By: Tom Taylor (story), Nicola Scott (pencils), Trevor Scott (inks), Pete Pantazis (colors)
The Story: Earth-2 experiences a horrifying moment of déjà vu.
The Review: I don’t know if it was James Robinson or someone higher up who decided Earth-2 should come out a little unluckier in the war against Apokolips, but whoever it was, he ought to be congratulating himself right now. While Earth-3 had the luck to fall quickly to the invasion, Earth-2 has just experienced a seemingly endless decline. Each issue visits more devastation on the planet, and just when you think it can’t get worse, you read the next month’s issue.
It didn’t have to turn out this way. When the first wave of new Wonders appeared in #6, that could have been a turning point for this world, a dawning age of hope for the traumatized planet. Nope. Instead, we get the return of Apokolips, led by its infamous general, supported by three new, unstoppable heralds, one of whom is a perversion of Earth-2’s (formerly) noblest protector, who proceeds to eliminate the world’s combined military forces, destroy a continent, and then unleash another horde of monsters upon the planet.
This latest move makes me wonder if Taylor has any intention of reversing the doomed course his predecessor had set Earth-2 on. Well, the easy answer is yes, this barrage of evil can’t last forever, because I’m quite sure even the most diehard fans will give up out of depression before long. Besides, it’d be a colossal waste of time and effort for both Robinson and Taylor to have built up the title’s cast to such a massive size, only to railroad them with a long defeat.
I mean, you have to trust that Taylor has a plan in store for these characters, or else it wouldn’t make sense for him to continue introducing new ones at this late stage. For heaven’s sake, we barely know much about the ones we already have on hand, particularly our latest Batman, whose identity is of particular intrigue. Gifted with prodigious strength and vulnerability, genuflecting to an Atlantean queen as “Your majesty”…all this suggests the new Dark Knight is Atlantean himself. But to what end? And why does he profess such intimacy and loyalty to the previous Batman (Sato says she “was there when he died,” and new-Batman replies, “I should have been.”) when he doesn’t even seem to know the late hero’s new identity?
That’s about the most intriguing plotline in an issue that’s mainly more of the same. Besides the continuing onslaught of devastation and the usual tensions among the few remaining primary characters, we don’t get much new development here. We get a couple hints, like the mind-controlling Bedlam stating, “I’m always in your head, Kal-El,” giving the corrupted Man of Steel an easy out should Taylor choose to rehabilitate him. Otherwise, it’s slim pickings in terms of genuinely new material.
Scott doggedly delivers her usual high standard of work, as if everything in the script is fine and not actually spiraling out of control. She has certainly become well-honed in having characters make a dramatic entrance. Even though the writing often gives us little reason to invest in them, we can’t help being interested after they’ve made such a glorious appearance. Case in point: the Atlantean queen, newly freed from her stasis chamber, dripping pearls from her iridescent (courtesy of Pantazis), fin-like dress. It makes you want to know more about her, even when the script doesn’t even try to do the same.
Conclusion: All in all, you are more than ready to see some kind of climax come out of this series, demonstrating once and for all whether it’s worth the attention.
Grade: C+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – Notice the scarring around evil-Superman’s eyes. Seems like some fairly grisly brainwashing went on, doesn’t it?
– I’m pretty glad that Khan survived. I mean, it would have been a very unfortunate move had Taylor killed off the only Middle-Easterner in the cast—if you know what I mean.
Grade
Conclusion