Earth 2’s destruction continues in the eighth installment of the weekly series World’s End, entitled “The End Times”. We jump right in to Green Lantern Alan Scott, high above Earth, blasting debris that was once the Moon, to prevent it from impacting the planet surface. As we saw at the end of last week, Apokalips abruptly smashed into Earth’s outer orbit, obliterating the Moon in the process.
We catch up briefly with Dick Grayson and the recently introduced Ted Grant, fighting off hordes of viral-infected zombies at the World Army Stronghold Camp in Chicago. Moon meteors begin striking all over the planet, one of which smashes into the camp, leaving the fate of Barbara Gordon Grayson to be revealed in next month’s Earth 2 #29.
Meanwhile at the Arkham Base in Gotham, guest character John Constantine, recently thrown to Earth 2 by mistake, has taken some of the planet’s best mages and put them on cryogenic defrost. This includes the debuts of legacy characters Todd Rice (AKA Obsidian, obviously no longer the son of Jay Garrick) and Jonni Thunder. Their adventures are said to continue in the issue Constantine #19.
The Parliaments fight the furies while Flash finally finds his mother, only to be greeted by Hawkgirl in a most unpleasant way. Several other short vignettes occur.
Positives
The reintroduction of Obsidian and Jonni Thunder were by far a highlight, much like how last week’s debut of Ted Grant was. It’s great to finally see more of my favorite JSA characters getting thrown into the mix after being out of publication for more than three years at this point.
Negatives
Unfortunately, with my favorite part also comes a problem: TOO many characters. There are so many subplots going on at this point that most are lucky to get a page dedicated to their ongoing stories. There was very little progress made with any of the characters this week, and that is problematic. If an entire issue feels like mostly wasted space, what’s the point in reading it?
Verdict
Earth 2: World’s End #8 may very well be the weakest issue of the series thus far. While there’s some decent writing and art, it’s just far too crammed with subplots for any progress to be made. Next week really needs to bring some excitement to help the title bounce back.
