Although this issue flows well, I'll admit that I'm confused on the overall plot, particularly as it relates to "Earth 2." I've got two basic areas of problems.
First, OK, I admit, zombie para-demons are pretty awesome. We first saw them in "Earth 2" #27 when the heroes save C.E.R.N. from them. Here, though, they're under the direct control of K'li. It's another example of the events in "Earth 2" and this title mirroring one another without actually telling the same story. I'm going to need to see a better job of integrating the stories, otherwise this dissonance is going to get really annoying. (Also, I'll note that we're not told why the virus conveniently doesn't actually turn the Huntress, Power Girl, and Red Tornado into parademons; instead, it just brings them under K'li's control.)
More importantly, I'm seriously confused when it comes to the Apokolips plot, so I read my back issues to try to piece together the story. I'm a little less confused, but confused nonetheless. The original plan, as Bedlam stated in "Earth 2" #19, was for Mr. Terrific and Terry Sloan to build a Boom Tube sufficiently large to push Earth into Apokolips' space. (I'm not entirely sure if we learn why Apokolips needs Earth, but I'm going to let that one pass for now.) The heroes manage to stop Bedlam from accomplishing this goal in issue #26, though Bedlam escapes with Sloan and Terrific. He brings them to Puerto Rico, where he announces that he's going to try again. In "Earth 2: World's End" #1, Bedlam asks Sloan and Terrific if they can hear the drums of Apokolips, telling them that it's their work that made it possible. However, we're not told how they did so. We're more or less led to believe that they successfully re-created the Tube in Puerto Rico that the heroes destroyed in Geneva, but, if so, it happened off-panel. However, in this issue, Apokolips is moving to Earth-2. One of the residents of Apokolips complains that "the teleportation to this universe" destroyed his henchmen, seemingly confirming that Bedlam reversed the plan this time: instead of bringing Earth to Apokolips, he brought Apokolips to Earth. However, Sloan and Terrific apparently couldn't open the Tube next to Earth (as they did last time), since Apokolips is 24 days from arriving. It would be nice for someone to explain confirm this information, because I feel like I'm seriously stretching to piece it together.
It's early days, so I'm willing to allow for some vagueness. But, as I said, I'd like to tighten up the coordination between these two series before it forces me to choose one over the other. I really enjoy reading about these characters, and Taylor and his co-authors have really done a great job of building the suspense, since it seems that Earth-2 really might not survive. I'm just hoping they don't let basic things (like coordination) trip up the imaginative story that they're telling.
** (two of five stars)
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