Sunday, June 5, 2016

Earth 2: Society #12 Review and *SPOILERS*



Rumble In The Jun....Err....... On Earth 2


Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Iban Coello, David Calderon, Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: May 11, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

I don't know what it is about this crazy Earth 2, but after reading it as long has I have now, I kind of get the idea that this world was meant to be destroyed because it always comes back to battles and wars and all that psychotic stuff that eventually dwindles down the population as a way to...... I guess, keep the crazy in check.  Maybe it's something in the water, maybe these Earth 2-ers have one too many chromosomes or maybe it's Maybelline, I don't know, I just am sick of these Wonders not having the opportunity to be the type of heroes that their Prime-Earth counterparts are.  So yeah, we're building up to a war that is all about this planet being barren of natural resources and ultimately one city will kill another to get their shit just so they can survive a little bit longer.  To solve this killing situation, the World Army plans on killing people.......... Brilliant!  Let's jump into this scary Earth-2 and see if anyone is still sane on this planet and if we get to start seeing what this series will become after Rebirth.  Let's check it out.




Explain It!:

Our issue begins with our World Army Heroes getting ready to kill some folks, who might be on the verge of war, or rioting....... pretty much some unsavory stuff, but one thing that I need out of my heroes is a proclivity against killing.  Thankfully, Captain Steel is met by Power Girl, Huntress and Flash who want to make their voices heard about how killing people isn't cool.  Yeah, Captain Steel has some interesting points that kind of shuts down our heroes and how they might explain their morals and their convictions, but ultimately, even with his fancy words and thought provoking questions, our heroes stand their ground about no killing and hopefully when the fit hits the shan, our heroes can get Captain Steel to use less lethal force.


Even with a war brewing though, things seem to be pretty lax in this issue.  We've got Alan Scott going to Val-Zod for advice about what he should do...... and really, what all the Wonders should do because since he's become a god like figure, he's kind of out of touch with human ways of thinking.  It's a whole moral and civics conundrum about what Wonders should do for humanity without going to the point where they're stepping all over the rights that people have simply because Wonders know what's best for them.  Surprisingly though, Val being the voice of reason in all of this doesn't tell Alan to become one with humanity so that he can see from their view, but instead tells him to be the god that he is and look at everything in the biggest picture possible so that he can come to an appropriate conclusion to stop this war before it even starts.......... and even though Alan's hair looks crazy in this section and really this entire issue, I have to say that there is a real sense of hope that I really dug throughout this simple talk between two titans.  One thing that I can't get behind though is the way that Batman acts in this issue because our Earth-2 Dark Knight is all about getting Hourman on his side for the battles that will be on the way and instead of inspiring hope like Val and Alan just did, we see that Batman's all about the ends justifying the means because he offers Hourman a stash of Miraclo to get him on the hero trolley and now Batman just looks like a goddamn drug dealer, using Hourman's addiction to his benefit........ it might make sense to some and to those people I can see where you're coming from, but that's some harsh shit for Batman to be doing in my mind.


In the end, we get a brief bit with Hawkgirl, Fury and Aqua Woman and that's all about Hawkgirl becoming an ambassador for the two Queens, but none of that really matters because right when the war seems to be about to go off, Alan Scott comes a callin' and puts a stop to that shit right quick when he uses his power to create an energy station and takes off his ring and sets it in the center of it to be used as the planet's power source until they can come up with an alternate solution.  While this means that war is off the table, it also means that our Green Lantern is just a man again and has to somehow come to terms with it.  Yeah, that's a pretty decent trade-off, but then we continue to the end of the book and see that somehow everything that we've dealt with in this series was actually put together by the Ultra-Humanite as a way to lead Green Lantern to this conclusion because Alan was the one Wonder who could take down this long con villain and now that he's given up his power ring, he's no longer a threat............ How the hell did no one notice a giant talking albino gorilla on the space ships coming to this planet?


That's it for this issue of Earth 2: Society and even though I haven't been a real fan of series, I have to tell you that even though I've had my problems with this arc because of how it makes me think that we're getting World's End: Part Deux, I didn't mind this issue one bit.  This is a dark ass world, full of terrible shit, but here we had all of our heroes....... well, except for Batman...... actually acting like heroes and inspiring hope and all that good shit.  It was a breath of fresh air for this musky series and even though Ultra-Humanite coming out of nowhere and being the mastermind behind all the terrible things that have happened on this planet through me off a bit....... it is cool to see him again and I find myself interested to see how this will play out now that Alan Scott has been taken off the game board.  As for the art, it looked great....... even with Alan's crazy hair.  I guess you can't find yourself any decent product on this planet and with all the flying around that he does, he's bound to get a little wind blown.  The art is decent in this book though and I love the bright vibrant colors we get out of it.

Bits and Pieces:

If you were like me and were worrying that this story arc was leading to another war type situation that all the Earth 2 titles have been plagued with....... well, this issue might just calm your nerves a bit and give you something that we've seriously missed from this series.......... hope.  With decent art and colors and an interesting turn that takes this story into a different direction, I find myself interested for the first time in awhile about where this series will go before it gets Rebirthed.

6.8/10

2 comments:

  1. answer to how no one noticed the ape: Telepathy. hide himself from people's minds

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    Replies
    1. I'm just happy it's the ape and not the nightmare fuel from the phantom zone

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