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As the foundational premise of Wonder Woman is a Perspective Flip on how the Ancient Greeks thought of the Amazons from Classical Mythology, this is to be expected but sometimes it's just plain old Artistic License


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Comics

    Volume One (1941)  
  • The Golden Age stories played fast and loose with mythology, with Olympians often presented alongside Casual Interplanetary Travel that made it seem they could just as easily be aliens as gods. Also a case of Ancient Grome as they're just as likely to be called by their Roman names as their Greek ones.
  • Aphrodite is treated as the Amazon's peaceful Top God while the classical Aphrodite was considered someone to fear and was a very jealous goddess. She also had next to nothing to do with the Amazons. Her lover Ares/Mars was considered their "father" and the literal father of Hippolyta as the consort of their previous Queen — as Ares was the god of war, he was seen as the most immediately relevant to warrior tribe. Aphrodite herself did not have direct contact with them and was not one of the gods they were considered to worship.note  And Hippolyta held the favor of Ares instead of being his enemy, as for all of his faults Ares was described as being a good father.
  • On the same note the Amazons as a whole had Ares' favor bestowed on them since he was consort to one of their queens, and tended to be referred to as the daughters of Ares (though only Queen Otrera's daughters were truly his children). Here he is almost always their bitter enemy.
  • Eros was stated to have been given to mission to beautify the world with love, which performed dutifully before losing his way and becoming a winged terror representing the more destructive side of love compared to the constructive side Aphrodite represented. While mythological Eros could indeed by helpful and altruistic, he always caused more harm, and Aphrodite was no better or worse than he was, simply being less direct in her methods of helping or harming.
  • Athena/Minerva never shows up, but is attributed as the goddess of wisdom and craftsmanship. While these have basis in myth she was first and foremost the goddess of war, and her wisdom is of a tactical nature which is not considered a part of her portfolio here; associations with crafts and scholarly wisdom were more characteristic of the Roman Minerva.
  • Diana/Artemis has both of her most well known mythological aspects of hunting and the moon tied to her, but here she also lives on the moon and rules the local people. She's also no stronger than an Amazon, and seems to be even weaker and a less impressive fighter than Diana of Paradise Island.
  • Mars is treated as the brutish ruler of an oppressive kingdom on the planet Mars and hates women and Aphrodite. In mythology, while he was definitely an aggressive and dangerous god, he was also Aphrodite's most consistent lover and risked himself to aid her.
  • Mercury/Hermes is presented as the god of speed, rather than travelers, thieves and messengers.
  • While Pluto's weapon makes it clear he's inspired by the mythological one, the odd ruler of the planetoid is not even presented as related to the Olympians and instead seems to be an alien that eats abstract emotions and memories.

     Volume Two (1986)  
  • Ares as a War God usually gets hit with this an enemy to Diana's All-Loving Hero but it's a particularly hard one in George Pérez's reboot. Here it is he who drives Heracles to attack the Amazons rather than Hera, although her driving Heracles mad is given a mention. This means Ares orchestrated the rape and enslavement of his own daughters from the original Greek myths, which goes quite contrary to his mythological counterpart for whom his dedication to his children was his only redeeming quality. For mythological Ares the rape or attempted rape of his children was also a Berserk Button, and he didn't much get on with Heracles since the hero killed one of Ares' murderous cannibalistic children.
  • Hera and Iris forcing Lyssa to help them drive Heracles mad is Adapted Out of all DC Comics. Heracles being cured of his insanity and rage by Omphale during his twelve labors is also left out.
  • The Amazon daughter of Ares said to have led a contingent of her people to Troy was Penthesilea in the myths, not her sister Antiope.
  • Heracles of myth did not attend the battle of Troy, he was already dead (and/or ascended to Olympus) by the time that mess started.
  • The Areopagus is a rock to the northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, not Ares' private Mordor. Ares does have an abode in mythology outside of Olympus, a dread palace decked in iron in the Balkans (then called Haemus) which is said to weaken light and be guarded by Phobos (fear), Deimos (dread), Eris (discord), Impetus (passion), Insidia (treachery), Nefas (mischief), and the Irae (angers), rather than just house Ares, Harmonia, Phobos, and Deimos like DC's Areopagus.
  • The amazons were not a race of divinely gifted immortals but a nomadic nation of mortal women who maintained their numbers through regular mortal births, most commonly through consensual sexual relations during periodic meetings with their male counterpart nation, the gargareans. There were a handful of demigoddesses among their ranks, most notably the daughters of Ares, Hippolyta the most notable among them, but even they still came from the wombs of mortal women. They were not the souls of slain women pulled from a mystical well that were given newer, stronger, eternally youthful bodies by The Olympians. Similarly, the gargareans were not the reborn souls of Greek heroes, just a tribe of men who shunned most non amazon women.
  • One of Demeter's titles was "Deo", which means Earth. Furthermore, some scholars think the "De" in her name is an abbreviation of this, meaning her name would directly translate to "Earth Mother" if true. Despite this Demeter was not the goddess of planet Earth, that was Gaia/Gaea. Demeter was the goddess of life and harvest, the "earth" here was referring to the dirt. It's an understandable mistake, but the gifts Wonder Woman gets from Gaea and Demeter should have been reversed, if being accurate to Classical Mythology was the intent anyway. Since Gaea's gift comes last it could just be a bit of pragmatism, to get Wonder Woman all her classic gifts directly from Olympians before other groups give to her.
  • DC Harmonia is presented as a clinically insane goddess who nonetheless brings forth peace. In Classical Mythology Harmonia was a major loser of the Super Power Lottery, being the only mortal daughter of Ares and Aphrodite with no special powers whatsoever. Her Roman counterpart, Concordia, was one of the most powerful deities in the pantheon, and is a prime example of why the Greek and Roman gods were often considered separate entities by worshipers during the heights of Hellenism. The amulet of Harmonia did have special powers, but it was not the Kryptonite Factor of Ares. He definitely would not want to be around it, because the amulet brought misfortune to all who came within arms reach of the thing!
  • It was Helios who fathered Circe with Perseis, not Hyperion, who was the father of Helios. Helios in fact seems to simply not exist in Post Crisis DC and barely existed in the Pre Crisis setting, being relegated to a single cameo. While mythological Helios was one of the least important gods, often getting into trouble just so stories in order to make other gods and even mortal heroes look better, he was nonetheless a constant presence, pulling the sun around the Earth and everything. As Helios was one of the Titans who stepped aside and Hyperion was among those who fought them to the bitter end, it should by Hyperion relegated to cameos as he eternally rots in Tartarus but because he at least has the reputation of a fighter Hyperion has made far more appearances in the various DC comics continuities than his son.

     Volume 3 (2006) 
  • The Children of Ares mock Wonder Woman and Power Girl for how they dress, which wouldn't make sense if the comic was more accurate to classical mythology, where several heroes wore far less than Wonder Woman or Power Girl, and the children's own father Ares couldn't be bothered to put on more than a helmet, maybe strap a shield to his arm.
  • Gail Simone's run introduced a long lost sister of Hippolyta, Astarte, While Hippolyta has several sisters from Greek mythology who haven't appeared in comics, Astarte isn't one of them. Simone's reason is more excusable, she was adapting a silver age villain whose name in life was Diana sister of Hippolyta and whom Diana was named and modeled after. Astarte is also a goddess of the Phoenician pantheon, who while promiscuous was also associated with justice, rendering this Astarte's rape rampage a tad out of character.
  • Phoebe is treated as the Titan goddess of the moon. In classical mythology Phoebe was a Collective Identity shared by Hecate, Artemis and Selene. Selene was the Titan moon goddess, but was usually too busy being the moon to do anything else, so Artemis and Hecate would either have to do things for her or take her place for awhile. For that matter, neither Hyperion nor Apollo were sun gods, but light gods. Helios was the Titan sun god, though much like Selene was usually too busy being that for anything else, so Apollo would often have to do things for him. There is a Titan named Phoebe separate from Artemis, Hecate and Selene, but by separate we mean she had nothing to do with the moon what so ever, being the goddess of seers who gifted Apollo the gift of gifting others with visions because she couldn't be bothered.
  • The Nemesis Wondy faces in Wonder Woman: Odyssey claims to be driven mad by her duty to get revenge for the wrongful/murdered dead. Mythological Nemeses deal out suffering to those who she considered to have too much happiness and good fortune in their lives, as a direct counter to Tyche (the goddess of fortune). She could be called on for revenge, but by jilted lovers not murder victims. The Furies are the ones who seek out punishment for wrongful deaths.

     Volume 4 (2011) 
  • Most Wonder Woman stories make The Amazons far too nice, being a Perfect Pacifist People rather than nomadic pastoral raiders or brigands from the landlocked stronghold of Themyscira. New 52 Wonder Woman skews too far in the opposite direction, by having The Amazons reproduce exclusively through seduction or rape, killing the fathers and sons while only keeping the daughters. While mythological amazons would inevitably end up leaving their husbands and sons behind, they could indeed have healthy relationships with men. The Amazons were often villainous and were guilty of slave trading, kidnapping, rape and the culling of male children but this was not meant to typical Amazon behavior as it was a demonstration they could be as bad as any other human society. The Golden Age Wonder Woman stories are the closest so far to classical mythology, as they began as a warring nation that would form alliances with male armies, then became more pacifistic and settled on an island devoid of all men, though it still veers into "too nice" territory.
  • New 52 also completely does away with The Gargareans, The Spear Counterpart nation to The Amazons, in favor of having a surviving group of "amazon brothers" that Wonder Woman attempts to integrate into their society. Granted, Golden Age and Silver Age DC neglected to give them a male counterpart group at all, while Post Crisis DC Gargareans were still as unfaithful to classical mythology as the amazons were. In classical mythology Amazons and Gargareans were each other's most consistent mates, with them periodically meeting to have children, and sending any other male or female children who they couldn't find homes for to the other tribe. Both the slaughter of male babies and drama over integrating the amazons brothers would have been seen as highly unusual and largely unneeded by classical Amazons.
  • A big deal is made of a prophecy about one of Zeus' children taking over Olympus and it turns out to be the "First Born". As the name implies, this "First Born" is a child of Zeus and Hera and Zeus tries to kill the child when he learns of the prophecy, however in the original mythology it was Zeus's son with the nymph Metis that would overthrow him. This leads to Zeus eating Metis, as in classical mythology gods were immortal and could only be "killed" by halting their births, Zeus reasoning Metis couldn't conceive inside his bowels. She instead used Zeus's own body to complete conception and pushed the child up to Zeus's head. When Athena erupted from Zeus's forehead, he was relieved, as a daughter meant the prophecy had not yet come to pass. Wonder Woman (1987) does a better job of this, by having Athena usurp Zeus down the line anyway, still there are myths of Athena teaming up with Poseidon and Hades to try and overthrow Zeus, and in these myths the trio fails. In some recorded stories Athena is the most loyal of the twelve Olympians to Zeus as king, in spite of her misgivings towards his decisions as ruler. In takes were Zeus gets any help during his fights Typhon, Athena is the only Olympian brave enough to stand by her father and ends up holding off Typhon's wife Echidna, or his ally of convenience Eris, so Zeus doesn't get ganged up on.
  • Mythological Eros is either the son of Ares and Aphrodite or a primordial god, older than the Titans, not Hephaestus' son.
  • While the consent involved in the beginning of Persephone and Hades' relationship is unclear in the original myths, (her father gave her to him which was as much consent as the Greeks needed) by the time heroes were coming to Hades to try and make bargains they had one of the most solid and equal marriages of the gods and Hades allowed Persephone to make decisions on how to run Hades and to make bargains with their visitors. This version of Persephone was so devastated and unhappy with her unequal marriage with Hades she killed herself.
  • Mythological Artemis was the virgin goddess of virgins, and took pleasure in finding creatively cruel deaths for those who saw her naked form, DC's crush on her brother and exhibitionist ways are comic original.
  • Apollo tortures the First Born by roasting and eating him alive. Problem here is that The Olympians despised cannibalism, due to associating it with their father Cronus, who ate them to extend his reign. The only exceptions among the Olympus Twelve were Zeus, and even then it's one of the few crimes the entitled jackass actually regretted, as well as Demeter, and even then only because she was too stricken with grief at the time to notice cannibalism was taking place while the other eleven Olympians were full of shock and wrath at the sight.

     Volume 5 (2016)  
  • This volume introduces Aphrodite and Hermes' child Atlantiades/Hermaphroditus, however it turns him into the child of Aphrodite alone while still claiming his name Atlantiades comes from being Atlas' great-grandson despite Hermes being the one of his parents descended from Atlas due to G. Willow Wilson mistaking Aphrodite's mother Dione from those few mythological sources that claim Zeus as Aphrodite's father as a different Dione from mythology who was Atlas' daughter.
  • Eros openly works for Hera and puts up with much abuse from her to achieve his own goals. In classical mythology the Erotes as a whole and Eros especially were notorious for their lack of respect for the other gods, with the exceptions of Aphrodite, Ares for being Aphrodite's lover, and their own personal families such as Eros's wife Psyche. It didn't matter if another god or goddess was more powerful than an Erote either, as their immortality rendered any backlash to the mischief they wrought Worth It.

     Comics — Miscellaneous 
  • Of particular note is Ares' relationship to Hippolyta. In the original myths he was her father, but the comics are inconsistent about her parentage. This is particularly squicky in comic versions where he has a thing for Hippolyta, especially since he was one of the few Olympians who was usually a decent parent in the myths and the comics.
  • One of the most amusing alterations for Wonder Woman is that the mythological Amazons were purported to be the inventors of pants and were nearly always depicted wearing them, while the Amazons of DC dress in Greek inspired togas and other leg baring fashions, despite the Greeks always depicting them as semi-barbaric foreigners — in Greek and Roman culture, pants were barbarian clothes; civilized people left their legs bare.
  • Something no comic book ever touches on is ancient scribes often describing amazons cutting off one of their breasts in order to shoot arrows better. Tropes Are Not Bad in this case, as several female archers throughout the historical record have proved this procedure to be unnecessarynote .
  • According to Homer, Circe was a goddess opposed by Hermes, which makes her a natural enough opponent for the amazons, who worship Hermes in the golden age comics, but they instead present Circe as a mere sorceress using magic to extend her life, and make her beef with Wonder Woman come from Hippolyte banishing Circe from the planet Earth as punishment for Circe's misdeeds. Since DC's amazons are an island culture this does make since they'd run into Circe at some point but in classical mythology Hippolyte and her amazons had nothing to do with Circe. In the Silver Age Circe wants to kill Wonder Woman after hearing a prophecy that Wonder Woman will kill her, but in The Odyssey it is specifically stated Circe can't actually be killed, only startled by forceful defiance, and that she would "reward" mortals who managed to get past her magic to physically threaten her. Post Crisis Circe is a despotic villain who wants to ruin the entire world out of spite and or amusement. She is directly responsible for ending the peace Theseus and Antiope bridged between the wandering amazons who became the Bana-Mighdall tribe and the Greek city states and wants to render Wonder Woman Deader than Dead in the modern era to ensure her reign of terror never ends. While Circe was an antagonist in The Odyssey, Circe was just a territorial island goddess who punished trespassers on her territory, with no grand designs on the rest of the planet. There are other stories where a jealous/envious Circe curses other women for starting relationships with men she wanted, even turning the sea nymph Scrylla into the fearsome sea monster, but that's still a far cry from the malice of DC's Circe. DC Rebirth updates Circe's look by dressing her in business casual attire, but the problem here is that Circe was said to have an aversion to shoes.
  • Crosses over with Artistic License – History in Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons but during the confrontation between the Gods and Goddesses on Olympus, Hera and Ares both invoke the Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides when arguing over the treatment of women in Ancient Greece. Herdotus wrote about the Amazons in his histories and this scene is set before the Amazons are even created.

     The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016) 
  • Penthesiliea of myth died defending Troy not Themyscira, and only went to Troy after killing one of her sisters (usually Hippolyta or Antiope) in a hunting accident or accidentally in battle against Theseus so all of her sisters surviving her is also not true to the myths.
  • Normally in mythology it is Antiope who was wed to Theseus rather than Hippolyta, and while there are versions of the tale where it was Hippolyta her sister Antiope gets no mention and doesn't exist in those versions.
  • An In-Universe example is actually provided, Diana is repulsed by the way A Midsummer Night's Dream depicts her mother's betrothal to Theseus.

Other Media

     Wonder Woman (2009) 
  • Hades seems to be reviled and looks and behaves more like an overweight Bacchus than the impartial ruler of the underworld. Then again some Orphic texts do equate both gods.
  • The Amazons of myth were called the Daughters of Ares due to his favor of them, their warlike nature and the fact that he acted as consort to one of their queens. Hippolyta was his actual daughter with said queen and, like all his children, under his fierce protection should she ask for it. She was not someone he'd have attacked and raped as in the film, especially since Ares is one of the few in the Greek pantheon who doesn't have any famous tales of non-consensual relationships and supposedly caused the first ever murder trial when he killed one of Poseidon's sons for trying to rape one of Ares' daughters.
  • While Zeus in the film actually saved Ares, in mythology he hated Ares and laughed him off whenever he tried to ask for help and considered him an embarrassment and tattle-tale.

     Wonder Woman (2017) 
  • The Amazons in myth were not created by Zeus.
  • Ares did not kill all the other Greek gods. Zeus was mightier than all the other Greek gods combined, and Ares was a particularly ill-favored god among the Greeks, causing him to often get embarrassed or defeated in their myths. In fact, the story given in the movie, Ares killing his father and the other divine predecessors to make way for a new pantheon is a lot more like Zeus' own rise to power against the Titans.
  • Ares was also one of two gods of warnote : for the Greeks, he represented physical strength, valour, anger, and violence, far from the scheming planner of the film.
  • Humankind was created by Prometheus, who later tricked Zeus into accepting bones and fat from animal sacrifice so that humans would be able to keep the meat, and stole fire from Zeus on humankind's behalf. Zeus was actually behind the plan to release evil upon humankind with the whole Pandora thing, rather than being the beneficent father-creator god described by Hippolyta.

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