Worlds' Finest #28 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Paul Levitz
Art By: Jed Dougherty
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 12, 2014

It's A Wonder They Survived

Last issue of Worlds' Finest we saw the departure of the Power Girl/Huntress focus of the book and saw that it had now become all about Superman and Batman of Earth 2......... You know, before they died.  Our story was told to us through Red Tornado who is keeping a log of events that made our Earth 2 World's Finest pair the heroes they became and for her first entry we saw her tell the story about Krypton's destruction and Thomas Wayne making a decision that ultimately led to him faking his death and causing the death of his wife.  These are the stories that shaped our hero's Earth 2 counterparts and now it's time to see these heroes as youngsters and find out what trouble they got into then.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

As our story begins, I'm immediately confused.  Now up until this point I was under the impression that the Earth-2 Wonder Woman and her Amazon sisters were worshipers of the Roman Gods, since Diana's father in this Universe was Mercury instead of Zeus and all.  But when we begin this story there's mention of the end of the Amazons, beginning with the death of Apollo and when Diana finds out this is all because she slept with Steppenwolf, she begs Aphrodite for forgiveness before the Roman Goddess Minerva shows up and tells them that she'll take them all away from this dying world, then Mercury shows up.  Now I know that there isn't much difference between Roman and Greek Gods, but this mix and match scene really threw me off.  Maybe we're still dealing with the continuity where the Greek and Roman Gods merged, but I have no idea what's still continuity here in the New 52 and that goes double for a parallel world within the New 52.  So a shit ton of Gods show up and when the oracle tells the Amazons of their doom thanks to Wonder Woman's hanky panky, they also find out that the survival of the world depends on Diana and two young children who, if they are able to grow up will become the saviors of the world.  Guess who those two young boys are.................  Now I have to assume that some of you are horrible guessers so the answer is Superman and Batman.  After Minerva shows up and offers to take the Amazons away, Wonder Woman tells her that she must make her sins right and Mercury comes down to help his daughter on her quest.

Now we'll head over to Smallville where a very young Clark Kent is standing in the corn and seeing if he can actually fly............. he can.  His "Me" time is interrupted though when the Apokoliptian, Intri boom tubes in and tells Clark that she can take him to his real parents and to his true destiny.  You might remember Intri from last issue when she arrived on Krypton before it exploded and offered Jor-El a way to save the planet if he just gave up his child........... But what's a whole planet to a baby I'm sure that he barely knew because he spent all his time in his lab....... Which actually ended up destroying Krypton......... Yeah, Jor-El is a selfish prick!  So since Intri couldn't collect the young Kryptonian then, she's found him now and plans on taking him back to Darkseid, but she didn't know that Wonder Woman was on a quest and apparently that quest entails kicking some God ass and she goes right to work on Intri.  After an intense battle on the Kent Family Farm, Intri makes her escape through the boom tube and Wonder Woman says goodbye to a young Clark.  Now the end of this segment to the story is odd to me.  Martha Kent comes running out to find Clark and the wreckage around him and when she sees the boom tube portal she says "I've never seen anything like that", which in my opinion is a very tame, but reasonable response.  Now I know folks form Apokolips are evil and all but then on the other side of the portal Intri yells out in response to Martha, "Then die, old woman!" and shoots and energy blast at her, which Clark easily blocks, but what the hell was that?  Intri wasn't satisfied with just calling it a day and had to have the last word?  Dick move.  "Then die, old woman!"......... I really hope Intri gets what she deserves.

Now we move on to Thomas and Bruce Wayne, who are having a boys day out at the zoo, when the repercussion of Thomas beating Frankie Falcone last issue come back to haunt him.  It looks like Frankie put out a contract on Thomas and if it weren't for the intervention from Wonder Woman it looks like Thomas and Bruce would of died that day.  Well Bruce lives to go on and think his father died even though it's a ruse and grows up to become Batman, who dies during the war with Apokolips, which forces his thought to have been dead father to become Batman.  Poor poor Bruce Wayne and his fucked up life.

That's it for this issue besides for a brief story about how The Oracle and Mercury went to Lois Lane as a child and imbued her with the spirit of Eurus the God of the East Wind, because the Oracle has seen her future and knows that this child must live beyond death....... Then they make her forget, so how Red Tornado is telling us this story I have no idea.  I get that maybe Wonder Woman told Batman and Superman their stories and then it was relayed to Lois, but here I just don't know.  So anyway that's it for this issue of Worlds' Finest and while I'm not entirely happy with the switch from Power Girl and Huntress to Superman and Batman, I did enjoy this issue more than the last.  I just think that there's way more of a story to tell about Earth-2's Wonder Woman than the two heroes that get featured in everything.  I want to see this Wonder Woman, Steppenwolf story, I want to see her and Fury's time together if there was any.  Just so much Wonder Woman to talk about and no comic for it. Make sure you're back here next month as we continue the journey of Red Tornado's stories about Bruce and Clark.  See you then.

Bits and Pieces:

I'm not completely sold on this new direction for this title........ Well I guess I've never been sold on any direction that this title has presented, but I do have to say that this issue was at least better than the last and even gave us information that Earth 2 fans have been clamoring for.  Being one of the clamorers, I'm happy as hell to have this issue actually involve Wonder Woman and what brought her together with this Worlds' Finest duo.  I also loved Jed Dougherty's Wonder Woman and I hope we get to see more of it in the future.  Like I said I'm not completely sold here, but this issue at least warrants a looksie.

6.5/10