Review: Earth 2: Society Vol. 4- Life After Death

Quick Summary

Pros: The book’s open chapters are tense and immediately draw in the reader’s interest. The following chapters are filled with fun battles. The book’s conclusion is satisfying and works well as a conclusion to this series. The artwork looks good and helps reflect the book’s mood.

Cons: There are a few small moments that could benefit from additional explanation.

Overall: The conclusion to the Earth 2 series is a huge success and a wonderful way to end this comic universe. It manages to blend tension and uncertainty with action and hope in a way that stays entertaining through the entire read. It also continues and concludes the comic’s story elements in a way that is both logical and satisfying. Plus, beautiful artwork and charming character moments help further ensure this comic is worth reading. Anyone who has read previous volumes from the Earth 2 universe should consider reading this book and seeing how it all comes to a close.

Story

After an epic war between worlds, the destruction of an entire planet, the settlement of a new planet, and dozens of different individual comic adventures, the Earth 2 series finally comes to a close in this final collection. Luckily, fans of this comic are in for a treat because this finale delivers on nearly everything they could ask for. It has dramatic tension, unexpected twists, epic showdowns, and a conclusion that is sure to satisfy. Earth 2: Society Vol. 4: Life After Death, by Dan Abnett, is an entertaining comic book and a fitting way to end this comic series.

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After the lackluster storytelling in the previous collection (Review), Life After Death begins to redeem the series right from the very beginning. It drops the heroes in a nearly vacant world where they are randomly attacked by mysterious forces and have little clue as to what is going on. The mood throughout this portion of the book is incredibly tense and interesting. It entices the reader in with mystery and the promise of something bigger happening, all of which comes about as the volume progress.

Once the heroes leave this vacant world and enter the new world, the volume switches over from intense tension to energetic action. This portion of the book has the heroes rally against seemingly unending waves of enemies, all while making their way toward the book’s real villain, the Ultra-Humanite. It is an epic last charge with a number of surprising reveals matched alongside a number of awesome showdowns. All of this helps ensure the book has its fair share of excitement and fun, which works out very well.

The conclusion of Life After Death is interesting because it could easily be dismissed as being an overly perfect fairy tale ending. However, I found the conclusion to be the perfect resolution for heroes who have fought long and hard for their goals. These are characters who have spent over a dozen volumes barely hanging on to survival. They have been tortured both mentally and physically and have lost a lot along the way. Granting them a final reprieve seems fitting and helps justify some of the horrors they went through in the past. In the end, I was happy with how this comic concluded and I believe many fans of this series will be happy with it too.

The only problems with this volume are rather minimal. The book starts out with many of the heroes chastising Fury for resetting the work, despite arguing that they should do the same thing only one volume earlier. Plus, the Ultra-Humanite’s early presence in the new world is never really explained. Luckily, these flaws are rather minor and only have an impact in brief moments of the story.

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Art

The artwork in Life After Death sees the same upswing in quality that the story does. Bruno Redondo starts the book out with two eerie chapters that help the book develop the tension it needs. Then, the shift to Vicente Cifuentes’s artwork signals a shift to energetic action. Both artists also succeed in developing visually pleasing pages in general, with solid structures and a great level of detail. This detail helps highlight the awesome costumes each of these heroes is wearing, which went a bit unappreciated in the previous volume. All of this work is then further enhanced with fantastic colors from Rex Lokus, which further develop the various optimistic and pessimistic tones that are found throughout this book. Essentially, this is a good looking volume that serves as a great complement to the story.

Continuity

Earth 2: Society Vol. 4: Life After Death continues the story from Earth 2: Society Vol. 3: A Whole New World (Review).

The Earth 2 series ends with this volume. As of now, it does not continue in any specific comic.

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• The evacuation of the old Earth 2 is mentioned a few times. This world was abandoned at the conclusion of Earth 2: World’s End Vol. 1 (Review).
• The creation of the new Earth 2 is brought up in this volume. This world was created at the conclusion of the Convergence (Review) event.