Wonder Woman - Ends of the Earth collects issues twenty through twenty-three of the third volume of Wonder Woman in which our amazing Amazon confronts the evil of DGurth, a form of the devil first introduced in the pages of Stalker- The Man Who Lost His Soul. She has as sidekicks in this battle the aforementioned Stalker alongside Beowulf -Dragon Slayer and Claw the Unconquered.
Wonder Woman is drafted by Stalker when he snatches her soul. She is then compelled to travel to a strange territory where she attempts to get Beowulf to help.
Wonder Woman seems to be possessed by the same magic that corrupted Claw. Beowulf agrees to fight with her against the greater enemy.
We get glimpse of the terrible world Wonder Woman dreams of now that she's soulless and possessed by the Claw magic. She names Stalker "Elpis" which means "Hope". The quartet seek an Oracle for guidance. Then they enter the land of DGurth where a traitor reveals himself.
And then much to my everlasting disappointment, the battle shifts to Washington D.C. I'm not against the setting change, but only Wonder Woman travels with the shift. The warriors she's spent three issues assembling are left behind and only appear again in the aftermath. I realize that this Wonder Woman's book, but for gosh sakes why spend all that time and then not use them more substantially. Now to be fair to Simone, I have left out certain plot points so as not to spoil some of the surprises in the story.
Also included in this collection is issue twenty-four of the series which changes gears and has nothing to do with the previous plotline. I must confess I was led down by the stories here. They were not badly crafted, indeed the artwork by Bernard Chang and Aaron Lopresti is quite good. But the story spent a huge amount of time gathering a group of heroes and then bing-bang-boom they are disappeared.
But we're not done yet these heroes pop up again a few years later and this time they get their own stories. That's for next time when we wrap this up with Sword of Sorcery.
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