Earth 2 #26 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Tom Taylor
Art By: Nicola Scott
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: August 6, 2014

Saving The World

Last time in Earth 2 we saw a bunch of bad shit going down.  Not only did we watch the Man of Steel murder Johnathan Kent with his heat vision, but Mister Terrific and Terry Sloan finished their ultimate Boom Tube device that opened a portal to Apokolips.  But this time around we don't have to worry about things coming to us, no this big bad Boom Tube is designed to pull the Earth to Apokolips and give Darkseid a new stomping ground.  While Green Lantern wrapped a net around the world to keep it from getting stolen, Val-Zod took it upon himself to keep Superman distracted.  Let's dive into this parallel world and see if Earth 2's Wonders can beat back the forces of Darkseid and stop the once great hero Superman.  I'm so scared.

Explain It!:

Our story begins with Red Tornado/Lois Lane telling Ma Kent to go stay at the Lang's while she goes after her son.  Now I'm not saying that stopping Superman isn't important, but this woman who deserves the mother of the year award, just witnessed her husband being heat visioned to death by her once dutiful son.  She just might wander off and never make it to the Lang's because that is bound to mess a person up.

In Geneva the remaining World Army and the world's Wonders meet up to figure out how they're going to take down the ultimate Boom Tube device and save their collective asses.  Somehow they get intel that Bedlam is controlling Mister Terrific and Terry Sloan and Aqua Woman figures if Flash can get her past the horde of Apokoliptian shock troopers and Parademons, she can take down the god, so that their friends with clear heads can shut down the device.  Only problem with that is Flash will need to have a straight shot to run her in, so that means it's time to suit up and take the fight to the invaders.  Tally Ho!

MIRACLO IS FUCKING AWESOME!

Back to the fight between Superman and Val-Zod, Superman realizes that Val is just keeping him occupied and flies off, but then he's met by Red Tornado blocking his path.  Luckily he doesn't go all ape shit and punch Lois's head off and this bit of restraint gives Val enough time to catch up and slam into Superman.  Do you know what would be perfect?  If the two somehow conveniently crash landed at the fight with our heroes and the forces of Apokolips and.............. Oh that's right they did crash land conveniently there.  Damn I can barely leave my town and not get lost and if we're talking about back roads I'm fucked, but these two can fly forward then fall a bit and end up exactly where the other characters happen to be.

Meanwhile Flash and Aqua Woman make their way into the complex, using the distracting BOOM! caused by Val and Superman's suburb falling accuracy.  Inside Aqua Woman confronts Bedlam and then we jump to Aqua Woman being thrown through the complex.  So it doesn't look like the direct approach was the best.  But surprisingly when Bedlam follows her out to take control of Aqua Woman's mind, he mysteriously collapses.  So apparently direct is the way to go, no more beating around the bush people!  Aqua Woman pities the fool who beats around the bush!  It's kind of funny because I was completely stumped on what happened to Bedlam and was half convinced that a panel went missing during printing, but it's later explained that Aqua Woman shifted the water in his brain, giving the god a stroke.  Ha ha.  So now that Bedlam is disabled, Mister Terrific and Terry Sloan quickly turn off the device and Earth is saved.  At least from the Boom Tube, we still have Superman to deal with.  I find it kind of odd though that Mister Miracle is there and no one seems to care whether or not he's clear headed and I'm not exactly sure what he was even doing there, but he's gone now and we don't get even a peep out of him.  Poor underutilized Mister Miracle.

So now it's up to Val-Zod to finish the job as him and Superman duke it out.  But don't expect a grand Death of Superman type fight, no it seems that Val is stronger than Superman and for whatever reason Superman begins turning to stone.  Yup stone.  Before Red Tornado blows this stony Superman away, he becomes a rocky Bizarro type character, complete with a reversed S for some reason and we find out that this was never our Superman and all that pain we felt for months, thinking that our Superman had been turned into a monster was all for not.  

TURNED TO STONE WHEN THE FIGHT WAS GETTING STARTED
WTF!!!!

It feels like a little bit of a let down actually and I'm really sad to say that.  So the Superman like figure is dead, the Boom Tube is closed and now it's up our heroes to clean up the mess and make sure that the rest of the Apokoliptians get the shit kicked out of them.  Oh and it turns out that god's recover from strokes really fast, because Bedlam is gone and so are Mister Terrific, Terry Sloan and Mister Miracle.  

In the end we're given an epilogue where we see our missing heroes and the recovered god telling Darkseid that he's sorry he failed him, but he still has the people that created the Boom Tube and that they can build it again.  But it also seems that Bedlam has Wonder Woman's daughter Fury and Big Barda under his control, as well as four unnamed mysterious characters we don't get to see, so it doesn't look like the war against Apokolips is over just yet.  Make sure you're back here next month as we jump into the world of Five Years From Now and see what the Earth 2 gang are up to.  If Futures End is any indication, it's just them being locked up at Cadmus, but we'll have to wait and see.  See you then.

Bits and Pieces:

While Earth 2 is my favorite book in the New 52, I found the end of the Kryptonian story arc to be just a little too convenient.  Everything just seems too simple in the end and I wonder why any of our heroes had any real difficulty in completing their task in the first place.  Yeah maybe I'm exaggerating the ease in what these characters had to do, but it just didn't seem like a proper ending to the epic story that this was.  It's a good issue, just not what I was expecting when reading up to it.  

6.8/10