Earth 2 #28 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Tom Taylor, Marguerite Bennett
Art By: Alisson Borges, Andy Smith, Trevor Scott, Javier Fernandez, Diogenes Neves, Marc Deering
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 5, 2014

The Forming of A Fury

Even though the last issue of Earth 2 was dealing with Batman and Huntress coming to terms with who they were to one another and Power Girl and Val-Zod getting tingly feelings for each other, it looks like this issue has decided to say the hell with all that and give you some background into the Four Furies of Apokolips.  Oh and there were mutants too last issue!  Anyway, I don't know when this became the secondary title for Earth 2....... since it's called Earth 2, but it's weird that World's End seems to be in the drivers seat now, at least as far as what stories can be told.  So for the World's End recap to get you familiar on the off chance that you're only reading this title.  Shit's going down on Earth 2 and the Four Furies of Apokolips are tearing shit up.  No seriously, that's about it.  So let's dive into this issue and see how these four became the Furies known as Pestilence, Famine, War and Death.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

This story begins on the Earth 2 counter part of Czarnia and at first I forgot what this story was about and was blown away by the inclusion of this planet........ It's Lobo's home world in case you don't know, but as I realized the premise here I realized that I wasn't going to get the Earth 2 Lobo story I for a split second wanted and instead we find out about a young Czarnian woman who happens to know Lobo.  After witnessing her family and people around her dying and the government not doing anything about it, she decides she's going to break into a Czarnian hospital and get her parents the medicine they need.  Only problem is she got caught and thrown into a cell.  You know what you don't want inside a small cell surrounded by guards?  A typhoid Mary, or an Outbreak Monkey if you prefer.  Yeah it seems that even though Czarnians have that bad ass healing factor, she's still transmitting a virus that can kill anyone around her.  So the government knowing that Apokolips is on it's way make the girl a deal.  If she gets all diseased up and then goes as the Czarnian ambassador to Apokolips....... you know Outbreaking it all up, they'll give her parents the care they need.  It's too bad though that she found out from a message from Lobo that her parents have already died.  Even with this information she goes with the plan and when she gets to Apokolips, Desaad being immune to her diseases offers her a chance to seek revenge against the Czarians and become the Fury Pestilence.  As you can tell by reading Earth 2: World's End, she went with the deal.

Next we head over to the Earth 2 counter part of War World where a big ol' alien lady is doing the whole gladiator thing, but when she finishes off her combatants...... She begins eating them. Mmmmmmm Gross.  It seems that Steppenwolf has come by at this instant for a visit, to see about Mongul's operation and it's at this point that the late Steppenwolf offers this gladiator a chance to come with him and be a fury of Darkseid, well you don't have to tell her twice, because with the promise of eternal life to continue eating and conquering this once slave turns on her master Mongul and I was shocked that we didn't see the Earth 2 Mongul eaten right there.  No, he simply turns the new Fury over to Steppenwolf and warns him about how loyal she seems to be.  Now we've got Famine on the Fury front.

Now we'll head over to Apokolips where Barda sees a Tamarian ship crash land on the harsh planet and once they get to the site, they find a small Tamarian child, who's shockingly killed a shit ton of Parademons on her own.  Well since this kind of behavior is awarded on Apokolips, the child goes into training to one day become a Fury.  Throughout her training we see that this little child is a bit more brutal than the others and finally on the day that she's to meet Darkseid and become his agent, we see that another girl that she considered her sister is also there and this little Fury does something very odd....... Well odd to me.  You know how you're supposed to love and be friendly with people you consider your sister?  Well this little one brutally murders her and tells Darkseid that she loved her, but if she's to be one of his Furies, she can only love him.  We leave the future War here with Desaad and Darkseid smiling at the child's actions.  Yeah....... War scares me.

In the end we head over to Mars, where we see a loving Martian mother taking care of her small child.  We're told that this woman is a healer and lover of all life.  Wouldn't you know it, Darkseid's forces come and ruin everyone's Martian good time.  This bit is strange because we're told this story by this Martian mother's dead child that didn't survive Darkseid's onslaught.  Now I'm not going to keep this mysterious, but this mother becomes Death and is it possible that she resurrected her dead child and it told us this story?  I don't know.  Anyway Darkseid finds out about this mother that has survived all that he's done to the planet and has even survived the death of her child and Darkseid who you know always has everyone's best interests in mind, offers to put another bun in that oven and have her become the fury Death............ and she apparently agrees.  I know that this is a grieving mother and all, but damn does that sound like a strange choice.  I guess from the narration that she does it to bring her child back, but as most of us know..... Sometimes dead is better.  Plus how hard do you think the seed of Darkseid would kick?

That's it for this issue of Earth 2 and I'm a little perplexed why we'd get a Furies origin story here and not in the weekly title.  I mean we've been dealing with the Furies in full force in World's End and I was kind of hoping that this original title would......... I don't know........ Not do that.  It's just odd to me is all.  Now normally I hate multiple artists on a book, but this issue's many artists are used appropriately where they are all given different sections to the stories being told here and I really liked that.  See you next month when we find out if this title is planning to take the back seat to World's End again or if it's going to make it's own path.  See you then.

Bits and Pieces:

While I'm a sucker for a good origin story, I found that using this title to tell the Furies of Apokolips' origin was a bit of waste.  It could just be that I'm a bit biased since this is my favorite title and I kind of wanted it to do it's own thing instead of becoming the backup to World's End.  Even with my complaints, these stories were fun and having different artists to tell each story actually benefited this issue.  The star for me is Diogenes Neves and Marc Deerings final story.  It just out shined the rest of the art in this book and even if you're not a fan of this book you should check out that section of the book.  

7.5/10