The following contains spoilers for Artemis: Wanted #1, on sale now from DC Comics.
Wonder Woman’s world has been total chaos recently and sometimes, literally. As well as Themyscira falling under attack from the Greek god Chaos, Diana herself has died, come back to life and found her own mother dead. That’s not even mentioning everything that’s been going on with Yara Flor, the new Queen Nubia, and the other Wonder Girls. It’s been so hectic that readers may not have noticed that Wonder Woman and her mother have just swapped roles in the DC Universe.
At the start of the Infinite Frontier era, Diana was dead. This led to a lot of changes in the world, one of the biggest being what her mother, Hippolyta Queen of the Amazons did. She gave her crown to Nubia and took her daughter’s place alongside the Justice League. Then, almost as soon as Diana came back to the land of the living, Hippolyta was killed by Artemis. The parallels don’t end there though, as proven in Artemis: Wanted #1 (by Vita Ayala, Skylar Patridge, Romulo Fajardo Jr. and Pat Brosseau), which followed what came next for the queen’s killer.
When the Wonder Girls finally caught up to Artemis, Donna was set to bring her to justice in a cruel and brutal way. That was, until Hippolyta herself appeared to absolve Artemis of the guilt. The now-dead queen explained what happened, and the conspiracy behind her murder, which both she and Artemis were a part of. How she was able to tell them all this from beyond the grave though? Simple, Hippolyta became a god.
After she died, she apparently ascended to Olympus, due to all her years of heroic service to the gods and the Amazons. There, she took her place as one of them. According to Hippolyta herself, she’s now the god who watches over all the Amazons. It seems this is a hard task involving a lot of politics, but it keeps her people from being vulnerable to the manipulative ways of the Greek Pantheon, as they have been for centuries.
This is actually the role that her daughter, Diana, was meant to take. After her death at the end of Dark Nights: Death Metal, she ascended like her mother. She was offered a place as part of the Quintessence, a group of powerful mystical beings from across the DC Multiverse. However, she rejected a life of rest and relaxation as a god, as her only desire was to serve the mortals of Earth as Wonder Woman.
When she rejected that offer, she was flung into the Godsphere, where Olympus is located, and found out that her ascension would have involved going there and becoming one of the Greek gods. This led to a conflict with Janus, who threatened the entire omniverse when she took the place Diana left vacant.
Now, that empty spot has finally been filled, and by Diana’s own mother no less. It makes sense that they would swap roles like this. Hippolyta only went to Man’s World out of necessity. She may have enjoyed being part of the Justice League, but she didn’t expect it. As well as that, she’s always been a queen first, rather than a hero. Politics is her strong suit. Diana, on the other hand, would have hated being a god. She would have constantly come down from Olympus to interfere, making her place up there useless. She was born to be Wonder Woman.
What Hippolyta got up to during her time in the Godsphere will be revealed in the upcoming comic Olympus: Rebirth #1 by Becky Cloonan, Michael W. Conrad and Caitlin Yarsky, releasing August 23rd. That will detail how she’s gotten on now that she’s left Themyscira for good. It’s an all-new status quo for the former queen, which strikes a balance between keeping her in the comics and allowing the Amazons to move forward with their brand-new future. This way, all of Wonder Woman’s supporting cast can play a vital role in the Amazons’ future, without any of them being pushed out or to the sidelines.