The fall of a god
(No Spoilers)
This is a hard one to review. On the one hand, I think it follows the Wildstorm tradition of not giving us a traditional ending. And that’s good. But the last half of this story was very cerebral. It was a very interesting look at the psychology behind one of Wildstorm’s greatest villains. It covered things that are probably present in virtually every other villain, but these issues are usually dealt with by a punch to the villain’s face by the hero. Gage chose the road less traveled and decided to take Tao through this. While it is all very interesting and very true, it still left me wanting a little bit. This is a comic after all and I guess subconsciously it’s built into us to expect a more action-packed offering from this media.
This issue is also a testament to how a lot of tastes have changed in comics. Readers are looking for something different now in their stories and I know a lot of people have complained that World’s End is more of the same. But I think Gage showed that it wasn’t here.
(Ok, NOW SPOILERS, it’s too hard to talk about this issue without them)
A lot of people out there were expecting Wildstorm to go the easy route and do the “quick fix” with some of its most powerful characters fixing World’s End. But they wisely crafted the World’s End story to where there is no quick fix. They are going to see this storyline through and it’s a shame more people don’t appreciate that. As Max told them at the end, the heroes are going to have to fix the world the hard way. But you know what, that’s what’s going to make this story different. There will be no reboot or a deal with the devil to fix this mess. It’s going to take the entirety of the Wildstorm Universe to come together to do it. And it’s not going to be one last huge battle against a lone adversary either. It’s going to be lots of small battles that will eventually bring order to the chaos and show the heroes where their mistakes were so they can correct them. The Authority always talked about building a finer world and here’s their chance to do it. What Gage did in this issue is the essence of what Wildstorm was going for when they decided to go forward with World’s End. The world is broken and it’s up to the heroes to fix it a little at a time.
(End SPOILERS)
So now comes the exciting part as we prepare for new creative teams next month in all the Wildstorm titles. It’s up to the next group of creators to take on the difficult task of rebuilding the Wildstorm Earth. Here’s to hoping the next ride will be a great one!