Earth 2: World's End #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

On some level, I can't believe that DC has managed to lure me into buying another weekly comic, after the disaster that "Batman Eternal" has become.  However, "Earth 2" has been one of the rare bright spots of "The New 52!" for me.  I'm not saying that it's been perfect, but every issue leaves me wanting to know more about the characters and the setting, something that I've really not been able to say about other "The New 52!" titles.  As such, I'm willing to roll the dice on this one.

The good news is that Wilson immediately delivers on the promise of giving us a deeper dive into the setting.  Although this issue largely serves as a review for new readers of where we've been in the main title, Wilson adds some new characters and sub-plots to the mix to keep us ongoing folks interested.

First, I found the revelation that Alan was responsible for the creation of the Boom Tubes, by funding Terry Sloan, to be fascinating.  I'm not entirely sure that I buy his reasoning, though; he claims that he did it to broadcast into other dimensions.  I don't see any advantage of that.  Is he going to charge people on New Earth for Earth-2 transmissions?  Will Comcast make it part of its standard bundle?  The good news is that Wilson doesn't buy it either; he makes it clear that it's really Alan's ego (and desire to be in the history books) that motivates him.

Moreover, this revelation brought with it another one:  Alan's fiancé Sam leaked the creation of the Boom Tubes to Jimmy Olson's Hacking Syndicate.  I was excited about this revelation because it delivered on the promise to flesh out some of the characters that played minor parts in the main title.  Moreover, it really amped up the intrigue; it appears that Sloan killed Sam for leaking the information, since it helped Batman find a way to destroy the Boom Tubes.

We just don't get a better sense of Alan's personal life here.  We also learn that Earth-2 Wonder Woman is Fury's mother and, more intriguing, that Steppenwolf is her father.  I can't wait to hear that story.  Even more excitingly, Wilson introduces the Graysons here.  We're not really given much information about them, other than the fact that Dick is a journalist and Barbara is police commissioner in Chicago.  It's unclear if they were ever Robin/Nightwing or Batgirl on Earth-2, though something about the way that Dick says that he's willing to do anything to protect his family leads me to believe that he may have been.  Unfortunately, it also seems to imply that it's unlikely that Dick and Barbara are going to get to have a happy ending their son.

One thing that still confuses me is Terry Sloan.  In "Earth 2" #0, we learned that Sloan created the Fire Pits because the act would ultimately help the World Army defeat Apokolips, an insight that he gleaned after his Boom Tubes allowed him glimpses of the future.  I don't remember if we've ever learned why this act would help the World Army; when the Four Horsemen of Apokolips appear in the Fire Pits at the end of this issue, it's hard to imagine it doing so.  In this issue, we learn that Sloan might have been actively negotiating with Apokolips before he opened the Fire Pits, since Steppenwolf refers to him as saving his world by giving them access to a world int he Ninth Dimension.  But, Bedlam tells Sloan in a flashback that he fed them "this world" (presumably Earth-2) to save his own.  Is his "own" world New Earth?  If so, was he referring to Earth-2 or New Earth when he activated the Fire Pits?  Why save Earth-2 by opening the Fire Pits only to later give it to New Earth?  At some point, Taylor or Wilson is really going to have to go back over this history, particularly if Sloan is from New Earth.

Despite the Sloan confusion, this issue was remarkably solid.  Beyond the plotting, the art was also great, something that I certainly can't say about "Batman Eternal."  Fingers crossed it all continues.

**** (four of five stars)