeming to care for her sisters and for her father's legacy, she had her own ways of completing this task and eventually subverted these two traits by throwing everything away, betraying both Anthea and Hespera and being more than willing to kill them for interference. She is heavily ambitious, power-hungry, sadistic, delusional, and sociopathic. In other words, she is the mother of all monsters.
She misanthropically views humans as pests, intending to provoke them until they are all extinct, and turn their world into a black hole, or in other words, hell. She cares nothing about anything but her own ways of life.
History[]
Kalypso is the vengeful and treacherous daughter of Atlas, and sister of both Anthea and Hespera, having a more vengeful plan than theirs and manipulating both of her siblings for her own needs. Kalypso at first appears stealing a part of a broken staff, along with Hespera. She hypnotizes one of the security guards, turning him into a savage animal. Later, she was fighting Shazam alongside her sisters, forcing Anthea to betray Freddy and misleading Hespera, the rightful commander of the trio.
She hypnotizes Freddy's school teacher Mr. Geckle and causes him to fall off the rooftop. She then acts out of ambition, but Hespera chokes her and reminds her of the importance of human life and morals towards one another.
Kalypso then kidnaps Freddy alongside her sisters, and when he is interrogated by Hespera, who shows remorse and concern towards the humans, planning to steal from them but not to destroy them completely, Kalypso then tortures Freddy with her mental powers, before ordering the guards to throw him into a pit in which her pet dragon Ladon sleeps. She then betrays Hespera who obtained the seed of life to restore her realm completely in a peaceful way, and uses the seed of life to turn Earth into a black hole, much to Hespera's disappointment. She then plants it on Earth to create monsters and complete her spell. Hespera and Anthea try to stop her from being an irredeemable destroyer of worlds who would be compared to Hades according to Hespera's claims. Kalypso makes her dragon kill Hespera, and she turns Anthea into a normal human, before intending to kill her with the others of her current species.
She then proceeds to the final battle against Shazam, revealing she acted all this time out of pure ambition and not out of vengeance. She rides her Landon towards Shazam, attempting to kill him, but he flies very fast to the sky, and under her corruption, a dark unicorn like horse is created, readying to kill the heroes. However, it redeems itself when Darla feeds it with skittles. More horses come and redeem themselves, as the heroes ride on them and defeat all monsters. She then tries to kill Freddy and Anthea, but Shazam stops her by luring her and Ladon to the top of a building, where Hespera, in her last moments of life, minimizes the dome to trap them both. While still attempting to kill Shazam, he soon launches himself towards her and finally manages to push her and Ladon, before Shazam unleashes a powerful force of electricity that kills both her and Ladon by overloading the Wizard's staff, permanently ending her reign of terror.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
- Titan Physiology: As a daughter of Atlas and Nyx, Kalypso is a formidable Titan with a wide array of magical abilities including her special power named, the power of chaos.
- Superhuman Strength: She used this to push back Freddy Freeman when they first meet on top of the school roof.
- Superhuman Durability: When Darla kicked her into a building she was able to get back up.
- Regenerative Healing Factor: After being thrown into a building by Eugene and Darla, Kalypso quickly healed from all of her wounds.
- Immortality: Kalypso has lived for centuries along with her sisters because they are daughters of Atlas.
- Titan Magic: Due to being a Titan, Kalypso has access to their primordial magics.
- Power of Chaos: Kalypso wields the primordial force of chaos. This allows her to control the minds of others and make them go insane.
- Mind Control: Kalypso can whisper a command into the mind of a person or creature and force them to abide by that command. It appears to be extremely painful if one is to resist her control.
- Mental Plague: In the museum, she uses this power to make people go insane, with each person attacking another, whispering the words, “Unleash the chaos”.
- Control of Ladon: After liberating him from his pit, Kalypso now has control over Ladon's actions and where he flies. She typically uses him to get to her enemies and try to destroy them.
- Spell Casting: Throughout the film, Kalypso only casts one but every powerful spell to release Ladon from the pits.
- Ladon Releasing Spell: "Ladon, world-eater, rise from the pit!", she used this to release Ladon from his underground pit, allowing him to fly and unleash chaos.
- Power of Chaos: Kalypso wields the primordial force of chaos. This allows her to control the minds of others and make them go insane.
- Magic Staff Capabilities: After forcing the Wizard to mend the Staff, Kalypso wielded its powers destructively.
- Electricity Generation: Whenever she utilises the staff to revoke the champion's powers or achieve other magical feats electricity comes out of it.
- Lightning Storm: After absorbing some of Billy's magic energy, she was able to create a lightning storm within Philadelphia.
- Power Revoking: Kalypso used this to revoke Pedro, Darla, Eugene, Freddy, Mary and Anthea's powers.
- Electricity Absorption: When duelling with Billy in the middle of the street, they both send a lightning bolt at eachother causing them to clash however, when Billy tries to overpower her the staff just takes that power and makes her stronger, allowing her to cause a lightning storm.
- Electricity Generation: Whenever she utilises the staff to revoke the champion's powers or achieve other magical feats electricity comes out of it.
Gallery[]
Quotes[]
| “ | We will plant it in their realm. | „ |
| “ | Just as they've destroyed ours.. | „ |
| “ | Monstrous? That is what humans are.. it is only fitting that we bring our monsters to their world and do to them what they did to us. Humans are villains | „ |
| “ | Our sole purpose is to avenge our father, and everyone here has become weak!!.. Ladon, world eater.. RISE FROM THE PIT!! | „ |
| “ | You thought you were invulnerable.. But no, magical fire.. and magic can kill magic..] | „ |
| “ | Remove the dome!! | „ |
Trivia[]
- Like Hespera and Anthea, Kalypso is a completely original character from the DC Extended Universe. She has no comic book counterpart.
- In the Greek mythology, Kalypso isn't biologically related to the daughters of Atlas. However, the film points out that they are related, making it a little different than the original myth.
- In fact, considering their different personalities and agendas, she is a dark reflection of what both of her sisters could become. Anthea and Hespera want to solve their problem in a peaceful way, but if they would let their hatred and inner darkness make them ambitious, they would've followed Kalypso's path. Anthea is basically a selfless heroine, but if she wouldn't have courage to stand up to Kalypso, she would've probably been darker than she is.
