Earth 2: Society #13 Review and *SPOILERS*

Headed Towards A Rebirth

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Federico Dallocchio, David Calderon, Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: June 8, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Is it possible that in the final days of Earth 2: Society that Ultra-Humanite can save this series from mediocrity?  It's weird, for all the villains that we've had in this series from Terry Sloan, Doctor Impossible and Kyle Nimbus, it really seems like we haven't seen shit yet now that an albino mastermind gorilla has shown up on the scene and maybe it's that classic feel that we need to put this book on track for its Rebirth debut........ which isn't actually a Rebirth and more of a continuation of this, but for everything coming out this summer and beyond whether it gets a Rebirth issue or not..... it all feels like a Rebirth doesn't it?  Maybe that's just me though.  In our previous issue we saw the Green Lantern, Alan Scott give up his power ring so that he could put an end to the coming war by using its energy to power the planet for as long as it needs, but this seemed to be all apart of the Bobby Fisher minded Ultra-Humanite's plans, who saw the avatar of the Green as his only threat to his world domination.  Let's jump into this issue and see what our Wonders are doing now that we're past the war and how Ultra-Humanite plans on becoming the Grand Poobah of Earth-2.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with every Wonder and their mamas showing up now that Fury has entered the scene and wants to discuss the future of Earth-2.  This also leads to one of the best bits of dialog/exposition that this series has seen between Commander Sato and Sandman just remarking about everyone showing up and the state of the Wonders in the world....... and how Sandman doesn't like the new Batman.  It's really fun and casual and works great because we never get to see these characters in this light.  It's time for all our heroes to get together in a sort of Justice Society to find out what Fury is proposing.  

During the meeting it was initially a little shocking at how forthright Fury was about her original plan to come to town and start dictating how the world was going to work for now on, but all of this seems to be a way of breaking the ice and some showing of trust in that she was willing to tell them how she intended on making them her subjects, but after Green Lantern sacrificed his power to save the world from war, Fury is now on the teamwork trolley and wants to do all she can in maintaining the world with a peaceful co-existence.   This means Amazonian and Atlantean tech being offered freely....... and really, everything is all kinds of pinatas and RC Cola here.  The weirdest part about all of this is after she explains how she brought back the Amazons with her Pandora Vessel, Dr. Fate seems to think that this vessel........ which we previously learned was a way to preserve the Amazonian spirit so that the Amazons could return..... well, Dr. Fate seems to think that this Vessel can bring back everything from our Wonder's original Earth and everyone seems to be all about it...... and I'm just left wondering, "Huh?"  Everybody seems to be sold on this idea that Dr. Fate has foreseen this with his mystical mumbo jumbo, but the real clincher that gets everyone on board is when Batman tells us that he lost his wife during the Apokolips invasion and has never found his son after coming to this Earth.  Which I don't know if I'd be breaking out the champagne and cheering about this Pandora Vessel being able to do everything that Dr. Fate thinks it can do just yet, but I'm happy as hell that we finally get some backstory on Dick Grayson as Batman here because we haven't seen anything with this son John since the end of  Convergence and now it makes sense why.

In the end, we get even more info on Johnny Boy because throughout this issue we see genetically modified children who have been aged to teenagers and brainwashed to do Ultra-Humanite's bidding and as our issue closes we see that John is one of the children that he's taken for his experiments.  Now that they're all Bourne Identity-ed up, they're sent out to take out Fury because of her new plan of creating a peaceful world and to obtain her Pandora Vessel for Ultra-Humanite because our big bad albino gorilla isn't going to stand for some upstart Amazon Queen messing up his plans.

That's it for this issue of Earth 2: Society and like the last issue we get a really low key story here where our heroes are just shooting the shit and trying to find out how to make the best damn world they can and while I enjoyed the previous issue enough, I gotta say that this one worked way better.  One of the big points that puts this issue higher than the last is because Dan Abnett actually got Dick Grayson's son's name right.  No longer do we have the days of Tommy Grayson running around making me furious........ so right there, we can add a point to the score of this book because goddamn have writers fucked that up over and over again.  All in all, this is a really decent book that moves our story to an interesting place, whether I agree with the Rebirth ex Machina or not.  All I'm interested in at this point is getting to a place where our heroes have a world that works, where they can actually be heroes and from everything that this issue offers, it looks like we're getting there and that's great.  The art and colors in this book are as fun and vibrant as they always are and they continue to be a high point in reading this, but now that Dan Abnett has found a way to add a little classic fun to the series with Ultra-Humanite and is getting us to a place that I've wanted to see since Earth 2 originally began....... well, this is an issue you probably should pick up.  

Bits and Pieces:

I don't know if I'm just a fickle mush head or not, but again and again this series gets me all excited, but eventually it lets me down and I say that I'll never get my hopes up again.......... but goddamn does this issue get me excited for where this series will go.  I know we're not getting an official Rebirth on the cover of the new Earth 2 series once it starts to act as a prologue to what we'll be getting, but really this arc seems to be just that without flaunting it.  Between the vibrant art and the intriguing story I think I may just be on the Earth 2 trolley once again and if you've been hanging back waiting to see what happens, maybe this is a good time to jump back into this world of Wonders.

7.8/10