Review: Earth 2: Society Vol. 4: Life After Death trade paperback (DC Comics)

Writer Dan Abnett gets downright granular in his science-fiction in Earth 2: Society Vol. 4: Life After Death. It is weird and interesting and procedural, the kind of step-by-step sci-fi meandering that usually only a novel allows — or a comic at its end with six issues to fill. I found it fascinating, with all the strange twists and turns depicted stunningly in large part by Bruno Redondo.

There’s one revelation here that’s soft, and that’s unfortunate because it’s a weak spot in an otherwise strong book. The nature of that stumble adds to the general sense that this reimagining of Earth 2 has reached its proper end and this is a good place to stop. I have been pleased to see a resurgence for the Earth 2 characters lately, including a story in the recent DC Power special. Earth 2 has been good more often than not, and these characters deserve to wander from limbo every once in a while instead of being forgotten outright.

[Review contains spoilers]

The early chapters of Life After Death remind of Lost or X-Files, or a good holodeck episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. After Earth 2: Society Vol. 3: A Whole New World’s unleashing of the reality-changing Pandora Casket, the Earth 2 Wonders emerge in a shapeless void — except, there’s kind of a building over there, and some of the characters are hearing voices counting down, there's smoky phantoms attacking at random intervals, and Power Girl gets pulled through a window into an inexplicably solid, furnished apartment.

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It’s wonderfully creepy, with credit certainly shared with Redondo and colorist Rex Lokus, making the indistinct parts look indistinct and then assailing us with color when things momentarily focus. The countdown adds to it, a ticking clock building suspense to what will finally emerge, the world rather building itself around our heroes.

And then what emerges is a techno-modern world with shades of the 1940s. It’s the right place for Abnett to have this series end up, obvious even in retrospect — Abnett has finally put the Earth 2 characters on an approximation of the classic Earth 2, updated for modern sensibilities. It would not ultimately be enough for DC — I’m not sure what goes for Earth-2 in current continuity, but it’s not this — but it does seem the right “final fate” for these characters, as the book says.

The concluding issue is mostly recap of the various Earth 2 series, with a celebratory bit at the end. Understandably the book’s not looking to get stuck in the details at this point, though as a long-time reader I did find this mildly blithe. On now the second new Earth these characters have inhabited, many, many characters did not make the trip — Mr. Terrific, Queen Marella, Batman Dick Grayson’s longtime friend Ted Grant, Flash Jay Garrick’s mother. Life After Death only has enough pages to celebrate, but given a moment’s thought, the triumph is not as encompassing as it seems. (Strangely, the one dead character that Abnett resurrects is Sergeant Steel, when Atom Al Pratt would have been more resonant and Red Arrow Oliver Queen more deserving.)

I appreciated that Abnett does a bit where, for a page or two, he makes us think the book’s central villain is Lex Luthor, but it turns out to be the Ultra-Humanite, again. That’s logical — the Humanite was standing right there at the end of the last volume when the world was restarted — but it also means the culprit last time is also the culprit this time. As it is, the Humanite wasn’t so interesting in Whole New World, a generic cackling bad guy, such that I wasn’t eager for a sequel ever, particularly not so soon. Abnett even ends the stories similarly, with Batman beating the Humanite with brute force when other, stronger heroes could not. The repetitiousness suggests maybe Abnett’s done all he can with this book.

The Wonders come together as a team in the end, though amazingly, Abnett doesn’t even tease calling them the Justice Society. We heard it once in Earth 2: Society Vol. 2: Indivisible, what might have been a mistake, and I’ve have bet we’d hear it again by the end. I’m not sure what purpose restraint serves here, though we certainly get Justice Society vibes with the big round table and the team in semicircle around it.

Still, again, on Earth 2’s second Earth 2, it was fun to see Dan Abnett build it from scratch, almost literally like an artist drawing the outlines and then filling them in, as the befuddled characters stand around and watch. We’ve done world-building with a snap of your fingers in this series before, so something more gradual is good for the second go-around. Over five years, three series, and 80 some-odd issues, this has been a fine take on DC’s Earth-2 property, and I’m glad Earth 2: Society Vol. 4: Life After Death hasn’t turned out to be the last time we’ve seen them.

[Includes original covers]

Rating 2.25