Antiope (comics)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Antiope
| Antiope | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Antiope, in the fictional DC Comics universe, was the Amazon sister of Queen Hippolyta, and aunt to Wonder Woman. She is the founding member of the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall, whom they worship as a sacred ancestor.
Contents |
[edit] Origin
In current continuity, Antiope 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 Aegean Sea. The souls then began to 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: hunting skills (Artemis'), wisdom (Athena's), warm homes (Hestia's), plentiful harvests (Demeter's), and beauty inside and out (Aphrodite's). As a symbol of their leadership titles, the gods gave Hippolyta and Antiope each a Golden Girdle of Gaea which enhanced their strength and abilities significantly. The Amazons eventually founded the city of Themyscira in Anatolia and became known as fierce warriors of peace in Turkey, Greece and Rome.
[edit] Phthia
During the height of their reign, Antiope and Hippolyta came across a mother and daughter on horseback. The older diseased woman introduced herself as Queen Hypsipyle, and her daughter as Princess Phthia. They ruled the island of Lemnos in a matriarchal society similar to the Amazons of Themyscira. They explain that the Argonaut Jason landed his ship Argo on their island and eventually fathered twins to the queen, a son and daughter. Phthia was their daughter. After Jason continued with his adventures, leaving the Queen to her own devices, the Queen's subjects rebelled against her rule. They killed her infant son and cursed her with leprosy. They then banished the former Queen and Princess from Lemnos and they wandered the land, eventually settling in Nemea. Eventually the soothsayer Calchas met up with the queen telling her that she must return to Lemnos, escorted by a Warrior Queen, so that a lesson could be learned. Antiope and a group of Amazons agreed to escort the former Queen in order to discover what truth would be revealed for Antiope as well. Her sister Hippolyta returned to Themyscria. When they arrived they discovered that the women of Lemnos had long since died, perished by their own hands as internal wars consumed the Lemnos women. At discovering this Hypsipyle died of grief. Antiope adopted Phthia as her daughter and the two of them formed a bond as if blood related.
[edit] Fall from grace
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 stealing their Golden Girdles of Gaea. When Herakles first approached the Amazons seeking battle, Hippolyta and Antiope met him outside the city gates and tried to reason with him for peaceful negotiations. When this did not work and Herakles attacked Queen Hippolyta 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 stealing Hippolyta's Golden Girdle and abusing and raping the Amazons, Hippolyta cried out to Athena to help them escape their bonds. Athena said that she would only aid them on the condition that the Amazons not seek retribution against Herakles and his men as that would be beneath the ideals the Amazons were created to stand for. 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 filled with hate and revenge. Breaking Hippolyta's oath to Athena, the Amazons began slaughtering their captors but were upset to find that Herakles and his general Theseus had returned to their homelands. After the slaughter Athena reprimanded the Amazons for disobeying her orders. She demanded the Amazons serve penance for their actions. Though Hippolyta agreed to the goddess' wishes, Antiope scoffed at Athena for being angered at them for killing their rapist captors. Antiope then denounced all ties to the Olympian gods and said goodbye to her sister Hippolyta, giving Hippolyta her Golden Girdle of Gaea to replace the one stolen by Heracles. She left for Greece, along with half of the Amazon Nation who supported Antiope in her new quest to battle Herakles and Theseus out of vengeance and to replace Antiope's girdle with Hippolyta's.
[edit] Life in Greece
Upon her arrival in Greece she met up with Theseus who, surprisingly, had fallen in love with the Amazon Queen. Though it angered her faithful Amazons, Antiope received a change of heart for Theseus as well and fell in love with him in return. The two married, combining both Theseus' forces with Antiope's Amazons. Though together they formed a mighty army, the Amazons did not sit well with the pairing as they were the same men who had raped them in their Turkish city of Themyscira and as they did not receive respect from Theseus' men. Phthia especially was against the marriage as it resembled the beginning of the cursed life her own birth-mother lived with her husband Jason. Still she respected her adopted mother's wishes and grudgingly accepted their marriage. During their marriage Antiope gave birth to her son Hippolytus, three thousand years ago. As Antiope was able to provide Theseus with a male heir, Theseus' former wife Ariadne became very jealous and bitter. She sought out the help of the witch Circe to seek revenge. Circe transported Ariadne into the Queen's bed chambers where she killed Queen Antiope in her sleep. Seeking to further tarnish Antiope's name, Ariadne falsely make it look like Antiope was killed by her adopted daughter Phthia. Word of Antiope's death, and the false accusation of Phthia, reached the Amazons and they freed their princess from Theseus' dungeon, leaving Greece forever along with Hippolyta's previously stolen Golden Girdle of Gaea taken by Heracles. Phthia carried on the Amazon rule in Antiope's place and the tribe of warriors later became the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall.
[edit] Antiope's legacy
Centuries later, Ariadne returned from the dead when Circe transplanted her soul into the body of the Amazon sorceress Magala, who had died casting a spell. Magala's passing had gone completely unnoticed by the other Amazons. It was later revealed during the Theymsciran Civil War that Ariadne had engineered the chain of events that led to the staging of a new contest, Artemis claiming the mantle of Wonder Woman and her eventual (but temporary) death, as well as influencing the Amazon High Council to send Hippolyta to Patriarch's World as the new Wonder Woman, informing the Bana-Mighdallians that she was the one responsible for Artemis' death, and aiding the Theymsciran separatists into inciting war with Bana-Mighdall. However this all came to an end when Ariadne was slain by Helena Kosmatos, the Golden Age Fury.
Upon the death of her sister Hippolyta, Antiope appeared in ghost form to her niece Diana to inform her that it is her mission to locate the remaining lost Amazon tribes throughout the world. Once this was done, Antiope and Hippolyta revealed that she and her sister would remain as ghostly watchers over Themyscira despite being servants to the god of the dead Hades.
[edit] Trivia
- When Hippolyta created her own daughter, Diana, she molded the infant in the likeness of her fallen sister. Thus, when Diana finally met her aunt in spirit form many centuries after Antiope's death, the two proved to look identical outside of hair color. During William Messner-Loebs' tenure on Wonder Woman, Antiope was depicted as having black hair in flashbacks, but this was retconned after he left the title. During the flashbacks Diana imagined herself in the body of her aunt. This probably explains the change in hair color.
- Because of Ariande's betrayal of Antiope, the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall created the word arianda to describe a person who can not be trusted.
- Antiope's son Hippolytus is the only known male that the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall hold in high regard within their culture.
- Over the centuries the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall have kept both Hippolyta's Golden Girdle of Gaea retrieved by Antiope as well as a bust made of Antiope during her lifetime as sacred relics.
- In the Wonder Woman television series Diana was shown to have had a cousin named Evadne played by actress Dorrie Thomson who also competed in the Contest to become Wonder Woman. This was the only reference to Diana having an aunt in that series.
