First, it seems a foregone conclusion that Earth 2 is going to be destroyed. Steel comments on continued seismic instability, and Darkseid has sent a "terraformer" to Earth 2 now that its firepits are aligned with Apokolips'. It doesn't sound good. To be honest, I'm a little confused by this last development. I thought that the firepits went cold, as Jimmy himself confirms here, once the Geneva team freed the Red Lantern in issue #16, since it seemed that she was the one fueling them. I think the authors are revealing that, secretly, someone (Desaad?) was aligning them to Apokolips, so they no longer need the Red Lantern to fuel them. However, no one actually says that; it's just my guess.
If Earth 2 is, indeed, destroyed, it seems clear that Mr. Terrific is going to "lens" the population to the spaceship that Jimmy Olsen discovered. We see him working on the technology here by studying Fury's powers. I'm still not sure whether all Apokoliptans have this power to open these portals, but it seems to only matter that Fury does. I'm also not really sure how they work, but I think I'm supposed just take that they do work on faith. If we didn't already know the outcome of that evacuation, it might be tense, since it seems like a ship full of the remainder of Earth's population would be a ripe target for a defeated Darkseid to try to destroy. But, if that eventuality does present itself, we know, thanks to "The New 52!: Futures End," that they make it to "our" Earth, undermining some of the tension.
The new development in this issue is the revelation that Bruce wanted Helena to go find Ollie Queen in case there was "trouble." Jimmy conveniently found this information somewhere, though we're not told where. We're also not told what Ollie has that could help or what trouble Bruce had in mind. Also, if Ollie can help, shouldn't he have, I don't know, offered to do so as he saw the world crumbling around him? But, we're not really supposed to question deus ex machinas, are we?
Looking at the broader story that the authors are telling, I realized that I still don't know why Apokolips wants Earth and what he plans to do with it if he gets it. I keep assuming that he wants to go full-on Galactus and destroy it for raw materials, but maybe it's something else? Is he going to turn it into the new Apokolips? Someone should probably clarify that at some point, since we've spent roughly 30 issues of the main series and this one on this story.
** (two of five stars)
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