War for Earth-3 #2 – Robbie Thompson/Dennis Hopeless, Writers; Kieran McKeown/Dexter Vines, Ariel Olivetti, Julio Ferreira, Brent Peeples, Artists; Matt Herms, Colorist
Ray – 7/10
Ray: This has been an odd crossover, with us getting two chapters by the same creative team right at the start of the month—and then the next two chapters of the crossover only had tentative ties to the main plot, as Flash and the Teen Titans Academy kids got pulled in. In this final chapter, we get back to the main plot, with Flash not even appearing and the TT students who stowed away on the ship last week just briefly playing the role of hostages. Did this even need to be a crossover? Not really, as it’s basically just an extended Suicide Squad storyline that pulls in elements of the Crime Syndicate miniseries last year. That doesn’t mean it’s without redeeming qualities, though—this issue is basically non-stop action as Amanda Waller’s team, Rick Flag’s team, and the Crime Syndicate all desperately scramble to get a leg up on each other and lay their claim to the world.
I was glad that this issue seemed to give Amanda Waller a little more nuance, dialing back some of her more extreme evil behavior—although it kind of does that by making everyone else more extreme. Rick Flag in particular basically picks up the idiot ball and never lets it go. The only tie to the Flash issue is Mirror Master’s involvement in Flag’s plot. The ending seems to set up a major new status quo change for the Squad and Earth-3 going forward, but I’m not sure where that’ll play out—keep in mind that like Teen Titans Academy, this series will be wrapping up in only a few more issues. Overall, this event has been sort of a jumbled mess, but has given some characters—Mirror Master, Ambush Bug, Power Ring—an intriguing spotlight. The problem is, with three competing gangs of villains and very few having any redeeming qualities, it’s hard to care about what happens to any of them.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
