New DC films are upon us, including Wonder Woman 1984.
And now that Wonder Woman has taken on Ares it’s time for a new villain to slide into
his place, hopefully one with more staying power.
Though I believe this to be true as the Cheetah persona is actually one of the oldest within
the DC universe.
Though Cheetah has been the codename for more than one supervillain over the years, the
one we’ll be seeing in the film is actually the second to adopt the mantle, Barbara Minerva,
an archeologist who came across the powers of the Cheetah during a dig where she encountered
the tree god, Urzkartaga.
Pledging herself to become his new bride, she was granted the powers of the Cheetah
by her new tree god husband.
Barbara continues to be one of the most famous Cheetah’s around and is known as a magical
super hero.
And while you think you might able to assume all the cat-like powers she has, I bet there
are at least a few that still might surprise you.
Join me as we explore some her lesser known powers and abilities as we count down the
top 10 powers you didn’t know Cheetah had.
And be sure to stick around till the end of this list where we will have some bonus content
coming your way.
Alright, let’s get counting.
10 Can Control Her Tail Separately
Basically Cheetah’s tail is like her having another limb.
And a long one at that.
Cheetah’s tail isn’t just used for agility and balance.
She has also used to before to grab things away from her enemies, trip them up, knock
them over and strangle them.
There is a lot of strangling that goes on with this tail, believe you me.
And while a tail might seem easy to wrest from your throat, turns out it’s not.
Both Superman and Wonder Woman have struggled in it’s grasp before, fighting to get free
of Barbara’s strangle tail-hold.
9 Strength
When people think of Barbara Ann Minerva as Cheetah they usually think of her agility,
her stealth and her speed.
Appropriately.
As these are all things that cheetahs in nature are also known for.
What people seem to forget is just how strong she is.
Even writers seem to forget this when they make it possible for her to be beaten by Catwoman
and Batman, who let’s be honest are not strong enough to tangle with her.
With her power imbued by magic, she is a very strong and dangerous villain.
We have seen her grapple with both Wonder Woman and Superman and easily hold her own
against Diana, even beating her from time to time.
Though there are usually some extenuating circumstances usually surrounding these scuffles.
Still the two have been judged to be almost equal when it comes to strength multiple times,
including when we saw the two women in a tug of war involving Wonder Woman’s lasso of
truth.
Can I also just point out that Cheetah was both tangled up and only using one arm at
the time as well while she held off Diana’s pull?
8 Speed (Force?)
Wait a minute?
Don’t we all know this one?
Well I mean you do, yes.
But do you know just how fast Minerva is?
And wait, did Minerva ever have the speed force?
Not exactly.
But she’s definitely been faster than a cheetah.
And a cheetah can go up to 120 kilometres an hour!
Which is around 70 miles per hour for those of you watching in the US.
She is usually measured at the same speed as Wonder Woman, the two women being deemed
even but still behind in terms of levels of speed when compared with Superman and the
Flashes.
At one point however, Barbara wanted to become even faster, to beat Wonder Woman and rival
the Flashes as a speedster herself.
She reached out Professor Zoom about this and although he explained he couldn’t just
lend her speed or help her tap into the speed force or speed energy of any kind, he did
offer to help her.
He trained her and explained what was holding her speed back was psychological.
That she would have to kill the previous Cheetah, Priscilla Rich to move forward.
It turned out he was right and we saw an even faster version of the Cheetah emerge.
One who was shown to almost rival Wally in speed in vol 2 issue 214 of Wonder Woman.
Until she kissed him.
7 Superhuman Durability
Her durability goes beyond what you might expect when it comes to a supervillain with
the powers of a Cheetah.
While being agile and dexterous enough to dodge blows, it seems that Barbara spends
more time taking hits than dodging them.
Which when she’s going up against members of the Justice League, seems like a sure-fire
way to get KO’d.
And yet she manages to hold her own.
She is durable enough to take a hit from Wonder Woman or Superman even and get back up and
at one point she was even hit with 50,000 volts of electricity and still continued on,
barely even phased.
If that isn’t superior resiliance, I certainly don’t know
what is.
6 Size Altering
During the events of Trinity volume one, Cheetah joined up with the Dark Arcana, a group of
villains each representing a card slash character from the Tarot and imbued with god-like powers.
Cheetah herself represented the Star and had many additional abilities at this time, including
size altering.
At one point a giant Cheetah rampages through a city where it seems she is also turning
the civilians there into cheetah-like creatures themselves.
5 Gun Proficiency
For those who are unaware, Cheetah was also part of the Suicide Squad.
Her time on the squad was brief but during it we got to see another side of Cheetah,
a villain who usually operates alone.
We got to see her working alongside a team and we got to see her armed in a way she isn’t
normally.
Cheetah usually prefers hand to hand combat, fighting with her claws, teeth and tail but
during her time on the squad we also learned that she can do much more than tear you to
bits with her bare hands, she can also mow you down with firearms as well.
While it remains somewhat of a mystery as to how she acquired such skills with firearms
during her time as an archaeologist, it’s fair to assume that Waller may have loaned
out someone to train up her squad in using various firearms, including Cheetah, making
her even more deadly.
And showing some growth since her introduction.
I remember an issue where she ran from gunfire.
Well she isn’t running now.
4 Magical Bite
Cheetah’s fangs aren’t just all show.
She often uses them in an aid to tear people apart so she can feed on their blood.
Her bloodlust comes as a punishment from the tree god, Urzkartaga, who grants Cheetah her
powers as her husband.
Because Cheetah was not a virgin when she became his bride, she now has a blood lust
to satiate as a result.
Not that this bothers her.
In fact she seems to revel in it.
But beyond using her fangs to help her feast on human and animal blood and flesh alike,
she has also proven just how tough and powerful her bite can really be.
Because her powers are also magical, she can actually break Superman’s usually impenetrable
flesh with them.
Bullets might bounce off of him but Cheetah’s teeth manage to sink in just fine due to her
abilities connection to magics.
3 Fly
Back to the Trinity event, as I said earlier, Cheetah was granted a great many additional
powers.
Another one that proved useful was her power of flight.
It’s weird but even the idea of flying cat, without Cheetah’s insane bloodthirst and
strength, kinda terrifies me.
It’s already frightening enough when your cat pounces on your toes in the middle of
the night.
Imagine if it could launch itself onto you out of midair at any time.
Yikes.
We see Cheetah flying around with her fellow Dark Arcana pals a few times in Trinity volume
one.
Also seeing her pal around and link up with Joker is another terrifying image we get from
this series.
2 God Killer
During Wonder Woman volume 5, during the Year of the Villain story arc, we saw Cheetah wield
the God Killer.
This is a sword that can transform into any weapon it’s user sees fit.
It is one of the only weapons powerful enough to kill a god.
It can’t be destroyed and can also absorb energy that is directed at it, dealing it
back with double the force.
In Wonder Woman, Cheetah used the blade to kill Aphrodite, dealing one of the greatest
blows to her foe, Wonder Woman.
Without Aphrodite there is a lack of love in the world, which provides almost a lack
of guidance and motivation to Wonder Woman who often fights in it’s name.
And this doesn’t just threaten her but this great loss of love threatens the entire world.
1 Cursing Claws
Cheetah’s fangs and claws aren’t just deadly because they are sharp and can tear
you apart.
They have also been shown to curse those they come in contact with.
In the New 52 we saw her use them to cast a magical curse on Superman which transformed
him into a ferocious cheetah-like creature.
Barbara was able to use him against the Justice League as a result of his transformation.
We also saw a version of Cheetah in Justice League Doom cause Wonder Woman some grief
with her curse abilities.
She didn’t transform Wonder Woman however but she did cause her to hallucinate, making
Wonder Woman see cheetahs at every turn, believing that innocent people around her were actually
the ferocious spotted creatures known as cheetahs instead.
Thank you so much for watching, nerd squad.
I hope you learned something new about Cheetah.
Who are some of your favourite Wonder Woman villains?
Is Barbara your favourite version or is there another you prefer?
Are you excited for the new Wonder Woman 1984 film?
Let us know in the comments below.
I personally am super hyped.
And I’m contemplating setting up a Cheetah cosplay shoot involving some body paint to
commemorate one of my favourite feline villains.
Weee!
All the cats!
All the cosplay!
If you are as excited as I am about Cheetah, be sure to show some feline love by giving
this list a thumbs up.
This has been top 10 nerd, and I’m your host, Amanda McKnight, reminding you to stay
nerdy, YouTube.
Oh and watch out for that bonus content.