Wonder Woman – Volume 5 – 20

Synopsis

Veronica Cale continues to desperately search for a cure for her daughter but reaches a dead end. Meanwhile in Greece Wonder Woman is battling Cheetah who is stealing some Grecian artefacts. Diana pleads with her friend, asking why she now desecrates that which she used to hold dear. But the feral Minerva is not interested in talking and makes her escape.

The artefact is soon delivered by Cheetah to Cale. Using it together with an ancient spell that she and Adrianna have been researching for years they finally succeed in summoning the witch Circe! The witch asks why she has been summoned and Cale explains how Phobos and Deimos are effectively holding her daughter as hostage and she wants her revenge on them.

Circe replies that they will need to force them to release her daughter and bind them. And of course, if they ever get free again there will be hell to pay for Cale. But Veronica is undeterred and the witch states her terms of payment and they shake on it.

Circe then provides Veronica and Adrianna very specific instructions to follow and warns that however strange they may seem, not to deviate from them one bit. She adds that they are all playing a very dangerous game and that it will not b about the execution or the intention of their plan – it will be all about the timing. Oddly, she asks Cale to source a couple of puppies.

Finally everything is set and Cale summons Phobos and Deimos to her office by lighting a candle in a skull candle holder they have given her. Once again, Veronica demands they free her daughter and once again they tell her that they will do no such thing until she has delivered the location of Themyscira.

Meanwhile in the middle east Wonder Woman is using her bracelets to protect a group of fleeing refugees under fire from government troops. As the Amazon Princess then flies towards the attackers to take them out they are suddenly all throw up in the air and left hanging suspended as Circe materialises in front of her. Wonder Woman demands she lets them down …

Back in Cale’s offices the two demi-gods are annoyed that she has summoned them under false pretences when suddenly Adrianna interrupts and tells Cale “She’s made contact. Do it now!”.  With that, Cale smashes to the floor the skull candle holder she used to summon the gods…

Elsewhere Circe questions why Diana is petitioning for these men’s lives even though they had been trying to kill her? “We do not kill when we can subdue” Wonder Woman replies.

With that Circe casually lets them all plummet down to the ground to their deaths and a shocked Diana unleashes her lasso and throws it around the waiting witch. Circe uses the power to fulfil her spell and back in Cale’s office, Phobos and Deimos suddenly find themselves being sucked into her binding spell. As Wonder Woman is surprised to find Circe disappear before her eyes, escaping the lasso, the two demi-gods are absorbed into the two puppies.

Wonder Woman is left to puzzle who this new foe is and what had just happened, Cale picks up the staff which the two demi-gods had used to imprison her daughter’s soul. As Circe materialises she asks for it and Cale hands her the cane with the soul stone embedded in the top. But the witch’s expression of smugness fades as she sees it is fractured. She tells a crestfallen Cale that whoever was trapped inside it has either escaped or has been lost.

A furious Cale turns to the two now fully grown dogs and demands to know what the gods have done with Isabel. Circe places her hand on the dogs and says that according to them, she had apparently already been taken from them by their father. The young girl is now with their father in his prison. The only way to restore Isabel is to free him as well.

Cale asks how they can find their father and Circe replies “On Themyscira. But you’ll do it without my help.”  A desperate Cale says that she will pay but the witch tells her that their father is Ares and to free her daughter Veronica is going to also have to free the God of War himself!

A determined Cale hugs her still faceless daughter and says “If that’s what it takes….”