Secret Origins – Volume 3 – 6

Synopsis

In her adolescent youth, Princess Diana of Themyscira engaged in sparring with Aleka, toeing the lines between rivalry, friendship, and something else. Aleka commented that despite their rivalry, they could yet still be friends, prompting Diana to warn that she has feelings that she fears Aleka wouldn’t understand – like her desire to leave Paradise Island. Aleka is taken aback – after all, Diana is princess of Themyscira. Sighing, Diana wonders that she is finally being called a princess, instead of simply clay.

The word became a tool for mocking her with the other Amazons, given that Diana had been told that she came from the clay. Her barren mother Hippolyta had been so desperate a child that she fashioned a child from the clay of the beaches on the island. This story had always made Diana feel an outside, rather than special – but she didn’t know the truth. Her mother had in fact coupled with the god Zeus. Diana was the daughter of divinity. Hippolyta still hid the truth, but out of love, rather than shame. If Hera were to discover the truth of Diana’s parentage, she would kill both the girl and her mother.

Though she seemed defeated, Diana still managed to defeat Aleka in their sparring, and as they lay in the sand laughing, she confessed that she had made up her mind to see the world beyond the island. How else could she become something other than a princess? Playfully, Aleka forbade it, and Diana laughed, until Aleka changed her tone to one more serious, reiterating her desire that Diana should not leave her. Sadly, Diana could only look at her with eyes that spoke her answer. With tears welling in her eyes, Aleka became angry, complaining of how easy it came to Diana to turn her back on her sisters – perhaps because she wasn’t one of them. She was merely clay.

That night, Hippolyta explained that man’s world was a treacherous place of one mind, though she offered to go with her for a weekend, if it was that important to her. As she lay in bed, Diana thought to herself that she could not be true to herself by staying. She tired of being ashamed of her heritage. To her surprise, she received a visit, then, from the goddess Athena, who explained that the struggle to balance facing who she was versus leaving her sisters was a worthy struggle. Though Diana would have to face that struggle alone, Athena wanted her to know that she had one god’s support, at least.

Meanwhile, Captain Steve Trevor was flying over the Bermuda Triangle when a sudden burst of wind sent his engines sputtering, and his plane careening down toward a mysterious island that he had not seen on any charts. When his plane crashed on Paradise Island, Diana was the first to the site. She discovered Steve, and intrigued by man’s world, she carried him back to the Amazons, believing him to be her ticket off of the island. As she faced resistance from her mother and her sisters, Athena reminded Diana of the faith she had in her.