Futures End

"52" was great, you
should probably read it.

DC's “52” was a fantastic success, both financially and critically. It was a weekly series that went a full year, an endeavour never done before. After the events of "Infinite Crisis" Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman take a hiatus and we are treated to a collection of stories that showcase characters in the DC universe that usual do not get too much attention. Steel and his daughter had to deal with Lex Luthor trying to give a bunch of teenagers superpowers. The Question was dying of cancer and he recruited Rene Montoya to replace him. A new Batwoman was introduced and she had to fight some crazy crime cult. Will Magnus was recruited by some crazy bitch to help make a weapon of mass destruction. Animal Man, Starfire and Adam Strange were lost in space. The best story was Black Adam causing World War Three, which was Black Adam versus EVERYBODY. And all these stories tied together, more or less, with Booster Gold using time travel to fake his own death so he could go undercover and save the entire universe from Mister Mind. All in all I would give DC's 52 a solid ten out of ten, a must read for any die hard comic book or super hero fan.

The success and popularity of “52” encouraged DC to try to do it again. They repeated the strategy of telling multiple stories at once with a weekly title again with "Countdown to Final Crisis." This time the stories were about Jimmy Olsen suddenly acquiring super powers and Donna Troy, Jason Todd, and everyone's least favourite Green Lantern Kyle Rayner going on a search for Ray Palmer, for some reason. Karate kid was in there somewhere. It was awesome when Orion killed Darkseid. I do not remember it as well as I should, I read it a long time ago now and frankly it was pretty bad, other than Orion punching a hole in Darkseid's chest. Lightning did not strike twice.

DC tried again to work magic with a weekly title called "Trinity" which I did not read, "Countdown to Final Crisis" had sapped my confidence in DC's ability to write a good ongoing weekly title. I believe "Trinity" was about three characters from parallel universes attempting to usurp Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, somehow. I heard it was not very good.

The stuff of nightmares.

With the "New 52" DC universe doing just about everything wrong, DC has used up a lot of my goodwill towards them, but they still have Geoff Johns writing stories so I am still a customer of theirs. As a consumer of DC products I got sight of an ad for "Futures End." The ad was gruesome; many of our favourite heroes were mutilated cyborg zombies. Wonder Woman's face was most horrible; an uncomfortable level of detail had been made where flesh ended and cold steal had replaced it. It was well drawn, and that made it worse. It looked like tasteless garbage at first but it did capture my attention, I was curious. I Googled "Futures End" and the draft art was diabolic in its depiction of our heroes as cyborg zombies, and it all looked trashy, trashy like Marvel Zombies. One thing I thought was particularly interesting was the title "Futures End," note the lack of an apostrophe, this is not the end of the future, but the end of multiple futures. That is actually quite clever. I was ready to dismiss “Futures End” as shock jock garbage but they were offering up the first issue, number 0, for free on free comic book day.

Okay then DC, I’ll bite. I will accept your free comic book.

The first free issue was largely what you would expect, cringe worthy deformities of fallen heroes whose corpses had been perverted into machine zombies. However there was some glimmer of hope, not just in the story’s set up, which involved Batman Beyond Terry McGinnis going back in time to stop this nightmare, but there was a glimmer of hope that there was actually a story somewhere within all this degenerate murder of out favorite heroes. The primary problem with something like “Marvel Zombies” was that all it was, was uncomfortable visuals, there was literally no story, or a story so fucking terrible there was no point in telling it. How did zombies destroy the Avengers and the X-men? That could be an exciting story, but no, just everyone’s a zombie, end of story. Lame. “Futures End” had some heroes still alive and fighting even at the age of ruin where the story began.

The Flash died fighting. He destroyed cyborg zombie Wonder Woman and Hawk before being overwhelmed by Frankenstein who had grafted Black Canary’s head to his chest so he could use her sonic boom voice. That was... something.

We see the skeleton corpses of Death Stroke and Green Lantern on Themyscira, so it is implied that they too died fighting and managed to avoid the dark fate of having their corpses desecrated by Brother Eye.

Green Lantern John Stewart and Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes get taken out by cyborg zombie Superman and Amazo, not a lot of shame in that.

Two characters I did not recognize Grifter and Amethyst report to Batman before their untimely demise at the hands of newly ruined cyborg zombie John Stewart.

Firestorm was still alive, albeit a prisoner to Brother Eye who used him as a power source. So there is some hope there.

Lastly Batman did not just lie down and die either. He even managed to make a time travel device, because comic books.

The free issue left me with some sense of curiosity. Surely Batman Beyond would prevent this future from ever happening, but it looked like there would be a gradually build up to this cataclysm, and that... that could be interesting.

I thought “whatever I could drop the title at any time, so sure I’ll buy the first few issues, see what happens.” Now I’ve bought them all. “So I guess it was good right?” is probably what you are asking, hold on, we’ll get to that... but the answer is no.

There are effectively six stories that intertwine over the course of the series, but upon reflection, they actually bleed together more than I initially wanted to give the story credit for.

For example we follow Lois Lane at first as she is investigating the identity of a bar tender named Cal, who it just so happens to be Tim Drake, the former Robin. Lois’s story eventually departs from Tim’s altogether and she end up investigating events that eventually lead her into Grifter’s story line, while Tim’s relationship with a girl named Madison leads him into Firestorm’s story line, but ultimately he ends up part of Batman Beyond’s story line. So there is some good overlap there.

Lois’s story really just setups up other people’s stories, Tim’s, Captain Marvels, and she is witness to what should have been Grifter’s concluding arch.

SPOILERS! ALL OF THEM! You’ve been warned.

I really liked this cover, but it kind of
doesn't fit once you know the twist.

It would have to be considered a side story at most but Superman is wearing a mask at the beginning of this story and acting strangely. I would like to pat myself on the back for figuring this one out. It was clear to everyone reading “Futures End” that this Superman was not the real Superman, but who was it? It was Captain Marvel, the two hints that gave it away for me was how immature Superman was acting, and also how strangely absent Captain Marvel was from the whole series. Slam dunk for me, full points.

Meanwhile;

Grifter is apparently a character from a rival comic book universe DC has acquired. I am not new to this song and dance routine so yeah that’s cool, I can dig it. At first I thought Grifter’s story line was the best. Grifter can detect the presence of super natural powers or something, it was not very well explained; the important thing was that he could tell normal human beings from cyborg zombies. In the first issue he breaks into a house and kills everyone inside and watches their corpses erode into vapor, and it was cool. It had the whole Captain Harlock kicking in the doors and killing Mazones. What? Is that reference to obscure, okay, it had a whole “I am Legend” feel, like it was setting up Grifter to be one of the sole survivors for the reasons of his powers, his actions early on to stop all this cyborg zombie shit, and true grit. Too bad none of that happened to him.

Grifter’s storyline was easily the worst. First he quickly gets abducted and brought to Cadmus Island where he spends half of his time being Death Stroke’s bitch and the other half of the time being a new character Fifty Sue’s bitch. Not a great introduction to the character Grifter DC.

Fifty Sue is a Frankenstein (not to be confused with Frankenstein who is a character in this) monster made with the genetics of all the hero refugees from Earth 2, since that has now been destroyed. She appears to be able to manipulate... all reality I guess; she is pretty damn powerful. However despite, her actual age, whatever that may be, she takes the form of a little girl, and is obsessed with finding a family for herself.

The climax, if we dare call it that, is when Green Arrow, who faked his death in Firestorm’s story line, (more on that later), and Red Arrow and Big Barda from Earth 2 attack Cadmus, that story line basically ends for Grifter, at least it should. My main girl, Power Girl is killed in battle against Big Barda as Brother Eye had taken her body, her powerful, sexy body, as his primary cyborg zombie, for lack of a better description; which is sad because I miss Power Girl, and seeing die horribly is the only thing I have seen of her in years now.

“But Colin, Power Girl is in Earth 2 comics.” Shut up! I’m not reading some convoluted fan fiction that somehow got published also that series is over now.

Grifter spends the rest of the series slowly inching towards become the surrogate father to Fifty Sue with Lana Lang from Earth 2, god comics are weird, as the surrogate mother. It was stupid, but worst then that it was boring, a complete waste of time.

Meanwhile,

I was introduced to Amethyst through
"Futures End,"  Evidently I do not
know a lot about her.

Frankenstein, the green monster, who is a regular sword wielding adventure in the DC universe, ends up in space with Amethyst and the Atom. They go to investigate the pointless deaths of new characters Storm Watch, again, great introduction DC, solar powered gay Russian superman sounded like an interesting character, guess I’ll never know. I guess I could track down “Strom Watch” comics but still. Anyway they all got killed by Galactus/Brainiac, and the three of them need to go figure it out.

Atom cuts off Hawkman’s arm and uses it as a replacement for Frankenstein who lost his arm fighting Black Adam in the phantom zone. Also Hawkman is there. Also Hawkman is the only one to survive, at least at first. Hawkman walked off getting blown up, left a drift in outer space and getting his arm hacked off. He grows a new arm rather quickly and is good to go. I like Hawkman, but I do not remember him being indestructible, oh well, at least I have another character to root for.

Behold Galacus Brainiac.

They run into Brainiac, but not the old Brainiac, this Brainiac is some kind of space god, like Galactus.

Anyway, Brainiac being some kind of super deadly space deity is actually a really good expansion of this character, so that’s cool. They escape and they get back to Earth with a little help from Black Adam. Whatever, this story arc is fine I guess.

Oh and Engineer, whoever the hell that is, also survived.

I should also mention that Hawkman’s blood, traced with the Nth metal, apparently, begins to “heal” Frankenstein, turning him human once more. Amethyst tries to save him, but fails. Frankenstein dies which raises a suspicious question as to when and how could he turn evil with Brother Eye and kill Black Canary and then eventually kill the Flash. Continuity error?

Meanwhile,

John Constantine is... fuck what was he even doing in this series? At some point he finds the real Superman talks to him disrespectfully for no reason and then Brainiac shows up and Superman goes to fight him with Captain Marvel and friends. The only thing Constantine was even here for was to tell Superman that Brainiac was coming, but we did not need him to do that. As readers we knew Brainiac was coming because Frankenstein and friends encountered him in space. Constantine’s presence in “Futures End” was pointless, stupid, and maybe even worse than Grifter’s storyline, but I guess his title was also canceled so they had to cram him in there somewhere.

Meanwhile,

Firestorm is a in a bad way. During the war, the war, that one, where Earth 2 was destroyed, Ronnie Raymond’s mother was killed. Struggling with his loss he fails to meet up with Jason Rusch to form Firestorm in time to help Green Arrow, resulting in Green Arrow’s death; only not really because he’s faking it as I mentioned earlier; which is kind of a dick thing to do, because it totally messes up both Jason and Ronnie and they really fight with each other over it. Way to go poorly written Green Arrow.

Jason and Ronnie agree to never become Firestorm again, but over time Ronnie gets over himself and attempts to reach out to Ronnie so they can become a powerful superhero again. This reveals to Professor Yamazake Jason’s true identity and he has a grudge against the Justice League, and blah and blah, long story short he becomes Dr. Polaris, which would be cool if they did anything with him thereafter. Also Ronnie dies and Madison becomes the new second half of Firestorm. Who is Madison? I’m glad you asked.

Meanwhile;

After being outed by Lois Lane as Tim Drake, also known as Robin, Cal the bartender, decides to reveal his true identity to his girlfriend Madison, who did not take it well.

If I were a comic book character,
I would look exactly like this.

I really liked Tim Drake in this series. I am not a huge fan of Robin, or even the incarnation of Robin which Tim Drake represents, but I do like seeing sidekick characters grow up and become their own person. This is why I like Dick Grayson so much more as Nightwing, and why I could never go back to seeing Wally West as Kid Flash. Seeing Tim Drake as a young man with a full beard, trying to live a normal life but deep down is a super ninja super hero is cool. I can dig it. But I should also admit one of the reasons I liked Tim so much is that he looks like me. Beat up, haggard, bearded version of Tim Drake, looks kind of like me, and that was neat, at least for me.

The whole relationship between Tim and Madison is handled well. She has trust issues because she has had to live her whole life as a lie because her father sold weapons and collaborated with Apocalypse during the war, and upon discovering her boy friend, Cal the bartender, is actually one of the most recognizable super heroes in DC continuity, this feels like a great betrayal. Then zap, she is Firestorm, which as you can imagine is a challenge to their already complicated relationship.

Meanwhile;

While everyone else is wasting our time with plots that abruptly end and nothing of consequence in DC continuity proper or even in relevance to this obvious parallel dimension; the storyline that actually matters is taking place involving Terry McGinnis, aka Batman Beyond.

After arriving in the past Terry is attacked by a lone cyborg zombie that travelled backward in time with him. He defeats this abomination and places the now two time dead corpse in a shopping cart whilst posing as a homeless person. However Terrific Tech video tapes the ordeal and Mr. Terrific, along with Brother Eye, are very interested in the new Batman.

During a confrontation with... someone, I do not exactly recall who, but I am confident Mr. Terrific was involved somehow, Batman Beyond loses the corpse of the future cyborg zombie and it just so happens to be the ruined remains of the super villain named Plastique, and it just so happens she is present to see what sad remains are her future self. I chose to ignore the un-likeliness that Plastique just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to see her future cyborg zombie self, and chose instead to enjoy the self horror of this development.

The future ain't pretty.

Plastique, Key, and Coil were planning a heist of Terrific Tech, and they encounter Batman Beyond who convinces them to bring him along. Terry has the obvious objective of stopping Brother Eye. While Key and Coil attempt to rob the place, Plastique searches the premise to find her future self. This was a good moment, it was dark and Plastique did not know how to absorb what she was seeing. Terry takes some pity on her and gets her out of there before Terrific Tech security can capture them.

A rather believable romance spurs between Terry and Plastique, and all and all, I liked Plastique. I know she is an old villain and I doubt this version of her has anything to do with past incarnations, but I liked her look, it was distinct, I like how she dealt with the nightmare situation “Futures End” presented to her, and I liked her relationship with Terry.

Probably my favorite cover from the series.

I also liked Terry’s story arc as a whole. It was the only story that consistently made me give a shit about “Futures End.” There was a connection to a real tragedy that demanded resolution, and his story, had tension throughout. Throw in a love interest like Plastique and we get someone seeing Terry from outside and this helps the reader’s perspective insight into the man and the situation Terry is faced with. It was good, not great, but completely satisfying.

Realizing he needs help he comes to Tim Drake since he apparently stops existing soon according to future files. That’s interesting.

Ultimately;

Superman and others stop Brainaic, obviously, but this is the moment Brother Eye also takes over and finally, oh god finally, starts making cyborg zombies for our heroes to fight.

I forgot to mention future Brother Eye, knowing Terry/Batman Beyond went back in time to stop him decided to mutilate Batman (Bruce Wayne) into a time traveling cyborg assassin, but not a zombie. No, that would be too damn normal, he grafts Joker’s head to the back of his and I guess gives Mr. J control of their new cyborg body. It is pretty fucked up. Anyway after a few attempts Joker/Batman/cyborg/time traveler/assassin succeeds in killing Terry. It was sad.

But remember Tim Drake, should cease to exist soon, so this is enough of a hint to our heroes that Tim Drake, who I will remind looks like a comic book version of me, Colin Kelly, King of Braves, must take up the mantle of Batman Beyond and travel back in time and stop Brother Eye. Batman (Bruce Wayne) doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t get along with Tim/me anymore, but he can’t stop Tim from travelling back in time and trying to convince Brother Eye that he needs to destroy himself in the past before he destroys everything in the future. That is the second last issue.

Holy crap, I am Batman Beyond now.

In the last issue Tim/me is faced with a statue of heroes he fought alongside with and finds his cute redhead girl friend Madison tending to the plants around his statue. They embrace, but it is an illusion, Brother Eye being an asshole. Mr. Terrific, of the future, interrupts and explains to Tim/me that he failed, and you could not stop Brother Eye because he exists outside of time or something.

Then the cyborg zombies come pouring in and I’m all like “ah shit, I don’t know if I can stop all these super hero and super villain cyborg zombies by myself.” When suddenly a stranger with a huge blaster appears and takes out Flash cyborg zombie, which is a continuity error since he was killed by Black Canary’s sonic boom voice in issue zero, or maybe it is not, I don’t know.

We get some nice dialogue from the stranger,

Mr. Terrific: “Where did you come from?”

Stranger: “I’ve been here the whole time, waiting for you.”

Then he disappears, and once the cyborg zombies start creeping up on Mr. Terrific and me again the stranger reappears and destroys cyborg zombie Blue Beetle, and I am thinking, “alright! We are finally fighting the cyborg zombies. This story is finally worth it.”

The stranger is Ray Palmer, The Atom, alright someone survived the horrors of this future, I can’t wait to stop Brother Eye with his help!

A bunch of renegades come crashing in and rescue Mr. Terrific and me, and Brother Eye destroys the whole city trying to stop us but we escape on a subway train. Once we are safe the identity of one of the renegades is revealed to be Madison, which might be a continuity error because she was Firestorm and Firestorm in issue zero is a prisoner and power source for Brother Eye. So Tim/me makes out with his mature girl friend which is both weird and wonderful and then we get down to business.

Mr. Terrific states that Brother Eye cannot be stopped but I am like, no, “Brother Eye hasn’t won yet.”

Cool.

The end.

What the fuck do you mean “the end?”

Batman Beyond/Tim Drake/Colin Kelly, was finally beginning to go forth on the story I wanted to read in the first place. I wanted someone to stop Brother Eye and put an end to the cyborg zombie madness. However, “Futures End” is over, at first I just assumed there would be a few more issues, but alas, it’s done. The finally note is Tim/me, stating that Brother Eye was not victorious and I was looking forward to seeing how I was going to stop him.

Is this story continued in “Convergence?” I had leafed through the pages of the first few issues on the shelf at the comic book store and while I did see a few cyborg zombies in issue two, I did not see Batman Beyond or old man Ray Palmer anywhere.

Is this story continued in “Batman Beyond?” Possibly but I have not heard about it yet.

What the hell DC?

I would claim the open ending to be daring, however, this is obviously a parallel universe. I highly doubt DC plans to stick with the ultimate end for Superman and Wonder Woman to die terrible deaths at the hand, figuratively, of Brother Eye and then desecrate their corpses into hideous abominations of a twisted design. That would literally be spitting in the faces of everyone who has ever given a shit about any super hero in the DC universe. So why not conclude you’re elaborate what if?

I do not know. I do not get it.

“Futures End” was barely good enough to keep me interested from issue to issue. Each issue did barely enough to keep me going and the only storyline I truly cared about did not conclude.

I got some tongue and cheek pleasure out of comparing myself to Tim Drake, so much so, it is the punch line of this review, but that is hyper specific to me. If you remove that jag of fun that I managed to wrangle out of this series I do not see much too really enjoy.

This is a breaking point for me.

The “New 52” is bad. I miss Power Girl. I miss Wally West. I miss Amanda Waller. I miss Superman being married to Lois Lane. I don’t agree with literally anything DC has done in the last few years.

I am very picky about which comic book titles I purchase, because I am not made of money, but also because I am a firm believer in voting with your wallet.  I distrust most titles available to me, especially when a cheap trick is employed to capture my attention.  Someone is dying, or dead.  Someone is now gay.  Someone is now black somehow.  Someone is now a woman somehow.  Everyone is a zombie.  This last one was clearly the trick employed for "Futures End," and for once I fell for it.

That is not to say that a good, or possibly even a great story line cannot emerge from what appears at first to be a cheap ploy, but let us be honest here, if comic book writers are reduced to employing such cheap tactics, they probably do not have a quality product to back it up.  In the case of "Futures End" they did not.  The most exciting thing by far was the nightmare future where everyone was a cyborg zombie.  Visiting that nightmare world could result in a fun story if there was in fact a story ready to be acted out, but they pulled the trigger and ended the series before that happened.

"Futures End" broke me.  One of the things I liked about DC was that, in my opinion, they were less guilty of using cheap tactics to sell comics then Marvel.  It felt like DC treated their heroes with more respect then Marvel, but "Futures End" kind of fell into the same trashy territory I have unfortunately come to expect from Marvel, and it shook my trust in DC.  To be fair "Futures End" is more or less a decent read, and it is far from the worst thing out there right now, but I, like I said, I am picky, and apparently I need to be a little pickier when it comes to DC.  The reality is they really are no more innocent then Marvel, they just had a better last decade, at least if you ask me they did.

Geoff Jones is still my homeboy, I'll buy anything with his name on it, but for the rest of the staff at DC you got your work cut out for you, because the purchasing power of one just got a lot less willing to part with his money.

Better luck next time, I guess that goes for all of us.  If anyone knows if Tim Drake as Batman Beyond makes any more appearances let me know.  I am curious if I make it out of this okay.

- King of Braves