The upcoming Shazam! Fury of the Gods will not be introducing one villain, but a whole trio of them. The Daughters of Atlas are set to wreak havoc on Earth thanks to an ancient grudge, and it’s up to Billy Batson, a.k.a. Shazam, and his foster brothers and sisters to stop them.

Helen Mirren (Hespera), Lucy Liu (Kalypso) and Rachel Zegler (Anthea) are set to star as the formidable trio, but the big names don’t necessarily equate to character recognition. The Daughters of Atlas aren’t exactly well-known villains, even among a number of comic book readers. To get you primed before seeing Shazam! Fury of the Gods, here’s what you need to know about the movie’s villains.

The Daughters Of Atlas Are Inspired By Greek Deities

Like many characters in comics, the Daughters of Atlas are inspired by mythology, and, also like many characters in comics, their depiction takes a number of liberties from the mythological source material. In Greek mythology, the Titan Atlas had a number of offspring. Three of those offspring were the Hesperides, a trio of daughters who guarded the tree of golden apples in their garden. Additionally, Atlas’ daughter Calypso was the nymph who seduced Odysseus. While the inspiration is there, clearly, the DC characters are much changed from their mythological origins.

The Comic Book Origins Of The Daughters Of Atlas

In the comics (and in Shazam! Fury of the Gods), Hespera, Kalypso, and Anthea are the Daughters of Atlas. After the war of the Titans, Atlas was condemned to hold the world on his shoulders for all eternity, and at some point, his power of stamina was transferred to the wizard Shazam, who, in turn, gave those powers to Billy Batson, Those who read the comics or have seen the first movie know that Shazam isn’t a name as much as an acronym made of the first letters of the gods from whom Billy derives his powers: Solomon (wisdom), Hercules (strength), Atlas (stamina), Zeus (power), Achilles (courage), and Mercury (speed).

Unfortunately, that makes Billy a target for Hespera and her sisters. “Children stole the power of the gods,” Hespera tells Billy in one of the trailers. Clearly, she and her sisters believe that it is Billy and his siblings who stole the power that should rightfully belong to the gods, bringing about the downfall of their father, Atlas, and the rest of the Titans. Their rage and thirst for vengeance take them to Earth, where they seek the downfall of humanity for stripping the gods of their power.

The Powers Of The Daughters of Atlas

According to the official DC write-up, Helen Mirren’s Hespera is “The eldest Daughter of Atlas and Guard of the Tree of Life, Hespera comes to Earth seeking retribution for the death of her father and fellow gods.” Lucy Liu’s Kalypso, meanwhile, is “the deadliest of Atlas’s Daughters, and Guard of the Tree of Life, Kalypso holds the Power of Chaos. She whispers terrible, maddening, mind-controlling utterances to mortals in her bid to take revenge on the humans who destroyed the gods.” The youngest of them, Rachel Zegler’s Anthea, is the “quiet, mysterious new girl at school who befriends Freddy Freeman is actually the millennia-old goddess Anthea, Daughter of Atlas. With the Power of Axis, Anthea can rotate the earth beneath her feet, sending all those around her into a spin.” Clearly Billy Batson and his siblings have their work cut out for them.

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