Hippolyta

Hippolyta: Prehistory - Present
The story of Hippolyta is a hard one to tell. Research on her has been scarce as she has no Facespace account, credit card history, or any real digital footprint to speak of. Using a search engine, you can find a bevy of the same information, regurgitated in thousand of ways, but those tell of her mythological figure and little of who she actually is, as a person. So, I had a sit down with Donna Troy and loosened her lips with some Martian wine (note to self: I still need to send J'onn a “Thank you” note). The highlights of what Donna had to say are below:

Before she was queen, Hippolyta was a young woman in a tribe made up of hunter and gatherers. Legend says she was the daughter of the God of War, but Donna assures me that such claims are false (which is reassuring but we’ll get to that later). Whatever the case, after the able-bodied men in her tribe were killed by raiders, Hippolyta established a nation called “Amazonia” somewhere in ancient Greece. There, she ruled as a respected warlady; keeping the company of gods and kings alike. Early on, Hippolyta swore fealty to the gods of Olympus in their bid to overthrown the Titans (the OG Titans, not Dick and his crew).

For this, Hippolyta was gifted with divine empowerment, including immortality. A few centuries later, Hippolyta fell from grace when Zeus sent his son Heracles to prove that Hera was wrong in her claim the Amazon queen could not be laid flat by a man (but in all fairness, Heracles didn’t beat her in combat, he only seduce her… and I can’t blame her, I mean, if the real Heracles looks anything like “The Rock”, as I picture him, then I would go weak in the knees, too). Humiliated in the eyes of her people, Hippolyta exiled herself to a mystical paradise originally meant as a haven for immortals alone. However, without Hippolyta, the Amazon clans soon split apart and began to fall to conflict. When she learned that Amazonia had fallen, Hippolyta came out of exile to broker a deal to save her people, asking Zeus to give her people rights to the island paradise. Zeus agreed for a price. In sealing the deal with Zeus (figuratively and literally), Hippolyta secured a future for her people and for herself, in the form of a daughter: Diana.

Links and References

 * Appearances of Hippolyta of Themyscira
 * Character Gallery: Hippolyta of Themyscira