Spike Spiegel
Member
Golden- and Silver- Age WW paid lip service to it for the most part, and used a jumble of Greek and Roman mythologies applied unevenly and interchangeably. For example, Mars and his children were some of Wonder Woman's earliest foes aside from Nazis and mobsters. But George Perez's reboot in the 80s was heavily rooted in Greek mythology, with the Olympic pantheon taking a direct hand in Diana's origins and making frequent appearances over the course of his run. In particular, Hermes became a major supporting character, more so than Steve Trevor in fact, and played a pivotal role in several story lines. The thing is, at that time the Olympians were very traditional in their depiction, very "togas and sandals" by design. Perez's take was very safe in retrospect, and pretty much what one would expect the Olympic gods to look like in the 1980s: museum statues come to life.
When Greg Rucka took over the series years later, the Olympians once again became major characters in Diana's life. Only this time, some of them looked a little... different. And there was a definite reason for that:
the younger Olympians had changed with the times, finding ways to maintain and grow their power by adapting to modern man's beliefs and culture. Ares, for example, had restyled himself as simply a god of conflict; Athena, as goddess of wisdom, became exponentially more powerful thanks to modern science, technology and reason. The old gods, on the other hand, were stuck in their old roles, and found their powers waning as a result of their inability to change. This ultimately leads to (SPOILER ALERT!) the overthrow of Zeus and Hades by Athena and Ares, setting up a new status quo for the Olympians.
I honestly don't know what Gail Simone was trying to do with the Olympians. When DC decided they were going to soft-reboot WW coming out of Infinite Crisis, Rucka left because their ideas involved getting rid of Themiscyra, the Pantheon, the ambassadorship, et cetera et cetera.... you know, everything that Rucka had spent the last three years working on. A couple of years and like five writers later, Gail Simone came on as writer, and she ended up bringing most of those elements back including the Olympians... on a cosmic starship, wearing matching S.H.I.E.L.D. jumpsuits.
...I don't know.
