Synopsis
Wonder Woman flashes back to a time when she was a child on Themyscira and against her mother’s orders, wandered into a dark, mysterious section of the island where she stumbled upon the Nine Witches of Chthonian performing a strange ritual. They summoned a strange, unworldly creature who saw Diana and ordered the witches to grab her. The young Princess had tried to flee but they had caught up with her and the creature branded her forehead with a mystic symbol as Diana screamed.
Back in the present day they finally fight off the last of the creatures attacking them and an angry Wonder Woman demands Zatanna tells her what she means when she says that humankind stole magic and it’s rightful owners are coming back to reclaim it.
The magician replies that she had received an apocalyptic message from her dead father. He had showed her a vision of the five of them which revealed that one of them could be the key to magic’s survival. Diana apologises for her aggressive frustration but adds that they have just had to cut down a group of innocent magic users transformed into monsters and that she needs to know how to stop anymore lives being lost. She wants to fight this but she needs to know more about what she us up against.
Zatanna says that she only knows pieces but that there is someone who can help and so they set off to see Doctor Fate. Swamp Thing tells them that he’s like to check on the Tree of Wonder which is rooted nearby and will join the others later.
As they enter the Tower he goes to the tree’s base and is met by John Constantine, who has worked out that in return for protecting the Tree of Wonder Alex Holland will be allowed to permanently join the trees he protects so preciously. Constantine tells him that he has picked a bad time to step away and that the thing that has been killing magicians is coming here. Swamp Thing says that he knows…. and it is almost here.
Back in the Tower, Doctor Fate says that he will try and help them but that he wants to speak in private with Wonder Woman and Zatanna, leaving Bobo and Kirk to kick their heels and wait.
Inside the chamber Doctor Fate them how millennia ago, mankind find a a new power an dragged it into this world to do their bidding – the first magic of this world. They were the Lords of order, the sorcerer kings. But the power was unspeakable and their bodies could no hold it, so they bound themselves to artefacts that could focus and contain it – and prevent it from spreading. But it was too late and magic was already spreading across the world like a disease. So they wrote the first books of magic as a way to educate others to control it. They fooled themselves that it was for the benefit of Mankind. what is now happening to the magicians across the world is that they are now tasting the full raw, unchecked power of it. The walls of reality of weakened and they can feel it from beyond. The full primal void of possibility that installed the world with magic has come alive and turned its gaze to them. And it is coming.
Wonder Woman says that there must be a way to stop it but Doctor Fate replies that it is too late and that the world has been sick for a long time and is dying.
Outside the chamber meanwhile Kirk accidentally knocks over a vase and releases the form of Khalid Nassour, who warns them that he used to be the real Doctor Fate and that Kent Nelson has not been in control for weeks. Before he can continue however Khalid is consumed back into the vase.
In the chamber Zatanna can feel something is not right as they hear an ominous rumble. Wonder Woman unhooks her lasso as she realises that they are actually speaking to Nabu. As she tries to ensnare him he breaks free and flees, telling them that the Otherkind are here.
The two women find themselves in pitch blackness but slowly out of the gloom they see the form of the Upside Down man emerge and they freeze in terror!
