Who's This? An Amazon Queen.
The facts: Technically, Queen Hippolyta first appears along with her daughter Diana in All-Star Comics #8 (January 1942), but the blond Hippolyta of Earth-1, pictured in the Who's Who entry, first appears in Wonder Woman #98 (May 1958). She would be rebooted along with Wonder Woman, post-Crisis, with more traditional black hair, and even have served as Wonder Woman herself during World War II by time travelling back to help "solidify" the timeline (this, during John Byrne's run).
How you could have heard of her: She's right out of mythology, but Wonder Woman's mom has been part of the TV shows (played by Cloris Leachman in the Linda Carter series) and the movies (played by Connie Nielsen). In current comics continuity, she has ascended to Olympus and left the Amazons in Nubia's care.
Example story: Wonder Woman #183-184 (August-October 1969) by Mike Sekowski with Dick Giordano
So to catch us up... Wonder Woman has foregone her powers (and adopted a white pantsuit) to stay in Man's World while Paradise Island moved to another dimension. Now an Amazon shows up to beg her to return, as her island home is being invaded. Diana finds it in ruins, and her mother... dead!
Or in an enchanted sleep. That's better. Note also the mention of Ares, a first in the Wonder Woman comics as he was always called Mars before. Deimos and Phobos will also make their first appearances in this issue, so it looks like George Perez's versions owes something to this story. Ares is Hippolyta's father, but he's a bad dad who punishes his daughter for not giving him the secret of dimensional travel entrusted to her by Zeus (he wants it to bring armies to Earth).
And so, war with the God of War. When the Amazons lose, Hippolyta still refuses to give up her secrets and Ares's sister Eris puts her the Queen into sleep filled with night terrors, from which only uttering the secret will release her. Now will Diana ask her mother to reveal all to save her from this fate, at the cost of an Earthly invasion? Well, it's really still Hippolyta's decision, isn't it?
This breaks the spell partly and Hippolyta, while still comatose, rests easier. Ares promises to return with his armies and does. The battle is furious and there are losses on both sides, but they manage to kidnap the Amazon Queen. Diana and her soldiers catch up to her escort and rescue her, but it's rather unceremonious.
Now let me skip ahead to the end of Part 2. After more battles, the Amazons win and Hippolyta magically wakes up. But at what cost?Diana has fallen and Ares brings her back to her camp on her shield. One Amazon for another?
Ares renders her the greatest honors and professes his pride in his granddaughter. She quickly gets better (no Purple Ray required) and returns to Midgard, but this doesn't end the pantsuit era (I kinda thought it would).
Despite Hippolyta being "dead" on #183's cover, I didn't think she'd be in a coma for most of the story I picked. But this is sort of her role. Diana's the hero. She's a supporting cast member, there to inspire Wonder Woman to greater deeds. Maybe I rifled through the issues and saw that other blond Amazon and thought she was more active...
Who's Next? A busy, buzzy secret organization.
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