The warrior women who raised the legendary Wonder Woman on the mythical island of Themyscira,
and their history, are a crucial part of who the heroine is.
This is the history of DC's Amazons, explained.
Like many Golden Age comic creations, the Amazons in DC comics were pulled from mythology.
Early comics were fascinated with Egyptology and Greek myth, and the Amazons came directly
from the latter tradition.
In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a tribe of fierce warrior women frequently depicted
as living separately from other societies, particularly the men of other countries.
Some versions of the stories involving Amazons have them regularly meeting with neighboring
tribesmen at scheduled times, so that they can have children.
Only girls were raised by the Amazons.
The Amazons were ruled over by a series of queens who consorted with the gods of Mount
Olympus.
One famous queen of the Amazons was Hippolyta, the daughter of war god Ares , who was famously
killed during Hercules labors.
"Hello, Mother.
How are you today?"
In the DC Universe, Hippolyta is the co-ruler of the Amazons with her sister Antiope . She
is both the leader of the Amazons in Themyscira and the mother of Diana, aka Wonder Woman.
When psychologist and feminist William Marston was seeking out a perfect vector for his ideas
about women and society, the Amazons came tailor-made.
Looking around at the new generation of empowered women in the late '30s and early '40s, particularly
his wife and their partner in a polyamorous relationship, Marston saw the type of people
he believed should control society at large.
He created the comic book Amazons and their no-so-subtly named Paradise Island to share
his idea of what that better world could look like.
Marston, who used pen name Charles Moulton, wrote at the time,
"Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe,
rule the world."
Much in the same way that Superman represented the perfect distillation of American ideas,
Wonder Woman was an ambassador to "Man's World" in the comics and our own patriarchal society.
She was, quote, "beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena , swifter than Hermes, and stronger
than Hercules" to show all the things women can be.
And she had an entire island of intelligent and powerful women backing her up in a perfect,
man-free society.
The original Amazons of Marston's comics were created by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of
Love.
Aphrodite crafted these women from clay as ideals of beauty and love, and they ruled
peacefully over the nation of Amazonia.
The greatest society on Earth was found here, and the culture that flourished that was deeply
foreign to readers.
Amazonia was so perfect that the concept of crime did not exist.
Women of Amazonia were raised to be warriors, with nearly all of the Amazon women coming
to look like their classical Greek counterparts: fierce, tall, and skilled at fighting in the
off-chance that someone might try and take their country from them.
Marston also pulled from antiquity in his stories of outsider intrusion, bringing in
the classic story of Hercules, and showing it from the Amazonian angle, where he would
rightly be thought of as a monster.
The first major invasion of Amazonia by men was led by Hercules.
Though the Greek myth involved Hercules taking Queen Hippolyta's magic girdle as one of his
incredible labors, Marston depicted the god as a man shamed.
It was Hercules' pride that caused him to invade Paradise Island, as he grew tired of
hearing that he wasn't strong enough to fight the Amazons.
Like the myth, Hippolyta's girdle factored heavily into the confrontation.
The power it granted made her stronger than Hercules.
He was initially turned back by the Amazons, who then attempted to broker peace by having
a feast with Hercules and his men.
Hercules convinced Hippolyta to let him hold her magic girdle, which allowed him and his
men to capture the Amazons.
Aphrodite initially refused to help her creations, furious that they allowed themselves to be
fooled by a man.
However, Hyppolita's pleading eventually got through.
Aphrodite helped the queen get her hands back on the girdle and use it to overpower Hercules.
The Amazons took the fleet of their captors and sailed for a new home.
Aphrodite shepherded the Amazons to Paradise Island, which was later renamed for the mythical
homeland of the Amazons, Themyscira.
It's there that they agreed to live lives entirely separate from the larger world of
Man.
Aphrodite did not believe in destroying life as the goddess of beauty and love.
She made her followers swear that they would not seek revenge on Hercules as a condition
of their release.
Those who accepted Aphrodite's terms became the residents of Paradise Island.
All of the Amazonian women wore "bracelets of submission," symbols of their devotion
to Aphrodite and reminders of what waited for them outside of their island.
The warriors were raised from birth to view falling prisoner to a man as the gravest possible
outcome.
The iconic gold bands were a symbol of real-world women's status in society and the hope that
they would break out of oppressive systems.
The bracelets also had quite a bit to do with Marston's own affinity for bondage.
In all versions of Wonder Woman, there is discord among the royal family.
The original run of Wonder Woman comics portrayed Hippolyta's sister Antiope as a person who
was jealous of Hippolyta's rule.
She hatched a plan to overthrow her sister and was eventually killed in the continuity
resetting "Crisis on Infinite Earths" storyline.
After the Crisis, Antiope was rethought and made less of a schemer.
Still she differed from her sister in one crucial aspect.
Though Hippolyta was game to go along with the goddesses' wishes that they not seek revenge,
her sister was unwilling to forgive the torture, abuse and humiliation that she had suffered
at the hands of Hercules.
She leads a force of vengeful Amazons in the hopes of finding and killing the remaining
soldiers who sacked Themyscira.
This contingent eventually settles in the Middle Eastern desert.
For refusing the offer of the Olympians, these Amazons became mortal.
After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Amazons' origin story went in a grim new direction.
Following the general trend lines of '80s comic book writing, the primary-colored universe
of Golden Age Wonder Woman got a little dingier and a bit more violent.
The new origin story spread out the reason for their creation among several goddesses,
instead of the Goddess of Love who was their original ruler.
In the new continuity, a group of goddesses team up to create the Amazons, in defiance
of the wishes of Zeus and Ares.
In contrast to the frequently bleak Greek myths, and the all too human failings of the
Olympian gods, these goddesses wanted to create a pure force of good on the Earth.
These superwomen would uphold the ideals of love and peace in their own society, serving
as an example to all humanity.
As an extra bit of poetic justice, the Amazons were crafted out of the souls of women who
had met violent deaths at the hands of men.
In all versions of the Amazon story, Princess Diana, curious about life outside the island,
chooses to leave.
Wonder Woman was born on the island and is frequently depicted as the youngest Amazon.
In the original continuity, Wonder Woman is allowed to leave the island after fighter
pilot Steve Trevor crash lands there by mistake.
In line with the patriotic tone of comics at the time, the Amazons decided that Steve
must be returned so that he can continue to fight for the United States.
During George Perez's run starting in 1987, she has to leave the island to face the Amazons'
most bitter rival: Ares.
As the god of war, his destructive influence on the world and humanity runs counter to
all that the Amazons hold dear.
"As Amazons, this is our duty!"
In The New 52, Diana was revealed as the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta.
This ran counter to all previous incarnations of Wonder Woman, where she was formed from
the clay of Themyscira by her mother.
Her status as a demigod leads to further adventures in the Greek mythology and she leaves the
island both to train under Ares in order to take on the mantle of "War," and help her
half-siblings fathered by the notoriously promiscuous Zeus.
The New 52 also painted a lurid picture and controversial picture of Amazonian life.
The reboot established that Amazons left the island three times a century to mate with
men.
They would raid passing ships and conceive children with the men on board.
All of those men were then murdered to keep the island and its women safe from the outside
world.
This take rankled long-time fans, who thought it flew in the face of the idealized image
of the Amazons.
It was scrapped in the most recent DC Comics-wide reboot, dubbed "Rebirth."
Following "Rebirth," Diana's decision to leave was once again retconned.
She leaves with Trevor after winning a competition, but is told by her fellow Amazons that she
can never return to the island.
She decides to go anyway in the hopes of finding her long-lost twin brother Jason.
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