I picked up Earth 2 yesterday, the first comic I've bought in over a year. As someone who preferred to read about Earth-Two over Earth-One since my first encounter with the JSA in '73 or '74, I've been interested to see what a reboot of the Golden Age heroes would be like.
While I've loved the history that goes with the group, I've also understood that that and the "old men" thing was keeping them in niche status and that for them to truly flourish as characters, they would have to jettison quite a bit.
While I will probably pick up a couple of trades for some of the other "new 52" titles, this book is the first I will probably pick up monthly. I rather like the idea of an entire super hero world largely confined to a single book, and that's why Jack Staff is probably my favorite comic in recent times.
I also think it would be cool (as I thought DC might do years ago) if "Earth 2" became the masthead for a line or small line of comics.
If comics attempted to portray realistically the social and psychological effects of the kinds of events that superheroes apparently exist to deal with, all the characters would be in a more-or-less constant state of trauma. It's like they're having "9/11 events" every month or so, all the time.
Sure, but then don't base your entire new world on an earth where such an event "changed everything." Earth 2 seems like an ideal opportunity to portray a world that is scarred. But I liked it well enough for what it is.
I re-read the issue, and realize where I made my initial mistake: There's the five years ago bit, and then there's Alan Scott recording an anniversary special. I read "anniversary" as one year, not five.
Agree with Dennis on his point, but like Derishton, I think the idea that the world could come back to the semblance of normalcy that it has with that level of devastation is a bit jarring. If the world had super heroes helping to rebuild, it would've been less jarring.
In addition, I thought it was only a year later as well, but recalled reading that there was a "five years ago" thing going with it as well. It is comics though, and it's not a deal breaker.
Hmm - on first glance he looks a lot more like one of the Oan Green Lanterns - other than the variation in the shape of the lantern and ring, which do hark back to his oldDC incarnations.
I noticed that as well and while I always liked how Alan stood out when teaming with Oan lanterns, I think this is being done so that new readers aren't like "why does that guy look nothing like this army of GL's he's with?" I do like the updated look of his symbol, the other one that's been used for the last decade or so, seemed a bit clunky and overly detailed even by Golden Age standards.
There does seem to be, unfortunately, a bit of the KC armor there, and that's one of those concepts that's tied with Alan that I'd love to be put to rest. I suppose it'd be too confusing to new readers if Alan's ring was back to it's earliest powers which I don't think included ring constructs. He could walk through walls, make green flame and I think he could see remote events from a distance. I'll have to break out the Golden Age Green Lantern Archives and check.
Again, I'm interested in seeing what James does regarding Alan....I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw regarding Jay. The scene with Joan, to me, was a nice way of saying "don't expect our heroes to simply meet their new E2 counterparts and go down the same road".
I liked Earth 2... not as good as I hoped, but I really liked the IDEA of it... It feels like the real shake up that they really couldn't do on Earth 1 or Prime or whatever it's number. I'll stick around.
Agree with your final sentence, Prof. and I was pleasantly surprised to read this in a review at AICN:
"Where JUSTICE LEAGUE felt like a long yawn, a surprise beginning that was a slow decrescendo to the finish line, EARTH 2 is a surprise scream--"
I think it was better than I expected. Robinson's Starman is my favorite comic of all time and I think it was a great idea to once again give him his little corner of the DC Universe (or multiverse) and let him have the freedom to do what he wants.
Hermes hints at the end of Earth 2 that there's something worse than Darkseid coming, and that something might have wiped out the Corps.
Did he? At the beginning of the book it says the parademons swarmed Earth led by their brilliant and unstoppable leader, not a "general", named Steppenwolf. They don't mention Darkseid at all or really reference him, so that "greater threat" may actually be Darkseid himself. It may look as if they're referencing a bigger bad, but that's only because you know that Steppenwolf serves Darkseid. A new DC reader wouldn't pick up on that reading this issue. For all they would know, Steppenwolf is the leader of the parademons.
Will be interesting finding out who the big bad is at any rate.
