Did I miss something? (Genesis)

[EMarie]

I'm going through some older issues and got the Genesis series which connects to some Byrne Wonder Woman stuff. But I'm confused. Merton comes in to warn the heroes of another player that wants to rival Darkseids' bid for power. He directs this bit at Donna, Hippolyta and Artemis.

Merton One whose name is well known to these three women...one of whom even calls him father.

Artemis Father...? No ! You can't mean...Ares !!!

Ares I hear you, I feel you, dear daughter.


And he goes on talking about gaining power. This mini series seems to be missing bits as Ares comes in late but I heard there was more in another series. New Gods, maybe? Has this bit about Artemis being Ares' daughter ever been mentioned elsewhere?

[Doctor Bifrost]

I'm going through some older issues and got the Genesis series which connects to some Byrne Wonder Woman stuff. But I'm confused. Merton comes in to warn the heroes of another player that wants to rival Darkseids' bid for power. He directs this bit at Donna, Hippolyta and Artemis.

Merton One whose name is well known to these three women...one of whom even calls him father.

Artemis Father...? No ! You can't mean...Ares !!!

Ares I hear you, I feel you, dear daughter.


And he goes on talking about gaining power. This mini series seems to be missing bits as Ares comes in late but I heard there was more in another series. New Gods, maybe? Has this bit about Artemis being Ares' daughter ever been mentioned elsewhere?

Don't know about Artemis. But in John Byrne's Wonder Woman run, after Diana gets killed and Hippolyta and the gods are agonizing over it, Ares mentions - rather casually - that he is, after all, Hippolyta's father. Instead of expressing shock and suspicion at this never-before-mentioned "fact," everybody sort of says, "Oh. Huh!" Then Zeus, realizing that Diana is his great-granddaughter, decides it only makes sense for him to make her a god, which will bring her back to life and grant her immortality.

This makes little or no sense relative to Perez's origin for the Amazons, which was still in continuity at that time. Was Ares the father of the pregnant cavewoman who was killed by her mate, and whose soul and the soul of her unborn child were then taken into Gaia's womb, and who was later reincarnated by the goddesses as the first Amazon (and the unborn child's soul later used to animate the clay statue that became Diana)? Well, that's... different. When and how did Ares find out, did he know when he was first fighting Diana, did any of the other deities know? Does Zeus bring all his mortal great-grandchildren back to life, or only the ones he really likes - and is being a descendent of Zeus a precondition for him bringing you back to life, or could he have just done it anyway?

None of this was ever addressed. (And I have some dim memory that Byrne tweaked other parts of the Perez origin. Hippolyta wasn't the eldest soul to become an Amazon, his new character Magala was. And that pregnant cavewoman? I think he said she wasn't pregnant, she was just fat...)

After Byrne left the series this all just faded away, which I was very happy to see.

(In many versions of the original Greek myths, Ares is the father of Hippolyta, an Amazon queen, and gave her her magic girdle. But Marston, of course, made a number of changes to the classical myths in order to create a more female-centric mythos, which was not a feature of ancient Greek society. Ares being Hippolyta's father was never a part of Wonder Woman's story, except for that brief period under Byrne.)

[Frank]

I think it was something Byrne was toying with, but he was nearing the end of his WW run, and this was never followed up on, like the "Artemis-Kanto" relationship that Byrne indicated but never really addressed.

[EMarie]

I was also baffled that the bit about Hippolyta making sure Artemis died in Diana's place has been ignored in this run. No one has called her out on it even Artemis, at least so far. I've read a little past Diana's goddess reveal but I'm thinking about not finishing it.

I noticed some things in Byrne's run that don't seem finished, explained or retcon other comics. Artemis and Kanto bit doesn't even seem to fit with canon given her history. I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss any issues explaining this so thanks !