Review: Earth 2: Society Vol. 2: Indivisible trade paperback (DC Comics)

In my review of Earth 2: Society Vol. 1, I wondered what writer Daniel Wilson might do next. Silly me; while I knew DC stalwart Dan Abnett would finish this title, I didn’t realize the first volume was Wilson’s end and that Abnett would actually write most of Society’s story.

My familiarity with Abnett, way back when, was as a fill-in guy, an odd issue of Superman here and there and so on, and so it took me a moment to clock that this is the same writer what headed a truly dynamic geopolitical Aquaman run (turned swords and sorcery epic by the end). That serves him well, anachronistically, with Earth 2: Society Vol. 2: Indivisible, which is just as much about warring political factions on this new Earth as it is about Justice Society analogues battling giant monsters.

Overall it’s a success — in telling a more linear story, in running parallel (and not even necessarily intersecting) storylines, in reimagining various aspects of its source material, Abnett improves over Wilson’s already-good Earth 2: Society Vol. 1. Where Wilson paused to flesh out some of these characters (perhaps for the first time in years of issues), Abnett’s is less character-focused, but not in any way less interesting.

[Review contains spoilers]

In its “Society” days, “Earth 2” becomes a title more literal than just multiversal; not only is this DC’s canon Earth-2 (or it was, at the time), it’s also a brand-new planet for humanity after the first was destroyed in war. Abnett’s conception, revealed here, that the seemingly lush planet is actually barren rock with no natural resources is fascinating simply from a sci-fi environmental perspective, that what seems to be Earth on the surface is underground basically the moon. I am not wholly sure the science holds up or that events are as dire as the characters make them out to be — though there is no coal, oil, or gas, there are forests, oceans, wind, and some type of electricity, but the characters swiftly and conveniently dismiss those as being insufficient. Still, the whole thing has an appealingly dramatic environmental disaster movie feel to it.

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As such, two of Earth’s new cities prepare to war with each other over resources (good-naturedly, even); the World Army readies to beat the populace into submission; the godlike Green Lantern mulls forcing everyone to behave; and the Amazons and Atlanteans wait in the wings to take advantage of the chaos. It ends swiftly in perhaps the only way it can, with Green Lantern realizing the solution is not to take, but to give — namely giving up his ring to power the Earth. Smartly, Abnett has held as B-plot Hawkgirl’s investigations of the Amazonian/Atlantean partnership, sure to become the A-plot next time around.

Among “introductions” this time, Abnett brings in Kyle Nimbus, an amalgamation of DC’s Mist properties. Also the last-page reveal of the Ultra-Humanite; I’ll be interested to learn how Abnett conceives of the Humanite’s origin on this otherwise barren planet (I’d be all the more thrilled if this is “our” Humanite traversing the Multiverse). I like that Abnett seems to be directly following from Wilson, creating continuity between the runs — Hourman Rick Tyler returns, after Wilson introduced him in the last volume, and Fury appears here after having been teased on covers but never showing up last time. Ted Grant is back, working with Batman Dick Grayson; Abnett even calls out to the Bizarro Superman having killed Pa Kent, and that was way back, at this point, in Tom Taylor's Earth 2 Vol. 5: The Kryptonian.

Shockingly, Abnett uses the words “Justice Society” together toward the end of this book, with no fanfare and indeed as if the gathered characters were already called “the Justice Society.” Maybe I’m putting too much stock in it, but since the beginning Earth 2 has been the “non-team team book,” a “will they, won’t they” as to whether the “Wonders” will start working together, culminating of course with the pointed “Society” in the second series' title — they’re rebuilding society, but also, y’know. Earth 2: Society Vol. 1: Planetfall ended with Green Lantern predicting that the heroes “will bring justice to this new society,” but I thought that was a wink and a nod along the way, not necessarily the thing itself. Curious if that was just a slip-up and/or if the name will be used as casually next time.

I felt at times Earth 2: Society Vol. 2: Indivisible was a bit repetitive; there was a lot of telling us and then telling us again about the anti-Wonder sentiment, the pro-Anarky sentiment, about the warring factions and so on. But for every scene you might have seen before, Dan Abnett has bits like Green Lantern recruiting Red Tornado Lois Lane to write a new constitution for the entire world, and that’s pretty cool. Artist Jorge Jimenez draws impressive fisticuffs for his purple-and-gold-suited Batman, too.

[Includes original and unused covers, character designs and cover layouts, script and inked pages]

Rating 2.25