Earth Two #11 – Review

By: James Robinson (story), Nicola Scott (pencils), Trevor Scott (inks), Alex Sinclair & Pete Pantazis (colors)

The Story: Wotan reveals his gender identity problems.

The Review: When I used to teach high-schoolers on the virtues of showing rather than telling in a story, by way of example I’d point out the difference between writing, “He was sad,” and, “He went to the window and stared outside, his gazed fixed on nothing in particular.  He spotted a robin off in the distance, flying towards the horizon until it was just a speck then disappeared altogether.  He felt a choking in his throat and swallowed it down.  He left the window.”*

In a visual medium like comics, you can do away with all that wordiness altogether, which is a huge luxury in storytelling.  Imagine not having to go through the slog of actually writing all that information and allowing the artist to just show it in one or two panels.  In comics, the writer has the advantage of only having to use those words necessary to capture ideas that visuals alone cannot.  Unfortunately, Robinson seems either oblivious to this or too stubborn to recognize it.