By: Tom Taylor (story), Nicola Scott (pencils), Trevor Scott (inks), Pete Pantazis (colors)
The Story: When even the one percent are doomed, you know things are really bad.
The Review: There’s a running pattern that Taylor has fallen into ever since he took over this series, or at least a number of obligatory beats that must be included in every issue: World Army forces take desperate last stand, get decimated, fall back; Superman kills a bunch of people or causes a crapload of damage; one (or more) of the Wonders gets taken down a notch. It’s a pretty grim formula, to say the least.
To its credit—if you can call it a credit—this issue hits every beat to a tee: its last outpost devastated, the World Army flees as Superman arrives, ripping off the Atom’s arm and beating him with it. Frankly, I’m surprised Superman lets him live, or at least leaves him to bleed out in peace. It’s this relatively more lenient treatment of the Wonders that makes you feel that the violence visited on the World Army is gratuitous.
And I mean gratuitous. Licking his wounds on Amazonia, former home of the Amazons and the only place hidden from Superman’s gaze, Khan places the World Army’s body count at 9,900,000, which isn’t even counting the countless civilians who’ve been massacred in the Army’s wake.* You might say this is the natural result of being attacked by New Gods, but it sure doesn’t bode well for humanity’s future that its most concerted efforts aren’t enough to fend off such threats without superpowered help. It’s like, why bother even trying to unite for the global good when a handful of Wonders will take care of the job anyway?
This seems to apply as much to mankind’s technological feats as their physical strength. As the situation gets beyond bleak, we’re introduced to Project Beyond, the pinnacle of Earth-2’s scientific development, producing a Space Ark designed to ferry “the world’s most wealthy and powerful” away to interstellar safety. With that specific clientele, the venture is of course doomed. Superman, having some experience of rockets from doomed planets, dashes this great hope seven pages after it’s introduced.
When are things going to get better? You can’t tell, because you’re just reading this, but I ask that question with real plaintiveness. Even in an age of decompressed, dark storylines, this arc has dragged on for too long—basically being a continuation of James Robinson’s last arc—and become almost Holocaust grim. You can’t necessarily blame this on Taylor, as he is writing essentially a world war story, which can only be long and depressing. Fortunately, a glimmer of hope dawns on the horizon as our major players finally start playing nice together and something called a “plan” gets mentioned.
I’ve said it so many times that it’s almost become instinct, but it always bears repeating that Scott’s art is—not probably, but is—this title’s saving grace. Any lesser, cartoonier, poorly crafted work would only convince you that there is no greater objective here than to be as destructive as possible. Scott captures the brutality of war with a desperate grace; she does not glorify the losses or the violence, but rather calls attention to the tragedy, fear, and courage they produce. And of course, that’s not even mentioning her skill at drawing evocative landscapes, from the aurora-draped Amazonia to the enbubbled Atlantis, both shimmering with iridescent colors thanks to Pantazis.
Conclusion: There is something fictionally unfulfilling in watching a world get devastated again and again, but such is the story Taylor chooses to tell. At least he tells it adequately and Scott draws it with the scale it deserves.
Grade: C
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: * Although, to be fair, WWII resulted in an estimated 50 to 85 million fatalities.
– I find it interesting that despite the New Gods’ destructive might, their intellectual capabilities are clearly not up to par, as they must rely on two human geniuses to finish their overarching task for them.
Grade
Conclusion