Written by Daniel H. Wilson, Marguerite Bennett, & Mike Johnson
Art by Jan Duursema & Keith Champagne, Robson Rocha & Guillermo Ortego, Tyler Kirkham & Joe Weems, Stephen Segovia & Jason Paz, & Jorge Jimenez
Published by DC Comics
The end of Earth 2 draws ever closer. The planet is under attack by the female furies of Apokolips, the Superman and Batman families search the fire pits for Huntress who has been taken by Desaad, Alan Scott has a mournful reunion with his newly raised boyfriend, Dr. Fate acts and speaks cryptically, and the World Army plans to take on Apokolips.
This week is unfortunately not as interesting as last time. It spends a lot of time focused on the Superman and Batman team fighting off monstrous clones of Clark Kent. However, the Furies arrive for the opening of this issue, meaning they still have a larger role to play. It’s a good sign as it would be a shame to spend an entire issue on their backstory only to sweep them out of the story. This week also marks the reappearance of John Constantine. He appeared all the way back in issue #3 and hasn’t resurfaced since. Likely he was off doing whatever he’s been doing in his solo series, not that World’s End says he has.Constantine makes his way into the now abandoned World Army prison in Gotham, the same one where heroes like Queen Marella, Jimmy Olsen, and Val-Zod were found. The next issue implies he’ll be releasing some new villains onto Earth 2. Speaking of imprisonment, Huntress gets a standout scene of her own this week. She’s mostly been kept to the sidelines, so it’s nice for her to get a crowning moment at last. Sadly, there’s very little of the Flash and Hawkgirl. As two of the characters who were once part of the original Earth 2 trinity, they’ve barely shown up in this book and have only served as decoration of Dr. Fate’s story. Fate’s story is confusing. The writers somehow equate the Helm of Nabu to a Mother Box which honestly doesn’t make any sense. It’s weird to see this happen to such a well established character like Dr. Fate where his helmet seems to “mate” with machines.
The art in this issue is a vast improvement from the start of this series. While there are a few panels that look sloppy (See the pages with Alan Scott and Solomon Grundy for that), most of the art has a consistent look, even when spread amongst the paragraph of pencilers and inkers.
Last week won big points for resurrecting Sam Zhao and introducing the new Wildcat. Sadly, neither character does much. Sam is but a ghost of his former self, and Ted Grant is absent from this issue entirely.