Earth 2 #18 - A Review

Tom Taylor hit the ground running with Earth 2 last month and - much like The Flash - he hasn't stopped for a moment since.  Half of this issue centers around a running battle between The Flash and Superman, who has been revealed as being alive and well but - unfortunately - now in the thrall of Darkseid.  The other half of the issue centers upon a new Batman and his efforts to free a number of metahuman captives who have been held in stasis by The World Army for several years. 


Tom Taylor was the perfect choice to take over this series after James Robinson's departure.  As fans of Injustice: Gods Among Us can vouch, Taylor is incredibly skilled at taking the base concept of a character and finding new things to do with them.  It's hard to say which concepts in this issue came directly from Taylor and how many of them may have been bequeathed to him from Robinson's playbook  In the end, it doesn't matter.  All of these ideas grab the reader immediately and I can't wait to see more of Aquawoman, the new Red Tornado (i.e. Lois Lane's personality in a robot body) and Accountable - a teenage Jimmy Olsen who has the power to control the flow of electronic information..



The artwork of Nicola Scott and Trevor Scott continues to wow me.  I'm hard pressed to pick a favorite artist but Nicola Scott is easily one of my top-five and probably the most criminally underrated artist working today.  How she and Trevor Scott haven't gotten an Eisner nomination for their work on this book is beyond me.

If you're a DC Comics fan who rues the New 52, there's a home for you on Earth 2.  Despite the dark setting, there is a sense of hope and creativity in this series that most recent DC Comics books lack.  All this and a good story and good artwork too!