With the plot of Earth 2 shifting to World’s End it makes a reader ponder. Why should I read the monthly book in addition to the weekly series? How much more could this team of writers and artist expand with the page count tripling in size? However with how expansive main series has become this could be an opportunity to delve further into some minor characters without interrupting the fast paced weekly series. Either way it should be an interesting read regardless, so let’s not waste anymore time and dive into the latest issue of Earth 2.

Just to get this out of the way, this book is actually an anthology issue. It comes as such a pleasant surprise since super hero comics have seemingly abandoned the idea of an anthologies. By the way I opened up that sentence, one might presume that the book might center on some of the lesser known heroes of Earth 2 in their continuing struggle against Apokolips. Well that’s a negative charlie, one big ole Fury negative.

That’s right instead the book centers on the recently introduced Furies of Apokolips. So that means that there are four different artist for each individual Fury. From a structure standpoint each individual story functions as the same, an introduction, a reason for the characters to become a Fury of Apokolips, and the inevitable “crowning” as said fury. It’s a elementary but that doesn’t mean the book itself is stale. In fact the origins for each of these characters is just as engaging from any issue of Earth 2 itself. Even within the few pages each of the four Furies are given, the writing team gives enough pathos to invest into these characters.

Given the fact that these are villains the reader isn’t exactly supposed to root for them but possibly they are supposed to understand why did had to become a Fury. This was only successful with the first chapter but even that’s a stretch, especially when the character gives up when all hope is loss. If the point is to quickly establish how fruitless it is to fight against Darkseid, then I can understand but from reading it just feels a tad pointless. It also doesn’t help that the others are either psychos.

So in other words this book is primed for fans who aren’t exactly familiar with the Apokolips outside the typical names that are thrown around. Since this this book is four separate stories that means multiple artists and this is the only real occasion where different art styles work on the same book. Each artist does their job, nothing amazing but effective comic work with the again the exception of Alisson Borges and certain aspects of her art looks stylized giving it a unique look but then the next panel looks something akin to a house style from DC. It’s a weird contrast.

While many people will write this off as a fill in issue, I would call it an attempt at world building. It’s nearly obtained that goal but falls just short when you realize what the point of this issue was.

Earth 2 #28 earns a 3/5

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