The Silver Swan is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media, commonly as a recurring adversary of the superhero Wonder Woman.

Capable of flight and possessing the superhuman ability to generate a devastating sonic cry, she first appeared in 1982 in Wonder Woman #288, written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Gene Colan.

The backstories of all three characters are inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Ugly Duckling: Alexandros, Beaudry and Kapetelis all believe in different ways that they are undesirable, unattractive or unwanted, only to find themselves transformed into extraordinarily beautiful (and vengeful) super-powered women.

Diana Prince comes upon a gang of bank robbers, and a new arrival, a flying, costumed female who calls herself the Silver Swan, helps her bring them in.

At that point, Mars appeared from Mount Olympus and revealed to Helena that she was a descendant on her mother's side from Helen of Sparta, daughter of Zeus and Leda.

Mars appears to the Swan and demands that she order Captain Wonder to send the Robot Plane crashing into the White House and thus murder the President.

Wonder Woman battles the Silver Swan and defeats her, and the Amazon manages to prevent her plane from smashing the White House and endangering President Reagan.

The Silver Swan reappeared in a battle arranged behind the scenes by the Monitor as one of the tests he launched to prepare for the coming multiversal crisis.

Eventually, thanks to Diana and her pen pal, Maxine Sterenbuch, who had formed a true friendship with her over the years, Valerie saw Armbruster for who he truly was and divorced him.

Valerie was last seen standing in an energy bubble, bound and gagged with restraints conjured by the briefly resurrected Hal Jordan.

As a joke, David wanted to name their unborn child "Nessie" after the local Scottish creature the Loch Ness Monster.

Deciding to make a fresh start, Julia took Vanessa to live in the U.S. where she eventually became the Dean for the Department of History and Geology at Harvard University.

Thus, using Sebastian Ballesteros (the latest Cheetah) as a lure, Dr. Psycho and Circe kidnapped Vanessa, and through brainwashing and sorcery, transformed her into a new Silver Swan.

Vanessa had become, effectively, a terrorist, but before Diana could attempt any resolution, the Imperiex attack and Circe's takeover of New York City occurred.

Coming to hate Wonder Woman for seemingly abandoning her, Vanessa used her nanites to create a twisted version of her Silver Swan costume and powers to go with it.

After receiving a distress call from a family that she had saved earlier, Wonder Woman traveled to their house only to find the Silver Swan standing over their corpses.

[16] Though she proves to be a formidable foe, Diana succeeded in defeating her by causing her to run out of breath from using her sonic scream, forcing her to revert to Vanessa.

[17] When the Sovereign conspired to turn the world against the Amazons, Sarge Steel recruited Silver Swan and several other villains to kill Wonder Woman.

Unlike the Pre-Crisis version, whose abilities were acquired supernaturally through the god Mars, the two Post-Crisis Silver Swans need their artificial wings to control their flight motion.

Once her mind snaps, the nanites (which are programmed to react accordingly based on Vanessa's thoughts) alter her physiology and grant her the cybernetic abilities to become Silver Swan, including a pair of functional wings.

In this form Vanessa can easily match Wonder Woman in a fight and is equipped with a pair of bionic wings which allow her to fly or use their razor-sharp edges to slice through targets.

The post-Rebirth iterations Nanites can also be used to hack any and every computerized mainframe in the world, Diana commenting her technological interfacing potentially could rival Cyborg of the Justice League.

She is then shown bound and gagged by Green Lantern in an emerald energy cell with the other villains, save Sonar who is caught in Wonder Woman's lasso.