Earth 2 #30 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Marguerite Bennett, Mike Johnson
Art By: Andy Smith, Trevor Scott, Tyler Kirkham, Cliff Richards, Thony Silas
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: January 7, 2015

Secret Origins

All I can tell you at this point of reviewing this book is if you're not reading Earth 2: World's End then you're pretty much lost.  At some point this title became a way for the World's End title to just throw things at you and hope that this title could fill in the cracks and man does that piss me off.  There's no reason that both titles couldn't be telling the same story and while some of you might say that it is............Well you're just wrong.  Since World's End has introduced a bunch of new Avatar characters and doesn't want to take the time to make them completely fleshed out characters, people who only pick up this book will be given their back stories and only things that don't involve the main story at hand.  I could be totally off base here but it just irks me that this is what the Earth 2 title has become and last year it was my favorite title.  So in case you don't know, the Avatars of Earth are in the fight of their lives.......... and really the fight for Earth as they take on the Furies of Apokolips, here are the stories about how the Avatars we don't know.............became Avatars.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our story begins with the embodiments of Earth giving us the low down about how shit is getting real on Earth 2 and if their Avatars can't pull through, then pretty much everyone is fucked.  That leads us into our first story about Sam Zhou the Avatar of the White and the former lover of Allen Scott: The Green Lantern.  It seems that the White chose Sam Zhou at a very young age as it witnessed his great power for empathy and the fact that he was willing to protect others who could not protect themselves.  So Sam was tapped by the powers that be from the get go and was always destined to die and become the Avatar of the White, like Alan Scott I guess was as well.  There's not much of a story here beyond the expected but the part where he first becomes the Avatar kind of pisses me off because the White tells him that he can no longer be seen, heard or felt by Alan and instead of being pissed about it, he seems to just say "okay" and go on to get his White training on.  Their great love is supposed to be something that fuels Alan's power and breaks the bonds of their chosen roles and Sam was just like "Meh".......... That's right I'm saying love is a sham.  Thanks a lot Earth 2, now I'm completely jaded.

Our next story deals with Atlantis eons ago where the Atlantean people were being attacked by...........a giant eyeball...........No, I'm serious.  It just looks like they're being terrorized by the might of the evil eye.  So since their gods weren't helping them with their eyeball problem the Atlanteans called upon Azathoth, an ancient Cthulhu like monster who may or may not be the Kraken and this monster is promised that he will become their god if he destroys the eyeball.............Yeah, that just sounds weird.  After Azathoth defeats the threat, the Blue comes and puts the monster in chains and claims that Azathoth is now the Avatar for the Blue and I guess the Blue and the Atlanteans lock it away until it's needed in the future.  My takeaway from this is don't trust giant eyeballs or Altanteans.  These stories really feel like they could have been told in the World's End title because there really isn't much to them.

Finally we head over to Mexico and meet Yolanda Montez who is a fiery red head who doesn't take any shit off anyone.  After she beats the hell out of a guy who might have asked for a date and then called her a disparaging remark when she turned him down, we see her toss him on his ass and then go and check on her cousin who may or may not have been attacked by the guy as well............. It's not very clear.  We find out that Yolanda and her cousin are very close and she beats herself up that for as much as she tries to protect him, she can't save him from having nightmares all the time.  This leads to the boy having a nosebleed and passing out and in the hospital we find out that the boy was chosen for the Red and if he does not commit to the role of Avatar that he will die.  Yolanda wanting to protect her cousin from this fate like we've just been told she does, decides to become the new Avatar and after transforming into a hellish beast, she is told that she will wait at the Tower of Fate until she is needed..................... then somehow Desaad took control of her as we saw in World's End.  Again this story doesn't feel fleshed out enough that it couldn't have easily been placed in World's End and at this point I really feel like this issue of Earth 2 was a waste.

That's it for this issue of Earth 2............... or World's End's bitch as it seems to have become.  All these origins to the Avatars really seem flimsy and completely lackluster.  Sam Zhou was a good soul so he was chosen, Azathoth was a monster that was forced into it and Yolanda Montez became the Avatar for the Red because she happened to have the same blood as her cousin and the Red was feeling apathetic about who it chose that day.  We've got a bunch of artists this issue telling the individual stories but I get enough of that in World's End............... I think I've just become a curmudgeon and a Negative Nancy here because I don't really have much good to say here.  That just really makes me sad because this was once my favorite title.  See you next month where hopefully I can get behind the issue and the writers have something for me that isn't just World's End's leavings.

Bits and Pieces:

Everything about this issue just seems like it's thrown together because the creators realized at the last second that they needed origins for their Avatar characters and produced the most generic take they could on the story.  All the stories in this issue feel like they could have been placed in one of the many segments of World's End and saved this for an actual thought about concept.  I just really hate this title becoming the backup for the weekly series.

4/10