Earth 2 #10

I still hate Jay Garrick's outfit. But I do like Kendra's little blue vest that buttons on to her zip up jacket!

Issue Ten begins with the origin of Hawkgirl and Dr. Fate! No, wait. Premature exclamation. It begins two years ago with Kendra and Khalid being chased through an ancient Egyptian building. And then the next panel takes place fifty-nine minutes later after Kendra has had wings glued onto her back and Khalid is obsessing over his new helmet. Being that I can read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics (basically because they're like comic books (shut up, I know they're actually just phonemes. Stop ruining my lie!)), let me translate the walls Kendra and Khalid are running past in the first panel.

At the top of the pillar, we see Titty Twister the Rabbit God forcing the Egyptians into a really long queue and forcing them to do the Bunny Hop. This happens at the marriage of Du-Rahn-Te and Buht, The Goddess of Rifles Sticking Out of People's Heads. The next scene is distorted from gunfire but it looks like Du-Rahn-Te and Buht are consummating their marriage with a few slaves thrown in because having sex with multiple partners and crocodiles and cats was just an every day part of Ancient Egyptian Culture. After that, Osiris's detachable penis shoots up through the ground either four times or Osiris's penis was four-pronged. Next, Ka-We the God of Chickadees came into the room and pooped in a hat box. Then above Kendra's elbow in the yellow oval, we can see a pair of pliers next to a Yu-gi-oh deck. Beneath those is a member of the Ku Klux Klan with his pet Loch Ness Monster being reprimanded by a nun standing on an electrified floor. Beneath that and the orange line is the first sentence of a story about the New God Orion and the time he telephoned a duck. Finally on the far wall to the right of Khalid we see a bong and the red sun as it appears at 4:20. Beneath that is Bullet Bill flying over the duck with his telephone and then the pliers and Mjolnir. These might be in some reference to a hallucination caused by the smoking of the bong because beneath that are a couple of anti-drug posters. Before the anti-drug posters, though, is a short commercial with a grandfather and his grandson in a boat discussing prejudice. Then the first anti-drug poster is the "This is your brain on drugs" egg. The second anti-drug message after that is an Above the Influence poster. And that's about it.

Judging by the winged figures, I guess this is the Temple of Horus where Kendra met Horus and was granted his powers. Perhaps the great Egyptian wizard Nabu was Horus's cat and so was buried further in the temple with his favorite helmet.

Back in the present, Wotan gives a short lecture about magic and how the grand wizard Nabu used it to bring order from chaos. So that's a nice little throwback to Dr. Fate's connection to the Lords of Order and Chaos. Jay Garrick doesn't really care about all of this bullshit. He just wants Wotan to send his mom home but Wotan is a bit of a didactic prick and a control freak, so he refuses. This causes Flash to attack but apparently casting spells is quicker than The Flash. Although I suspect The Flash could have gotten the drop on him if he just ran at Wotan instead of slowing down enough to spout off about Wotan "going down!"

Wotan specializes in JRPG spells.

When Khalid first put on the Helmet of Nabu, he was possessed by Nabu's spirit. Part of Nabu's magic secreted itself inside Khalid whether he had the helmet on or not. So Khalid was constantly hearing Nabu's voice. Khalid panicked and wished the Helmet away. Now it's in this limbo in The Tower of Fate and only he and Jay Garrick have the physical make-up to enter the tower and retrieve the helmet. Jay's mom is simply incentive for them to do the task since Wotan has no qualms about killing her. I guess it's time for 1st Level Magic User Khalid and 5th Level Speedster Jay to set off for high adventure in Module E-2, The Tower of Fate!

I think the yellow spheres are checkpoints.

Meanwhile Alan Scott is hanging out in China visiting the grave of his dead boyfriend Sam. Sam's father has met him there and has some mostly selfish and ambiguous words to say to Alan.

Oh fuck you, you oh-so-magnanimous bigot! This kind of thing pisses me off. He could tell Alan made his son happy but he couldn't fucking approve of their relationship? It's not your fucking life! Just because you don't find men sexually attractive doesn't mean you get to judge your son for doing so. It wasn't your life, asshole. Are we supposed to stand up and cheer for your words to Alan Scott here? Are we supposed to hug you and say, "Well, that's all that matters then! That you saw that they were happy! Forget how much Sam's heart probably hurt like hell every time you sneered or dropped an off-hand negative remark!" Fuck bigots and their tiny concessions.

Mr. Zhao does happen to pass on a bit of information to Alan that might prove useful. He discovered Sam was the target of the bombing but he doesn't know who was behind it or why. That information sends Green Lantern on a complete rampage through China's ganglands. When he doesn't discover anything, he heads back to find Hawkgirl and ask her for her help. Do I smell some JSA cooking?

And back to The Tower of Fate, Khalid and The Flash pass through all the checkpoints unmolested and finally make it to the big Boss Battle.

I hope they brought their cheat codes.

Earth 2 #10 Rating: +1 Ranking. My favorite part of this issue is how the cover shows Hawkgirl with The Flash and Khalid because Jay's mom isn't cover material.