World's End #20

Mister T-Bag!

Do you think this series will have a big twist ending where Earth-2 actually survives?! The world that ends will be Apokolips and Darkseid will be all, "Wh-wh-wh-what?!" Then Etrigan will cut his head off and keep it by his side for the next thousand years.

Down in the bowels of the Earth, Queen Lantern learns the Green wasn't being entirely truthful about the world ending if Deathspawn made it to the center of the Earth. Yeah, no shit. Somebody has mentioned the world finally ending about sixty times so far and it's still fucking chugging along. Anyway, Green actually might be able to help heal the non-Blue members of Parliament and then maybe they'll come up with a new plan while Alan Scott heads back to Russia to help the Avatars.

So once again, the Avatars are tasked with saving the world even though they have failed every time so far. And by "every time," I mean the one long protracted battle between the Four Horsewomen of Apokolips. And by "battle," I mean stalemate. The Horsewomen were only defeated when the Wonders came by to help out. I think the Avatars might actually be useless.

Meanwhile The Huntress and Replacement Batman fiddle around with a busted old computer while a wave of molten metal washes down on top of them.

I'm not so sure about that, Helena. I think Power Girl just paid other people to steal Michael Holt's technology!

Not every superhero needs to be a genius of some kind, guys! You don't have to make Kara into something she's not! It's okay if Kara's strengths are running a business and leading people. You don't have to suddenly make her into a gadget whiz kid too! It would be just fine to have Huntress acknowledge that people forget Kara built up and owned one of the most powerful technology research labs on Earth-Main-Earth. That's impressive enough, you know.

The Huntress gets the information she needs and she and her grandfather escape with just seconds to spare! Probably not even seconds! Probably just one second!

They live to discover Green Arrow hiding out on a deep sea drilling rig that can "transform" into a robot. I bet his name is Jellyfish. Or Texas Tea. I was never much of a Transformers viewer. Were any of the robots in disguise female? If not, was their an explanation for it? Did the females transform into...no, no, no, no. Nothing good can come from me completing that sentence!

Meanwhile Dick continues to lie to himself about how he completely fucked up back in Chicago when the tidal wave was bearing down on everybody.

No, Grayson. You chose to split with your son for poorly plotted reasons! But I guess it was worth it because now we have this boring side plot where Dick mentions once per issue how he needs to find his kid. Also, once per issue, he doesn't mention his dead wife Barbara.

Some people might argue with my use of "once per issue" in that last caption about how often Dick doesn't mention Babs. Well fuck you. What am I? A math professor?

Finally Dick and Ted catch up to Obsidian and Jonni Thunder who were there when Dick gave his kid away for no good reason. They inform him that Brainwave has his son now because Brainwave is mind controlling hundreds of survivors. Why? I don't know yet but I'm sure the explanation will be just as logical as the explanation for every other plot point in this comic book.

*Me, whispering*: That means it will be lousy!

Meanwhile in space, Mister Miracle, Fury, Mister Terrific, and The Sandman realize they don't know how to drive the Multidimensional escape ship Jimmy Olsen discovered. Good thing the owner is still on board to help them. Maybe!

Why is he Mister Eight again? Or is that just a Dig Dug emoticon on his chest?

Finally, Alan Scott absorbs all of the other Avatars and sucks up all the Parliament's power. Now instead of ten useless, mediocre characters, there's just Alan Scott, Green Lantern!

World's End #20 Rating: -1 Ranking. As long as I just keep typing and reading and typing and reading and not thinking about anything, I can mostly stand this comic book. The characters are all just paper dolls without any personality though. I don't think it really matters who speaks which lines. And I get the feeling that nobody is really doing anything important. They're all just fiddling their diddles waiting for the world to end (which it can't do soon enough).