Earth 2 #12

Twenty Pages per month just doesn't seem like a lot of space to give to every single person on Earth 2.

Last issue, Doctor Fate finally accepted his role as Doctor Fate and the Justice Society came one step closer to being a reality. I keep hoping Robinson will get around to dealing with Mister Terrific's story but I guess locking him in a closet until Robinson is ready to deal with him was probably the best way to keep Mister Terrific's cancellation from ruining Robinson's plans for this book.

This issue begins with Dr. Fate and Wotan battling above the streets of Boston. I guess upon defeating the Great Beast, the dimension housing the Tower of Doctor Fate spit everybody out. And of course that magical, strange dimension was located amid the shadows and aging buildings of a New England town. I just can't picture any kind of Lovecraftian dimension existing anywhere in the Midwest or on the West Coast. Unless Robinson takes a moment for a flashback to see how the battle ended up on Earth 2, I'll just assume it's the way I just mentioned.

The World Army flies in to put a stop to the magic battle but Green Lantern and The Flash try to keep the World Army at bay. Why is Green Lantern here and helping? Why are they trying to keep the battle one on one? Where's Jay Garrick's mother? I'm smelling the need for a flashback pretty soon here!

Oh! There's the flashback! And ugh! Jay Garrick's subconscious is ugly.

Doctor Fate and Wotan begin their battle in the side Dimension. Nabu wants to help Khalid with his previous knowledge of Wotan but Khalid, as Doctor Fate now, decides he's through listening to the voice in his head. That might be helpful in certain situations but I'm pretty sure when you're about to use magic which you have next to no experience using, it might actually be a good thing to listen to the voice in your head that's had years and years of experience with the stuff! And because Doctor Fate doesn't listen to the expert, his first magic attack is simply flying straight at Wotan and smashing into him like a demented football fan crazed from seeing the colors of the rival team (in this case, the colors are blue and yellow versus purple and green).

No! Evoke the power of Bast! Cats beat everything!

Because Wotan is so powerful in this dimension, Nabu directs Khalid to take the fight back to Earth where Wotan will lose the extra power he's absorbed from squatting in this place. And that's how they all end up fighting in Boston. Also, Doctor Fate claims he needs to beat Wotan without any help. And that's why The Flash and Green Lantern set up a perimeter to keep the World Army away from the conflict. And then on the next page, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl appear so the next part will probably explain why Green Lantern is helping out! He probably came by to drop off some applications to the Justice Society and just got swept up in the fighting and the do-gooding.

Alan Scott and Kendra Hawkperson are trying to figure out why an entire train was derailed simply to kill Sam, Alan's fiance. Their investigation leads them to a shipping container full of dead parademons which is probably the answer to the mystery but they're not smart enough to figure it out. So Alan's ring decides to force him back to America to hang out with Doctor Fate and The Flash while Hawkgirl goes back to the guy that led them to the shipping container to ask him, "What the fuck?"

And that brings everybody together just like when the comic book started. It also leaves just a couple of pages left for Doctor Fate to destroy Wotan. Or at least destroy this current version of Wotan. If that happens, Wotan probably won't be any trouble for at least another ten or eleven years.

I guess two year olds can be a handful, so maybe Wotan will be back by Issue #36.

Afterward, The Nearly The Justice Society retreat from the World Army to Alan Scott's penthouse. Before they can decide on their next step, Doctor Fate has a vision that they should turn on the television because televisions are always supposed to be on so that super heroes can learn their next course of action. When they turn on the set, the news tells them that Steppenwolf has declared himself leader of a crappy little country and that the World Army is set to invade. So of course The Nearly The Justice Society feels they should probably get involved. I guess that'll take place in the stupid Annual.

I hate Annuals! I want a week off instead of reading four half-hearted stories to lure in new readers!

Earth 2 #12 Rating: No change. Maybe this was good. Or maybe it wasn't good. I was kind of distracted with life problems today and I wasn't really concentrating very well. That's going to happen sometimes! Sometimes a busy business meeting will make your bowels go crazy and then the meeting will only take fifteen minutes and be a total breeze and get you more business and some good news and then your car will try to break the fuck down on you on the way home because it apparently doesn't like being driven in the daylight and the heat and without any oil because you've been meaning to put oil in the stupid thing for close to three weeks but you never remember because at the end of Tuesday night's shift, you just shut off your brain completely and never think about work stuff again until a few hours before Sunday's night shift and then you think, "Fuck me! I forgot the oil again!" and you just shrug and go to work anyway. Sometimes that kind of thing happens and then when it all works out and it's all over with, you just want to eat some Indian Food and nap in a chair in the breeze and the sun in the backyard. So then Earth 2 doesn't get read very well.