Hopefully Ram V can tie up the hanging threads from New Gods Vol. 2: Edge of Darkness in a special or something related to DC’s next big event, if not indeed in another New Gods miniseries.

This second volume is excellent like the first, though this time with a greater emphasis on the New Gods within the larger DC Universe; it’s as much a New Gods volume as it is a crossover between the New Gods and Justice League Unlimited. But startlingly, for 12 issues, it feels like Ram V runs out of pages, with arcs left unresolved and precious little denouement for anything but the most main characters.

It’s a shock, that ending, a rare misstep in a series that’s managed to do that hardest of tasks, present the New Gods majestically but accessibly. It could be easily solved with a tie-in special of the kind we’ve seen before, though none is present alongside DC K.O. and with no new New Gods series on the horizon, I admit I’m a little worried.

[Review contains spoilers]

Edge of Darkness kicks off with a Dan Mora variant cover of the JLU with Superman’s hand outstretched to the New Gods, an indication of what’s inside. There’s extended sequences here of Cyborg, of Mr. Terrific and Miss Martian tracking down Darkseid’s minions, of Superman and the League hobnobbing with the New Gods, all that would feel as at home in Mark Waid’s League title as it would in this one. See too eight pages devoted to the Fourth World Green Lantern Raker Qarrigat; it’s all New Gods-centric, but by no means does Ram V limit his scope to just the New Gods here.

That’s fun, no doubt, and the references Ram V makes here — to Qarrigat, to “the Dark” that plagued the Forever People in J.M. DeMatteis' 1980s Forever People miniseries and into his stint on the Mister Miracle series — make me want to go back and read the Fourth World spin-offs, collected and uncollected. Even though events like Genesis were darn near disastrous, using Darkseid as a general DC Universe villain divorced from the rest of Jack Kirby’s creations still feels blasphemous. Good, at least, that they’re joining the DC All In action here (coming, even, ever so close to breaching the Absolute universe), thought maybe even better if it didn’t feel like the New Gods were the ones guest-starring.

In the spotlight here, as is appropriate, are Mister Miracle Scott Free and Orion, arguably the New Gods' protagonists. In New Gods Vol. 1: The Falling Sky, Orion asked Scott to stop him before he fulfilled Highfather’s order to kill an all-powerful child. Everyone’s now seen the folly of their ways, and the last act has Scott and Orion teamed against Max Lord and the familiar faces of Apokolips to save the child Kamal.

In the conclusion, I thought Ram V did especially well presenting Scott and Orion as two sides of the same coin. Orion is the warrior, the more vicious of the two, but reveals that bluster hides an immense fear of his own darkness; Scott is the one more likely to flee than fight, but proceeds with no fear at all. Each is given the opportunity to act as the New Gods' Highfather, and while Orion, Darkseid’s son, as Highfather has a certain ring, in the end the new Highfather is Mister Miracle, exactly who it should be.

But the spotlight on these two eclipses almost everyone else. Highfather gave up his mantle over his failures and we see him only barely in the end, very hardly redeemed. Serifan, former member of the Forever People, betrays the New Gods, and he’s only glimpsed briefly in the Apokoliptian pillory and never again, too with no sense what’s next.

Falling Sky ended with the Great Darkness invading the space between life and death, and the Black Racer threatening to go against his charter to resurrect the fallen Lightray; though Black Racer is here, those developments aren’t mentioned at all. The marauding Nyctari, including Darkseid’s son Grayven, have all been seemingly dissolved in space by Kamal; the boy has been transformed into an adult, and we only understand he somehow becomes a child again due to his vague presence in a panel’s background.

As such, the “New Gods will return” message is doing a lot of work, and it’s hardly a guarantee. No doubt the New Gods will return, but whether it’s any time soon or has anything to do with the events of Ram V’s miniseries remains to be seen, and that’s a shame for so much good setup. DC K.O. must surely involve Darkseid, but I can’t discern right now that the New Gods take part, and that’s unusual. I’ll be happy to end up finding out otherwise.

For what it is, however, Ram V’s New Gods Vol. 2: Edge of Darkness is excellent. Artist Evan Cagle is fine throughout, his sketchy lines giving the New Gods an air of mystery, though it’s all fantastic: Travis Moore and Pye Parr’s animated superheroics, cameos from Denys Cowan and Phil Hester, and some great variants — Mora, Dustin Nguyen with his little kid Metron, Karl Kerschl’s take on “The Pact,” Javier Rodriguez with his retro mod Big Barda, Ian Bertram with Scott and Barda at their most alien. Another great one in Ram V’s bibliography.

[Includes original and variant covers]