Wonder Woman I

Wonder Woman (I)

Secret Identity:Queen Hippolyta

Aliases:Corporal Polly Prince. US Army Intelligence

First DC2 Appearance:Wonder Woman Issue 0

Status:Deceased hero

Base of Operations:Themyscira, Paradise Island (As Queen of the Amazons), Washington, D.C. (as Wonder Woman)

Occupation:Queen of the Amazons (as Hippolyta), founding member of the JSA (as Wonder Woman), secretary to General Joseph “Glory” Jones (as Polly Prince)

HT:5’11’’

WT:145 lbs

Eyes:Brown

Hair:Brown

Powers and Abilities: Unlike her daughter Diana, Hippolyta was not born with the special blessings of the Olympian gods and goddesses, yet she paved the way for her as the first Wonder Woman, chosen to help save mankind from itself during the dark days of WWII. Like all Amazons, Hippolyta wore the silver bracelets of their former bondage, but she also wore the silver Girdle of Gaea, which bestowed upon her great strength and invulnerability, and upon her breast she wore the eagle aegis of Hermes, which granted her the power of flight.

History: In the Pre-Homeric Age, Hippolyta, along with her twin sister Antiope, ruled over the ancient tribe of Amazons, a race of women devoted to the worship of the goddesses of Olympus and granted immortality by them. They were to be set apart as paragons of the world, models of virtue and examples of the promise of mankind. But mankind had a long way to go. The Amazons were beset by the greed and weaknesses of man, and often caught in the machinations of the Olympian gods. In addition to the arts of healing and science and craft, the Amazons were forced to learn the ways of war to survive, and soon could claim the reputation of the finest and fiercest warriors of the ancient world.

The pride of the demigod Heracles and his companion Theseus caused them to seek out the Amazons, and to measure themselves against their queens. By cunning, the Amazons were conquered and made slaves for a time, and ever after wore the shackles of their slavery so that they would never forget the perfidy of man, and always remember the sacred necessity of their mission.
But not all Amazons felt the same about their mission. Hippolyta and her followers felt that man was not ready to embrace the Amazon message of Peace and Truth and Love, and chose to withdraw from the world until such time as man needed them again, while Antiope and her followers chose to dwell among man and revenge the wrongs done upon them.

It was a bitter parting for the sisters, as they had a great love between them, more poignant for the fact that Antiope would soon be slain by the Amazon’s great enemy, the Minotaur.

Hippolyta led her sisters to the island paradise set aside for them by the goddesses of Olympus, but their new home was not a gift--- the Amazons were charged with guarding Doom’s Doorway, the passage to Tartarus, that kept the ills of Pandora’s Box from spilling over into the world. On the island, the Amazons founded the city of Themyscira, and at Doom’s Doorway built the Bronze Gates to guard against the ever-present threat.

Foe millennia, Hippolyta ruled over a society devoted to the perfection of the human condition, science and the arts flourishing in Themyscira as they had nowhere else on earth. Truly, the Amazons exemplified the best in humanity.

There came a time when the gods decreed that the strength and leadership of the Amazons were again needed in a Man’s World on the brink of global war. Hippolyta took upon herself this colossal task, granted the Girdle of Gaea and the Eagle Aegis of Hermes, and presented herself in Man’s World as Wonder Woman!
There, she assumed the persona of Corporal Polly Prince, an MIA army nurse, and became the personal secretary of Army General Joseph Jones (WWI costumed hero “General Glory”), and as Wonder Woman helped to turn the tides of darkness during the Second World War. She became a founding member of the Justice Society of America, battling such foes as the Ultra Humanite, Per Degaton and Baron Blitzkrieg, keeping the world safe for Democracy, and spreading the Amazon message of Peace, Truth and Love. But again, mankind was not ready for the Amazon ideals. When the JSA disbanded in 1951, Hippolyta regretfully returned to Paradise Island, but nurtured within her the hope that one day man would be ready to realize their potential.

That fervent hope grew within her, and the goddesses of Olympus answered Hippolyta’s unexpressed prayer by quickening her womb with a child that bore their blessings. So it was that Hippolyta gave birth to the first child born on Paradise Island, a daughter she named Diana. And never had a child a more devoted and pleased mother, for Hippolyta knew that her daughter was indeed the hope of the world that she had nurtured in her breast after her return from war. But she was first a mother. And when the gods had decreed that a new Wonder Woman was to be chosen in a tournament, she could not bear to send her precious child into the world she had fought so hard to save, and yet had rejected her.

But Diana could not escape her destiny, and took up her mantle as the one true Wonder Woman, much to the fear and pride of her mother. It was under the auspices of Diana that Man’s World was first exposed to Paradise Island, and Hippolyta beseeched the goddesses to let fall the mystic veil that separated Paradise Island from the mortal realm. Eventually, she even allowed emissaries of Man’s World to step foot upon Paradise Island.

Though immortal, Hippolyta was not impervious to harm. When at last Doom’s Doorway opened and the Bronze Gate’s fell, the Minotaur, eternal enemy of the Amazons and slayer of Hippolyta’s own sister Antiope, led the Spawn of Uranus against the Amazons in a war of extinction that he pursued to the very walls of Themyscira itself. It was on a tall hill outside the city that the Amazon Queen fell to the blade of her oldest foe, joining her beloved sister at last in the Elysian Fields.

She was avenged by her daughter, Princess Diana, and her body reclaimed and given the proper funerary rites. And while it is Diana’s destiny to be the one, true Wonder Woman, she only carries on the legacy first realized by the courage and strength of her mother Hippolyta.