Earth 2: Society #16 Review and *SPOILERS*

Monkey On My Back....... and In My Brain.

Written By: Dan Abnett
Art By: Angel Hernandez, David Calderon, Ikari Studio, Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: September 14, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Let's head back to Earth 2 and see what kind of trouble our Wonders can get into now that Ultra-Humanite has possessed Alan Scott and called his ring back........... pretty much making him a god...... Yeah, you've read this book, you know.  So yeah, with the fate of the world at the mercy of the Ultra-Humanite, let's see if our heroes can band together to stop their friend Green Lantern, while hopefully not hurting him before he makes his way to Fury's Pandora Casket, where he could possibly remake the world into the Planet of The Humanites.  With any luck, we'll get our heroes using the Casket in some way, where we can go back in time and somehow prevent World's End from ever happening........... The Pandora Casket can do that, right?........ RIGHT?  Oh well, let's move on and see how our Wonders handle themselves when faced with such a big threat.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins and continues with Green Lantern just destroying all of our Wonders, as Ultra-Humanite talks through him, mocking our heroes, while making his way to Fury's Pandora Casket.  The fucked up thing is....... you know besides for all the other fucked up things, after I went and argued a bit with Jim on the podcast about the fate of Sandman in the previous issue............. Well, it turns out I was wrong and as we see here, Frank Dodds is fucking dead!  I understand that characters die, but I never got that from the last issue.  The most that happened in my mind was that he was hit by a green ray and was on the ground somewhere knocked out........... nope, dead.  The thing is though, even if I would have thought that Sandman died in the previous issue, it doesn't carry much weight in my mind and that's not only because we've seriously done nothing with that character since Earth 2 started back in 2012.  The reason there's nothing to it is because when Green Lantern goes through all the other Wonders, he's confronted by Red Arrow, who's protecting the Pandora Casket and after Oliver actually gets Alan Scott to will himself free of the Ultra-Humanite, the big ape apparently doesn't need our Green Lantern anymore because he's actually there and then proceeds to kill Oliver Queen.  Do you see what I'm saying?  We have a device that can remake the world from before and all of a sudden we have characters dying left and right.......... don't worry kids, they'll be back.

With the rest of our heroes down, it's up to Fury to stop the big ape from getting to the Pandora Casket, but ultimately it was Batman, Huntress, Firepattern and Hawkgirl who get the upper hand on this villain and in the end, Fury takes the opportunity to use it before she loses it........ and yes, I'm talking about the Pandora Casket and as our issue closes, everything is washed out by a bright light, hopefully remaking the world and not plunging our heroes into some kind of purgatory.  

That's it for this issue of Earth 2: Society and besides for trying to create a sense that anything could happen going forward, there wasn't too much to this issue........ and really, it didn't even create that suspense it was going for because even though we had characters die in the previous issue and this one (not counting the Annual), we're dealing with a story line that has a tool that is the equivalent to a real life reset button so at no time did I think to myself that "Oh my god, my Wonders are dead", but maybe that's just because I'm dead inside and a bit cynical.  I don't know, there just wasn't a lot going on here besides for over the top dialog that got continuity wrong, a simplistic fight scene and us getting to where we all knew we'd get to with our heroes using the Pandora Casket themselves.  Hell, I didn't even think the art was that great because most of the panels lacked any kind of close ups and because of that nothing was really detailed.  I will say that I enjoyed the colors though and I did enjoy seeing Batman and his crew taking on Ultra-Humanite, besides that though, there's not a lot to like....... That is unless you're really into a fight that doesn't really go anywhere.

Bits and Pieces:

This issue feels like it's trying to fool people into thinking that everything going on here is a big deal, but really it's all smoke and mirrors, while Earth 2 desperately tries to get itself somewhere safe and decent with its story so a Rebirth can come and pull this series away from its "has been" status.  

5.5/10