Hippolyta (DC Comics)

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Hippolyta as the 3rd Wonder Woman. Art by Phil Jimenez.

Queen Hippolyta is a DC Comics superheroine, based on Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons in Greek mythology.

Hippolyta was created by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter, and first appeared in All-Star Comics #8 (1942).

History

Hippolyta and the rest of the Themyscirian Amazons were first created by a select few of the Greek Gods, which included Artemis, Athena, Hestia, Demeter and Aphrodite. They took the souls of women slain throughout time by the hands of men and sent them to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The souls then began for form bodies with the clay on the sea bed. Once they reached the surface the clay bodies became living flesh and blood Amazons. The first one to break surface was Hippolyta and thus she was titled as Queen of the new race. The second Amazon to break surface was her sister Antiope and she ruled as a second to Hippolyta in all affairs. Each of the goddesses that created the Amazons blessed them with personalized gifts. Artemis blessed them with keen hunting skills, Athena blessed them with wisdom, Hestia blessed them with warm homes, Demeter blessed them with plentiful harvests, and Aphrodite blessed them with beauty inside and out. The Amazons eventually founded the city of Themyscira in Turkey and became known as fierce warriors of peace in both Turkey and Greece.

The jealous and vengeful god Ares soon after tried to discredit their name by having his half-brother demi-god Herakles invade the Amazons and demean their standing. When Herakles first approached the Amazons seeking battle, Hippolyta met him outside the city gates and tried to reason with him for peaceful negotiations. When this did not work and Herakles attacked the Amazon Queen using his strength to his advantage, Hippolyta easily turned the tables on him by using her wisdom and battle skills to subdue him. Still wishing peace, Hippolyta invited Herakles and his men into their city to celebrate a potential friendship with a feast. Hiding his anger, Herakles accepted the invitation. Once in their stronghold, Herakles]] and his men drugged the wine the Amazons were drinking and took them prisoner. After abusing and raping the Amazons, Hippolyta cried out to Athena to help them escape their bonds. Athena said that she would only on the condition that the Amazons not seek retrobution against Herakles and his men as that would be beneath the ideals the Amazons were to stand for upon their creation. Hippolyta hastily agreed and the Amazon's bonds were broken and the drugs given wore off. Once out of their drugged state the Amazons were fulled with hate and revenge. Breaking Hippolyta's oath to Athena, the Amazons began slaughtering their captures but were upset to find that Herakles and his general Theseus had returned to their homelands. After the slaughter Athena repremanded the Amazons for disobeying her orders. She demanded the Amazons serve penance for their actions. Though Hippolyta agreed to the goddess' wishes, her sister Antiope scoffed at Athena for being angered for killing their rapist captures and denounced all ties to the Olympian gods. Antiope then said goodbye to her sister Hippolyta and left for Greece, along with half of the Amazon Nation who supported Antiope in her new quest, to battle Herakles and Theseus out of vengance.

Hippolyta and her remaining faithful Amazons then went to the sea shore where the Olympian Gods told them their punishment for going against their ideals. They were to be given immortality so that they would forever safeguard a doorway to the underworld called Doom's Doorway. Not only must they protect anyone from entering, but they must also vanquish any evils that try to escape. The doorway was on a far-off isolated island and it would take some time to get there. To guide their way, the god Poseidon cleared a pathway for them across the seas. Once they arrived at the island the Amazons created a new city and named their new home Themyscira, after their previous fallen city. They continued to live on the island guarding Doom's Doorway, and paying homage to their gods, for 3 thousand years.

It was into this period of living on the island for millenia that Hippolyta began to ache for a child of her own. She prayed to her gods her secret wish and they responded. She was told to go to the sea shore and form the figure of a baby with the island's clay, which she did. The original goddesses again united to create a new Amazon for Queen Hippolyta. It was revealed that in her previous life Hippolyta was a pregnate cavewoman who was killed by her mate. The goddesses used the soul of this unborn child to fall into the clay body of the infant and, just as with the previous Amazons, the clay was changed into flesh and blood. Hippolyta named the child Diana, who was a stranger who was washed ashore on the island and helped the Amazons defeat a creature escaping Doom's Doorway with her life. Diana soon after became the hero Wonder Woman.

When Wonder Woman died in a tragic battle with the demon Neron, she was granted divinity as the Goddess of Truth. During her brief time as a god of Olympus, Diana was replaced in the role of Wonder Woman by her mother, Queen Hippolyta, who immediately got involved in a mission back to the 1940s with Jay Garrick. After this mission, she elected to join the Justice Society of America and remained in that era for eight years. When she returned from the past, Hippolyta took Diana's place in the JLA as well.

In Diana's absence, Hippolyta established a distinguished career. The Queen enjoyed her role in the Justice Society and became accustomed to life in the United States. Mother and daughter fought on several occasions over Hippolyta's true role — heroine or queen — and their differences were unsolved when the queen sacrificed herself to save the Earth from Imperiex during the Imperiex War featured in Our Worlds At War.