Who's This? A duplicitous godling.
The facts: Vaguely based on Dolos, the Greek god of deceit and lies (as only recently suggested by the Wonder Woman 1984 movie and confirmed in last year's Wonder Woman #788), the Duke first tangled with Wonder Woman way back in #2 of her original series (Fall of 1942) and appeared some 2 dozen times in that book and in Sensation Comics. The Silver Age made him a green-skinned Martian as the title took a sharp turn into science-fiction. The (Earth-1) Bronze Age version of the Who's Who entry (first appearance given as May 1975's Wonder Woman #217) wears a tuxedo, and that's him in the Who's Who entry but in the Golden Age armor. Weird. Not used by George Perez in the WW reboot, he from then on had very few appearances, until a new version was introduced in The Legend of Wonder Woman digital series in 2016, as a pretty buff champion of Ares and Hades.
How you could have heard of him: If this last project wasn't on your radar, maybe you saw him in the equally-digital Scooby-Doo Team-Up #9-10 (2014)?
Example story: Wonder Woman #66 (May 1954) "The Olympics of Terror!" by Robert Kanigher and Harry G. Peter
I can't believe Harry G. Peter is still drawing Wonder Woman in that same retro style as far ahead as 1954, but here we go! Our story begins with athletes of Olympic calibre vanishing into thin air. The thin Greek connection makes the authorities (well, Steve Trevor) put Wonder Woman on the case, of course. She immediately encounters a Martian spaceship that seems responsible and is captured. We. Need. That. Bondage. Moment!
See, in this series, Mars isn't just a planet, it's the seat of a god (Mars AKA Ares), and therefore, the minor gods he's associated with, like the Duke here. And there are weird alien races on each of the Solar System's planets as well. Don't question it too much. The Duke represents Mars, one of the planets we KNOW to have a people on it (or are J'Onn's Martians all presumed dead at this point?). His plan is to have these planets' athletes compete against humanity's best to see if alien invasions would be easy or hard. The Duke hopes to foster war by showing the aliens we're eminently beatable. In fact, he's drugged our athletes so they lose. So Wonder Woman invokes Martian law and challenges all the alien champions herself.
The Duke of Deception postpones the games for a day so he can rig the system, obviously, and I do wonder that anyone trusts him given that's his title and they use it freely. But who can think about these logic questions when the next panel introduces a Jovian champion who is a pole vaulting space kangaroo?!
All the odder because, in this era, the Amazons ride kangaroo-like animals. Just one of Peter's favorite things to draw? The Duke has however made the local gravity as strong as Jupiter's (well, triple ours, which isn't good science), but Wonder Woman finds a way out. By Martian law, the kangaroo is destroyed even if we don't see it. Best not to think about it. Next is a swim meet in molten lava in which she uses her bracelets in a most unusual way.
She molds them back into shape afterwards. Best not to think about it. She beats the Mercurian. Now for a twist! The Duke himself decides to compete in the discus challenge.
He's no athlete, but Wonder Woman is perhaps the best there ever was.
Well, don't CATCH it! Perhaps this is why Martian law isn't immediately enacted on the Duke to destroy him (best not thing about it), but it means the other planets do NOT join his alliance and do NOT attack Earth. Diana returns home with the kidnapped athletes so they can go back to earning medals.
The Duke of Deception is the Wonder Woman equivalent of an annoying imp from the 5th Dimension, putting her through various tests and situations, but also her equivalent of a mastermind character whose whole raison d'être is to trick, trap and defeat her. I actually like this whole notion of the Greco-Roman gods ruling over planets, and Wonder Woman certainly lived in a more magical universe than most of DC's other heroes. This story goes halfway, with aliens races instead of, you know, Hermes/Mercury's forces or whatever. But as a more science-interested Silver Age of comics took hold, I can see how such a character would have slowly lost his meaning.
Who's Next? An evil Howdy Doody.
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