Veronica Cale

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Publication information
Veronica Cale
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Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Wonder Woman #196 (November, 2003)
Created by	Greg Rucka
In story information
Team affiliations	Cale-Anderson Pharmaceuticals Science Squad

Veronica Cale is a fictional character who has appeared in various comic books published by DC Comics. Primarily an enemy of Wonder Woman, the character exists in DC's main shared universe, known as the DC Universe. She was created by Greg Rucka in Wonder Woman v2, #196 (November 2003). Rucka has stated his intent as creating a "Lex Luthor for Diana".^[1]

1 Fictional character biography
2 Other versions
3 See also
4 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] Fictional character biography

Veronica Cale is a founding partner (with her friend Leslie Anderson) in Cale-Anderson Pharmaceuticals. Having worked hard to get to this position she resents Wonder Woman for finding acceptance in Patriarch's World so easy, and finds her message of peace simplistic, reasoning that it is easy to preach an end to conflict if you are a superstrong demi-goddess. When Diana writes Reflections, a study of Amazon philosophy, Cale uses selected quotations from the book to spin the media against her.

When the book's most outspoken critic loses a debate, she arranges to have him killed at a demonstration, making it look like the book's proponents are responsible. She also uses Doctor Psycho to inflame both crowds.

Cale is subsequently bound, gagged,and locked in a closet by Psycho who impersonates her for a brief period, before she is rescued by Wonder Woman. This does not change her opinion of the superheroine, but does have an influence on Dr. Anderson which Cale finds worrying.

She is later coerced by Circe into applying as legal guardian of Circe's daughter Lyta as a way of removing Lyta from the Amazon island of Themyscira. The process is stopped mid-way through once Ares kidnapps Lyta from the island, leaving Circe to abandon her scheme with Veronica Cale.

This story plot was to have a larger part in the Wonder Woman comic but was dropped due to the Infinite Crisis storyline. Cale's reaction to the media furore surrounding Wonder Woman's killing of Maxwell Lord and its consequences have not been recorded.

She resurfaces in Week 26 of 52 as one of the abducted scientists on Oolong Island (and the only female among the group). She suffers a breakdown after unleashing the Four Horsemen upon the Black Marvel family. When Black Adam comes after them for vengeance, she attempts to take the blame for it, walking out to confront the maddened Adam, but is subsequently entirely ignored.

Subsequently, she led the remaining mad scientists to form an independent collective. Their first problem is the return of the Four Horsemen of Apokilips. Cale ingests a semi-organic containment unit, and uses it to absorb the Horsemen's essences. She is later seen undergoing an operation to remove the unit.

[edit] Other versions

In a pastiche of Golden Age stories printed as a back-up strip in Wonder Woman v2, #200, Cale is reinvented as a perfume manufacturer called Veronica Callow. When Wonder Woman refuses to promote her new perfume, Callow tries to discredit Wonder Woman by creating a robot duplicate, Superba, who commits crimes.