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A review by cleheny
Wonder Woman: Ends of the Earth by Gail Simone
3.0
I didn't enjoy this volume as much as its predecessor, though there are interesting ideas. The first arc (The Ends of the Earth) is not as successful as it should be. Diana is inveigled into becoming part of a quest to kill a powerful demon (essentially, the devil) and joins a band of legendary warriors (Beowulf, Claw the Unconquered, and Stalker--all drawn from DC's 1970s fantasy series) who are prophesied to fight the final battle. I know Beowulf from the epic poem, not DC's comics, and I didn't know Claw or Stalker, at all. Simone obviously does, as she builds on Stalker's history, in particular, to create the basis of this story.
I think the reason the arc didn't work for me is because I didn't know anything about Stalker or Claw (and, obviously, I drew on a different source for my understanding of Beowulf). It's hard to get wrapped up in the plot and the ideas it advances when all of the other characters are strangers and won't be sticking around. Since re-reading this arc and doing research on Stalker, I have a better understanding of how carefully Simone constructed her story to connect with the 1970s tales. But the great majority of readers aren't going to have the context (I certainly didn't the first few times I read this), so it lessens the overall impact.
There are some great notes--particularly the opening scene of the arc, and how it resurfaces later. The artwork is fantastic.
The remaining 2-issue arc takes as its inspiration an arc from Justice League (the Queen of Fables storyline, which immediately followed Tower of Babel). These issues didn't work really well for me. There are basically three storylines--Tom Tresser meeting Hippolyta officially as her daughter's boyfriend, the fight set against the background of a cheesy Hollywood treatment of Diana's life, and Diana connecting with a hard-working, but bitter, Hollywood lawyer--and they don't really fit together. There is a lot of humor (oh, Rhanda and Tolifhar, how I wish you were my advisors and packed my briefcases), but, on the whole, these issues feel like filler.
I think the reason the arc didn't work for me is because I didn't know anything about Stalker or Claw (and, obviously, I drew on a different source for my understanding of Beowulf). It's hard to get wrapped up in the plot and the ideas it advances when all of the other characters are strangers and won't be sticking around. Since re-reading this arc and doing research on Stalker, I have a better understanding of how carefully Simone constructed her story to connect with the 1970s tales. But the great majority of readers aren't going to have the context (I certainly didn't the first few times I read this), so it lessens the overall impact.
There are some great notes--particularly the opening scene of the arc, and how it resurfaces later. The artwork is fantastic.
The remaining 2-issue arc takes as its inspiration an arc from Justice League (the Queen of Fables storyline, which immediately followed Tower of Babel). These issues didn't work really well for me. There are basically three storylines--Tom Tresser meeting Hippolyta officially as her daughter's boyfriend, the fight set against the background of a cheesy Hollywood treatment of Diana's life, and Diana connecting with a hard-working, but bitter, Hollywood lawyer--and they don't really fit together. There is a lot of humor (oh, Rhanda and Tolifhar, how I wish you were my advisors and packed my briefcases), but, on the whole, these issues feel like filler.