Not what you were expecting.
When Earth 2 was first announced, along with the creative team of James Robinson and Nicola Scott, there wasn’t much speculation. Everyone knew – knew – that this was going to be the new JSA book, since there wasn’t one in the initial run of New 52 books. However, then the cover art and initial solicits were released, and suddenly there was a lot of speculation. Luckily, that speculation can end today, as its now clear what kind of book this is going to be.
Its fortuitous that this book features one of the first appearances of Steppenwolf outside of any of Kirby’s Fourth World books, as Earth 2 looks to be, much like those storied forbears, a true epic. The epic feel isn’t all that Earth 2 shares with New Gods and the other Fourth World stories, though. The central premise behind the Fourth World was that “When the old gods died, there came…THE NEW GODS”, and the same is true of Earth 2, for at the end of this first issue, the old gods are well and truly dead. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, among others, have fallen ending the war with Apokalips, and now it is time for new heroes, and new stories.
Which is ironic, really, considering that the “new heroes” the final pages posit are none other than Alan Scott and Jay Garrick, the original golden age Green Lantern and Flash, now made young inhabitants of a twenty-first century Earth 2. This, no doubt, is going to piss some people off. Personally, though, I feel it opens up a world of new and interesting possibilities for these characters, as well as the potential to introduce and reinvent them for a new generation of readers.
The team for this book couldn’t have been better chosen. Robinson has proven time and again in the past that he knows how to be respectful to Golden Age characters, while still updating them, and making them relevant to modern times, and he continues that tradition here. Nicola Scott’s artwork, while definitely veering away from her own unique style and moving into “Jim Lee is popular right now, so we should all draw like him” territory, is still very pretty to look at, and gets across the immense scale of the conflict being contained within these pages.
If I had anything negative to say about this book, it would be this: Earth 2 doesn’t really feel like an ongoing series. There could be ongoing series’ set on the parallel earth, but this feels like an 8-issue story that introduces this world to us, not the start of something that will last for years.
That being said, though, Earth 2 is a riveting read, and a standout in an already terrific week of DC Comics. Between Earth 2, Dial H, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Action Comics, Detective Comics, Stormwatch, and so many others across all the weeks, its clear that while Marvel may rule the feature film arena at the moment, DC is the unchallenged king of the comic book throne.
As published on examiner.com
