Earth 2: World's End #16 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Daniel H. Wilson, Marguerite Bennett, Mike Johnson
Art By: Scott McDaniel, Tyler Kirkham, Eduardo Pansica, Paul Neary, Robson Rocha, Guillermo Ortego, Andrew Dalhouse
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: January 21, 2015

Call Me When It's Over

When we last strolled over the dimensional bridge to Earth 2, we saw darkness and pain....... a lot of pain because man has this title become hard to endure.  What went down includes Jimmy Olsen discovering a ship ex machina that happens to be in Earth's orbit that can hold a city worth of people, Flash finding out the species of each of the Furies and relaying their weaknesses to the Avatars.  At first I thought this was pretty cool but I really need to stop being so over zealous because even knowing their enemies weaknesses, our heroes still managed to get their asses whooped.  Dick Grayson decided to become Bruce Lee out of nowhere and start brutally beating thugs in Chicago and in the end Superman sacrificed his life to save his friends and family.  If this doesn't sound that bad, then I'm sorry I couldn't relay the information better.  Let's cross our fingers as we go into this issue and hope that Earth 2: World's End can redeem itself.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with the aftermath of Superman sacrificing himself.  Even though we saw Desaad for some reason say "YES" when Superman used his corrupted DNA to stop all the Red Avatar clones last issue, he's nowhere to be seen here and our heroes don't seem to care about it.......... So I guess I won't either.  Not only has Superman destroyed the clones but somehow his DNA has destroyed the entire Clone Labyrinth, freed the Avatar of the Red and shutdown the Parademon factory, meaning the hive mind has been severed........ Now that's some super DNA.  Now this part is a bit funny to me.  We have the Avatar freed and then Power Girl goes up to it and says how her father (figuratively Superman) and her best friend were taken from them to free her and when she tells the Avatar this Power Girl calls her a monster because........ well she looks like a monster.  Now if Power Girl guilt tripping the Avatar isn't enough to make you laugh, it seems that the Avatar completely missed the point of the conversation because she responds that she isn't a monster, she's a woman named Yolanda Montez and then breaks out of the Clone Labyrinth and almost takes our heroes out as the complex crumbles.  This is all very odd.  So the Avatar of the Red breaks out and joins her fellow Avatars in the fight against the Furies of Apokolips.............Even though we don't see her again this issue and believe me there is a lot more Avatar play this issue.

Now that our Superman/Batman heroes have finally made their way out of the fire pit they plan on rescuing Helena.......... and somehow now Batman is taking Venom instead of Miraclo.  Did I miss something here?  Originally Batman took Miraclo to give himself superpowers, then Val-Zod destroyed his stash, then he was somehow getting jacked off Superman's blood and now he has vials of Venom out of nowhere.......

Leaving that nonsense, Power Girl, Val-Zod and Red Tornado go to bury Clark at a nice spot under a tree and afterwards Red Tornado offers Power Girl Superman's shield because it was always her's to wear and as if a magical voice screamed down from the heavens "Cover Your Tits!" the shield magically becomes part of Kara's costume........What the shit?  I know people are going to claim that this has something to do with Kryptonian fabrics as a way to help them sleep at night, but I'm calling shenanigans.

Now the hunt is on and our Superman/Batman heroes join the Avatars in taking on the Furies of Apokolips and even though we saw our heroes get their asses handed to them by one Fury when they first appeared, they completely take them apart here.  I mean there really isn't a fight at all, it's just good guys beating bad guys..........  Think about Superman going against you in a fight.  Yeah, they went down as fast as you would.  Now I've been wondering what changing Helena back to her normal self would entail ever since she was changed into a Fury by Desaad and here I finally get to see that all it would take is for Power Girl to grab her and dive her into the ground.  All the monster qualities and bat wings she was sporting are magically gone.....................WTF?!!!!!!  Now this could all be temporary and even if it was I still wouldn't understand it but it also looks like Huntress might have died here.  Now I know that's not the case but man are the writers coming off like they don't give a damn about this book anymore.

In the end, the Fury: Death is all that remains.  She pleads for mercy because of her child (remember she's been pregnant with Darkseid's baby this whole time) but I guess all she was doing was buying some time so that the monster inside of her could rip it's way out.  I know that this is going to be some kind of hellish monster but I can't help but think about the Earth 2 heroes killing a new born baby............... I think the site needs ads so I can afford a therapist.

That's it for this issue of World's End and man is this title a mess.  There doesn't appear to be any continuity within this series and you might say that I'm just nitpicking but story is important to me and the fact that we've been waiting for the Avatar of the Red to show up and complete the kingdoms of Earth so that they could defeat their enemy, only to have her completely disappear and have the day saved by other heroes seems like such a bullshit resolution.  There is no accountability and the majority of this title seems like the writers just had a bunch of cool ideas and threw them in all willy nilly.  With all my bitching aside though, the art in this book is great.  It's strong from beginning to end but it's too bad that it's used to show this awful issue.

Bits and Pieces:

When did Earth 2 and all things relating to it become bullshit?  For a long time now this weekly series has done it's best to destroy everything that James Robinson and Tom Taylor created that made Earth 2 one of my favorite series.  Even though this issue had some of the strongest art that I've seen come out of this series, it feels like the writers have given up and simply want World's End to end and at this point, so do I.

4/10