Earth 2: Society #7 Review and *SPOILERS*

Planet Mother Box

Written By: Daniel H. Wilson
Art By: Jorge Jimenez, Allison Borges, Alejandro Sanchez, Blond, Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: December 9, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

What's this I hear about Earth 2 going and doing something crazy like bringing it's heroes together and actually do normal hero things?......... You know, instead of fighting wars against gods and Converging on planets called Telos....... that's not actually a planet, but a character doing things in his own series.  Yeah, out of all the titles that came out during the New 52, I have to say that Earth 2 has suffered the most because of all the crazy shit that DC decided to put it through.  I don't know if they thought they needed to be over the top in order to make re-imagined Golden Age characters seem relevant or interesting, but whatever the thought process, it was a mistake.  Now instead of having a normal planet to save the everyday citizen and the ability for our heroes to sit around a table in a Brownstone, chatting about what their day was like and how they'll bring justice to evil-doers, we've got spaceship cities and Jimmy Olsen becoming a god and trying to terraform the planet to make it exactly like Earth 2 originally was....... you know, before all the World's End and Covergences that got us completely off track........ Actually, this sounds like a half decent idea so hopefully our heroes fail when they try to take him down here.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

 Our issue begins with Val-Zod, Batman and Flash exactly where we left them last issue, with our heroes going up against the newly introduced Hourman.  As we saw in last issue, Flash went and looked at the face of Johnny Sorrow and Batman doesn't think that he'll ever be able to recover from looking at that kind of ugly.......... but apparently Batman doesn't know shit because immediately after that; Flash is cracking jokes and even grabs Hourman's belt, containing his supply of Miraclo so Val-Zod can heat vision that shit....... Even though Hourman was introduced as a villain in this title, I was happy as hell to see him because he's one of my favorite Golden Age heroes, but what I can't explain is why after Val-Zod destroys his supply of Miraclo, Hourman just straight up vanishes.  I mean, he still had like forty minutes of power going on and we just never see the character again in this issue...... It's just really confusing.  I guess there isn't any reason to stick around since Hourman is just gone and the rest of the villains have been taken care of, so our heroes head off to New Gotham....... because I guess they just know where shit is going down in this issue.  

Over in New Gotham, shit has gotten real as Jimmy Olsen, Huntress and Red Arrow try to engage the Genesis Machine with their new Source Vault because Green Lantern comes stomping in like a goddamn Godzilla to save the planet from the machinations of Doctor Impossible (Jimmy Olsen).  Again, I'm not sure how the flow of knowledge spreads out in this world because up until the point where Jimmy starts cackling like the goddamn villain that he is, everybody simply thinks that he's just going to terraform this planet into their lost home world of Earth 2....... and even though most seem to be against the idea, I'm not sure why.  Yeah, Green Lantern doesn't want the world to change, but even if it does, he can just tap into that Green and continue to be the emotionless sentinel of plant life on the planet and all's well that ends well, but even before the device is activated, he seems to know that Jimmy is up to no good and we find out that when Green Lantern plays a hunch, you better listen because as it turns out, Jimmy plans on turning the planet into a Mother Box........ for some reason.

In the end, all of heroes eventually converge on the WayneCorp building and the fight for the Earth begins........ and our heroes pretty much get their asses handed to them and even though Green Lantern ripped through the top floor of the WayneCorp building...... destroying the Genesis Machine, I guess Jimmy is still able to keep the Source Vault going, even when he's trying to shove it inside Green Lantern's chest....... Again no idea.  The moral of the story seems to be that if you have an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend that you continue to have a problem with, well get over that shit because the two of you could save the world if you just get past your bickering because Val-Zod and Power Girl work together and hit Jimmy Olsen, giving Red Arrow and Huntress the opportunity to stick three arrows into the Source Vault, shutting it down.  

As our issue closes, Green Lantern traps Jimmy Olsen and says that he'll remain that way forever and strokes the heroes' egos a bit, while using the words Justice and Society in the same sentence........ as if that was enough to make this issue worth reading.

That's it for this issue of Earth 2: Society and if we at Weird Science didn't review every damn book that DC put out, I would seriously just drop this title because it's just a series of things happening without any real rhyme or reason, that comes off really underwhelming overall.  We've got all these characters that should be great individually and beyond awesome together, but after all the shit that's gone down from all the titles concerning them, it feels like we've lost something along the way and I'm not sure if they'll ever be able to get it back because as of right now, they all seem like damaged, unlikable heroes and being stuck on a binary world, that constantly seems dark as hell....... with it's cities made out of crashed space ships...... well, it's just not helping them any.  If Terry Sloan at the beginning of this series would have told me that the Source Vault would have brought back Earth 2, it's people and it's cities, I would have said fuck it....... Yes, retcon all of this shit and let's start over because continuing these characters down this road is doing nothing but hurting them and making it so nobody will want to see them ever again.  Okay, rant over.  As for the art in this book, it's not bad, but with some panels coming off way cartoonier than others, it just doesn't have a consistent feel and even the parts that came together really well don't make up for this really lackluster ending to this really disappointing story........ and series.

Bits and Pieces:

Earth 2: Society continues to disappoint as we get done this story arc, that really didn't feel like it served a purpose.  Yeah, we got introduced to some villains, but with characters magically knowing where to go and what was going down out of nowhere, I have to wonder if DC thinks it's readers are too stupid to care about a coherent story.  I love all the characters that are depicted in this book, but I'm on the verge of never wanting to see them again because of how poorly they're represented here.  

3/10