Earth 2: Society #11 Review and *SPOILERS*

Wonders........ You Have Some 'Splaining To Do

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Federico Dallocchio, David Calderon, Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: April 13, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Yeah, it seems that our Earth 2 refugees are in a pickle and by a pickle I mean that they're on their way to oblivion since the new world they inhabit is barren of natural resources and the little bit of energy they have left will only last the people of this world about a year............ Clean energy be damned!  After last issue though I was thinking that this whole natural resource thing might be the least of these peoples problems because Aqua Woman and Fury have secretly made an alliance and while it might turn out okay in the end, there's something about those two that makes me fearful for a world that doesn't really respond well to outsiders........... such as people who breath underwater or worship Roman gods.  Alright, let's jump into this issue and see how everything turns out with all of that and if Batman, Red Arrow and Ted Grant can take out The Mist and Hourman.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Red Arrow and Ted Grant making a bad ass superhero entrance as they break through a window to save Batman from the mighty power of Hourman............. it's just that they're a little late.  No, put away your tissues and stop making arrangements to take off of work for Batman's funeral, it seems that even on Earth-2 Batman is always ready for a situation.  After their first encounter when Hourman was working for Jimmy Olsen, Batman made sure to make a anti-Miraclo so that he'd be able to combat against Rick Tyler's sixty minute onslaught.  Apparently during their fight in the previous issue, Batman was able to tag Rick with his concoction that burned his powers out in a few minutes, but that doesn't mean that Rick didn't get some serious licks in beforehand.  Yeah, Batman is in a bad way and decides that he's better suited in trying to turn Rick from the Dark Side and sends Red Arrow and Ted Grant after Kyle Nimbus............ Which is pretty awesome as well because after a few trial and error attempts to bring the misty monster down, Ted shows us his superpower and apparently he's Rocky.  Yeah, Ted might not be a wonder in the strictest of sense, but the boy can take a punch like a champ and I couldn't help but think of Kyle Nimbus saying to himself that Ted's not human, he's like a piece of iron.  With Kyle getting all Ivan Drago on Ted's ass, this gave Red Arrow the perfect opportunity to take Nimbus down while he wasn't playing misty for us.  

At least we have some good news going on in Neo Gotham, as for the rest of our heroes in the World Council............ Well, things are seriously going to shit fast.  We've got two cities on the brink of war because they both believe that they have the rights to a supposed natural resource deposit and even though Green Lantern set up a big meeting in a neutral area and even created a construct of a palace for both Governors to discuss peaceful conclusions in............. they're not having it.  Even before Alan Scott let the "This World Is Barren" cat out of the bag, these two politicians just seemed to hate on Wonders and blamed this whole thing on the heroes for losing the old Earth and that they never asked to be placed on this one............ bunch of whiners is what they are and by the end of that very short meeting the two Governors just walked away apologizing to the other for what they'd have to do to the other's city........... we're talking some apocalyptic survival shit here and it's every city for itself and the worst part about this is that with Green Lantern's failure to bring these two cities to terms, Commander Sato, Captain Steel and Sandman are issuing Martial Law and plan on killing people who get out of hand............. Yeah, we could all use a Rebirth right about now because shit has gotten real.

In the end, we continue to talk about the future of this world with Hawkgirl and Fury and what was going on with that strange secret meeting between Fury and Aqua Woman in the previous issue.  It seems that these two believe that they are best suited to save this world and its people using the means that kept Amazonia and Atlantis going for centuries and to prove her own resolve in that she only has the best intentions for the people of this world, Fury lets us in on how she recreated the Amazons.  First off, it was through a magical box called "The Pandora Vessel" and immediately I started having flashbacks to The Trinity War, but it seems that it's nowhere near as harmful as the box that brought the Crime Syndicate to Prime-Earth.  Instead, this vessel contains a type of consciousness from the Amazonian people and preserves their souls kind of until they can be reborn.  Well, after Fury's ship crash landed she was forced to fuse the dying people of her ship with the essence of the Amazons in order to keep them alive and in turn sacrificed them ever truly being made whole again.  So yeah, the people of her ship.......... even though we've only seen women so far were saved by Fury's sacrifice and she plans on using this situation as a way to make the people see that she is best suited in saving them and this world............ I'll trust it when we see some men hanging out in this secret city.

That's it for this issue of Earth 2: Society and even though this series feels like it's just turning its wheels until Rebirth starts, I have to say that this issue is probably the most rounded of Abnett's run in that it gives us a lot of information dealing with almost all the Wonders of Earth 2 and it does it in an entertaining way.  Yeah, the politics bothered me initially because I found it really boring...... because that's the type of person that I am, but here it just seemed to be done right in that we see that the people of this world hold the true power over someone as godly as Green Lantern because he refuses to do anything that resembles violence and it was just really interesting to see how powerless he is when someone just refuses to do what he asks.  Hell, each section of this book was entertaining in its own way, but the stuff with Batman just really feels out of place right now and that could just be because we haven't found out how it's related to the rest yet, but with the world on the brink of war in multiple forms, it's just odd to have a old fashioned beat up the bad guy routine, even if  it's super fun.  We've got a new art team on this issue and while it's not as preferable as what we've had up to this, it does do a great job in trying to match the style we've had before and looks good pretty all the way through.  The biggest problem that I have with it though is it seems that the art style and even the color kind of diminish from what we had in the Batman section when we get to Green Lantern's part and in my mind the colors should pop even more there, but it just kind of gets "blah".  

Bits and Pieces:

Abnett's run on this book certainly has come to a head in this issue as we get a ton of information thrown as us, but done in an entertaining way.  Yeah, this is probably my favorite issue of his run and while I'm not a huge fan of the politics angle to this book, it certainly takes a dark and interesting turn with this and even though the art isn't as strong as it's been in the past it still looks good and I find myself caring what leads this story into Rebirth.  

7/10