Earth 2: World's End #5 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue is a transitional one, and it handles that job pretty well.

To recap some of the background plots:

The Messrs. Terrific reveal the secret weapons that they've developed to help in the attack on Apokolips.  Marella heads into the Deep to make some sort of pact with a mysterious evil.  Green Lantern learns that he's really Rainbow Brite.

OK, he doesn't learn that he's Rainbow Brite.  He actually learns that the Gray and the Green are part of something called the Parliament of Earth, and that he and Solomon Grundy have to go find the avatars of the Blue, the Red, and the White.  I'm willing to give the team some time to develop this story, since they're clearly building to introducing their own Skittle Lanterns.  But, they've got to be careful that it doesn't get too hokey and we wind up getting a rehash of Captain Planet.  That said, in searching through my previous reviews for more information on the Fire Pits, I was reminded that Captain Steel revealed in issue #13 that the Red Lantern lived in the Fire Pits and wanted to destroy the world.  That could set up a pretty awesome story, so I'm going to give everyone space to get there.

The main developments of the issue are Jay managing to take off Pestilence's armor, allowing Dr. Fate to possibly stop her, and the Geneva-based team discovering that Clark might be alive.  The Scooby Gang's discovery actually comes with the realization that the Fire Pits are really just a protection device to keep Desaad's activities secret, raising the possibility that we're going to learn a lot as they make their way through the complex.  I can't say that I'm too optimistic about the Clark development, since we're already been there, but I guess we'll see.

(On a totally unrelated side note, are we ever going to learn what happened to Sam, Alan's boyfriend?  If I remember correctly, Kendra learned that his death had something to do with Apokoliptan weapons smugglers, but we just saw a few issues ago that Sloan might've killed him for leaking information about the Boom Tubes to Jimmy Olsen.  I had forgotten about Kendra's investigation when the Sloan piece was revealed, so I didn't mention it.  In fact, now that I think about it, we don't really know a lot about any of the characters at this point.  We really only have insight into Thomas, thanks to the Annual focusing on his back story.  We got some passing information about Alan, Jay, and Kendra in the first few issues, but it's been all doom and gloom since then.  When the heroes are done saving the world, it would be nice if Taylor could get in some work on the rest of the characters.)  

*** (three of five stars)