Not Really Off-Topic: Earth 2 #19

Last post I reviewed, in detail, Big Dog Ink's LEGEND OF OZ: THE WICKED WEST #14, here I review another book that demanded this kind of treatment: DC's EARTH 2 #19.

Darkseid's army begins a mass invasion of Earth, and the world's heroes seem all but impotent to stop the onslaught. Seeing Superman as a full-on disciple of Darkseid, is very much like a vision of the anti-christ. One cannot help but think of that Biblical imagery as this story unfolds. This Ersatz Superman stands before the people, deriding the weak and praising the strong as 'chosen'... an inversion of everything we think of the Man of Steel standing for.

I like the new Batman, a lot. We know this one isn't Bruce Wayne and that reinforces my long-standing position that we can have a great Batman who isn't Bruce (why isn't Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a Tim Drake Batman in the new movie?). I also like the central theme that is beginning to form in this book: "hope shines in the darkness." Things couldn't be grimmer here in Earth 2 right now, and the tension has reached heights you could never reach in the primary DC universe, because we know literally 'anything can happen.'

But while terrors abound, the glimpses of hope are for that reason all the more powerful. Batman discovers another Kryptonian (or is this Earth 2's version of Superboy, and thus only half Kryptonian...we don't know yet), and we find out he has some Kryptonite on him. Lois Lane's attitude as the new Red Tornado is uplifting, and the ending where we get this glimpse of the return of Green Lantern, all this and more adds up to this sense that it is always darkest before the dawn. I can't wait to see where this all is taking me.

This is the way life really is. Hope can come in small packages. The message of a light in the darkness is perhaps best embodied by Jimmy Olson, who here is a very young boy possessed of some fantastic superpowers (he's some kind of tech-master.) There is something appropriately apocalyptic in all of this. The Book of Revelation looms large. The Book of Revelation is so full of hope within darkness, and everything turning around at the last moment. All great comic books are in some sense deeply theological, and this is a perfect example.

The art is some of the best DC has going, the storyline has surprises at every turn, the dialogue is good. Only the pacing is off, and then only a bit.

Overall, I give this book 4.5 out of 5 Stars