Earth 2: World’s End #5
Written by Daniel H. Wilson, Marguerite Bennett, & Mike Johnson
Art by Jan Duursema & Jonathon Glapion, Tyler Kirkham & Joe Weems, Eduardo Pansica & Jaime Mendoza, Eddy Barrows & Eber Ferreira
Published by DC Comics
The world ending of World’s End continues on its way. Again, there’s a big old box of art teams, all spread thinly across this book. Having issues with the pencil and inks is a bit moot at this point, but it bear repeating. With DC publishing two other weekly titles with rotating artists who handle one issue a moth, it’s honestly inexcusable that they let this happen with such weak art.
World’s End continues with its stories. However, this week’s cover is deceptive, like last time. Alan Scott, a.k.a. Green Lantern, does get some much missed panel time. He’s pitted against on of Earth 2’s first villains, Solomon Grundy in Rio de Janeiro. Thier fight is put on hold as the entities that make up the elemental forces of Earth are uniting to battle Apokolips. It looks like a promising storyline. It’s taking inspiration from the excellent Scott Snyder Swamp Thing and Jeff Lemire’s Animal Man “Rotworld” crossover, but with its own spin. One of the artistic highlights is once again, Queen Marella, a.k.a. Aquawoman’s story. The backgrounds and other characters don’t stand out, but Marella herself is beautifully drawn. She deserves a larger part of the story. There’s some quality time with the World Army/Terry Sloane & Mr. Terrific/ Mr. Miracle, Big Barda, and Fury team as they prepare for a full on assault against Apokolips. The dialogue from the New Gods characters is strange and inconsistent. It’s difficult to tell if they despise humans, look down on them, want to help them, or would rather kill them as they seem to change alignment every week. The issue concludes with the Superman and Batman families walking down into the fire pits and ending on a cliffhanger that could have been mysterious, but just comes out of nowhere. Still, this is by far the most evenly paced issue as it hops between characters with never too little on any one group.
One thing that is a major disappointment is the lack of the Furies this time. This week’s issue of Earth 2 also came out and gave their backstory. It really fleshed them out into more than just stock versions of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yet all we see of them is Famine (whose story was the most lacking) acting as a big dumb brute. It does a real disservice to the book this series is supposed to be based off and tie into.
It’s fair to call now, that Earth 2: World’s End is a book that will fall short of the excellent Earth 2 story. It suffers from poor management of art duties which make it fall short of its ambitious storylines. It’s clear the writing team have a love for Earth 2, but they aren’t prepared to handle a weekly title. For one of the books meant to lead into DC’s upcoming event, Convergence, one would think they’d try a bit harder.