The New 52: Futures End #28

Lois is leaping! Faraday and Fifty Sue are featured! Batman beats Batman! Madison is missing! These are all alliterated sentences that are both true and over-hyped. Yes, over-hyped. You see that cover above these words? Do you know where my level of Futures End excitement was at when I laid eyes on it? Up to here (I’m pointing at my forehead…this is really high). The reason why the excitement rose so much was because, as my grandparents would say, there’s no “hem hawing” around about it: Bruce and Terry are here to do business. But now I’ve read it. And while this issue is not the worst piece of mass produced art I’ve ever held, it’s certainly far from the best.

Cadmus Island — Lois took her “leap of faith” last issue. This issue: she lands. As we all knew would happen, she landed on Cadmus. She is confronted by an OMAC that she runs away from rather easily. As she’s running away from the second OMAC, she stumbles upon something she recognizes again rather easily: herself as Earth 2’s Red Tornado. It may be one of the more simpler sections but this is one of the better sections artistically in this issue. Andy MacDonald’s artwork throughout this issue, while not un-followable, is meager at best. It is understandable that characters will look different when illustrated by different artists, but “different” doesn’t seem like the case here. Fifty Sue has the face of a forty-year old, Faraday looks to be a teenager who’s been mauled by a dog, the fight and flight scenes we see later feel disjointed, and much of the panel layouts seem very rushed. We get a sense of where the story is headed, but did I enjoy watching it unfold? Not really. The best scene we get to see (and I’m not being too biased here) is that Ryan Sook cover with Bruce and Terry. Good golly that’s a ballin’ cover.*

Las Vegas — This is the first scene in this entire series that features Faraday and the Voodoo bunch that actually makes sense –at least on the first pass. Faraday and Rock are discussing Brother Eye. Rock has a hard time understanding everything and for our benefit he throws questions at Faraday. What gets rehashed and discussed? Fifty Sue has the power of a god. Banger and Mash are still a thing. Everyone did stuff in the war that they regret. There are ten super villains to every living super hero. Faraday had a major hand in creating Fifty Sue while he was looking for a cure for super powers. Rehash and discuss. Oh and yeah, in walks Fifty Sue out of no where to rag on Slade. Her comparison of herself and Slade with Batman and Robin only says to me that there will be some sort of story line in the future where Batman and Robin prove their devotedness to one another. Seems like theme-seed planting to me. Regardless, Fifty Sue wants a team to go and take back Cadmus and kill Deathstroke. Thank goodness Rock just assembled a weirdo team a few issues back!

New York City — We pick up after Bruce and Terry’s initial meeting when Plastique rolled one of her bombs in the room on them. Tim’s apartment above the Wounded Duck is on fire and Terry escapes out of the window with Bruce Bats in tow. The whole scene looks goofy. I mean, I get it and all, but it looks like a missed opportunity visually. The writers gave ample opportunity to show some smart action here and what we get just comes up short in my opinion. Very little dialogue allowed the space and the subject provided content. Too bad. The only thing we have here is Terry escaping with Plastique.
Elsewhere in New York — Tim (as Cal) approaches Ronnie for help finding Madison. Ronnie is cool about it and tells him to ask Jason. Tim goes to find Jason with Ronnie behind him volunteering to help find her too.

Else-Elsewhere in New York — Jason goes to Dr. Yamazake’s apartment to apologize “about…you know…Firestorm.” Weird. He hears voices behind the door so he does what anyone in that situation would do: bust down the doctor’s door to save him. He unfortunately finds a TV set on a loop repeat of the televised death of Dr. Yamazake’s wife’s death in a burning building. I’ve been saying it and surely you’ve noticed: Dr. Yamazake is cray-cray, bae.** About the time we see his oddity on display, we see him drag Madison into the teleporter device to test it on a human subject. I have severe qualms with this, not even on the level of the flow and story, but of practicality. It’s nonsense really, so into a spoiler tag it goes.

Recommended if:

You don’t mind another fairly uneventful build-up issue to stay abreast of the Futures End situation.
Convergence makes you excited because surely that’s where this series will be headed.
You don’t mind getting your hopes up by that cool cover.

Overall:

I don’t need huge consequences in order to appreciate a comic, nor do I need “blow me away” art. Unfortunately, this issue brings neither to the table. If this comic were food, it would be ice cream that’s sat in a bowl on the kitchen counter for three hours and is now all melted into some aerated warm creamy un-goodness. It wasn’t going to be nutritional, but it could have been fun to eat. This issue wasn’t gonna move mountains but it could have been fun to look at.


Get full review from Batman News here

Futures End #27 Review

Green Arrow Island — We know Green Arrow’s gang is getting ready to attack Cadmus. What we don’t know is how he knows where Cadmus is. Thankfully, Green Arrow got Deathstroke to unknowingly take a tracking device with him when GA faked his death. Barda’s ready to go.

Metropolis — Tim breaks into Lois Lane’s apartment and is waiting on her arrival home. She isn’t too pleased but seems to get over it pretty fast. Tim is looking for Madison who (as we know from the crazy Dr. Yamazake incident) has gone missing. The writers still want to remind us that whoever sent Lois those strange items (the prism, the coordinates, the red arrow) intended them for Tim. I find that whole “Lois has these things but they’re intended for Tim and Red Arrow’s the only one who knows I’m alive” sub-sub-plot boring and a weak attempt at getting Lois on the cover of Futures End jumping out of a plane. There is this “leap of faith” micro theme between Tim and Lois. Tim took a leap of faith to tell Madison about his identity and it backfired. Lois is about to take a literal and metaphorical leap of faith with Tim about the coordinates. Let’s hope for her sake it ends well.

Cadmus Island — Deathstroke, Lana, and Cole are creeping around the island. Fifty Sue isn’t around. There is a vault filled with the DNA of nearly every superhuman and Deathstroke wants to keep Brother Eye out. If Brother Eye gets to the vault he could potentially use the DNA with nefarious intent. Though really, if Brother Eye has been actively in control of the island for at least two days, it stands to reason that anything valuable on the island would’ve been found and controlled by now. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the island, Mister Miracle is not with Fury but stalking at the medical unit when Huntress (controlled by Brother Eye) attacks. Brother Eye wants to absorb(?) him but he runs away.

[Unlabeled Section] — The section header should have read “300 Miles East of Cadmus Island” or something to provide some approaching suspense. Like a ticking clock, this could have been the counting down of miles. Anyway, Green Arrow’s army is on its way to Cadmus in a large, green water vessel. They turn on the tracking device to find out it actually works. The point of this section is to tell us how bad the battle will be when they finally get there.

Manhattan— Terry and Plastique are at Tim’s bar. Tim isn’t there, he’s off to see Lois. They want to talk to Tim and get his help. So what do they do? Break into his apartment above the bar. What a way to introduce yourselves. It’s Terry who does the breaking I should say. Plastique stays in the bar. It’s while Terry is alone that Alfred encourages him to not work with Plastique, that including her could ruin the mission. Alfred also suggests that Terry may be infatuated with Plastique. A few other things happen that I’ll just drop in this tag.

[Unlabeled Section] Lois is making her leap of faith. Who knows what she’s liable to experience just parachuting onto Cadmus. I’m still not sure why she agreed to go with her lack of skill set. It’s not like she’s a Tim Drake replacement.

Recommended if:

Increased time spent with the Bat Family interests you.
You’d like to see multiple characters from different story lines converge on central locations.
You wanna know who that is on the cover parachuting and where they think they’re going.

Overall:

I’m happy with the pace this weekly comic is moving. This issue provides a tantalizing confrontation that you’re going to want to know more about, a promise of a huge battle to come, and a train wreck situation from which you won’t be able to look away when it happens. When reading the series as a whole, this issue is a worthy addition.

Get full review from Batman News here

Futures End #26 Review

New York City — Coil and Key are working for Mr. Terrific now. Coil looks like he’s got on his Halloween girlie eyelashes with glasses on while Key appears to have died and is now in rigor mortis. Bruce and Mr. Terrific chat. Mr. Terrific wants to meet with Bruce but Bruce isn’t available at the moment. They will meet later. It’s interesting seeing Bruce drop his playboy facade for just one panel with Mr. Terrific. Knowing that Mr. Terrific is pissed with Bruce for supposedly attempting to steal the uSphere but eventually will have tremendous respect for him (we know from flash-forwards to 35 years in the future) is interesting. I look forward to that relationship dynamic unfolding.

Columbia University — Dr. Yamazake knows that Jason is Firestorm. Perhaps he doesn’t know that he’s only half of Firestorm, but only that he’s involved. The doctor is mad, I tell you. Not mad enough to tell everyone his identity, which the rational side of my brain says is bogus. If I hate the Justice League and I learn one of their secret identities, I’m gonna put that info on blast. Yamazake doesn’t. He bans Jason from his lab, accusing him of deliberately sabotaging his experiments. What’s unfortunate (I believe for Yamazake) is that Madison comes by the lab looking for Jason and the doctor detains her for human experimentation. I say it’s bad for Yamazake because not only will he have Tim to contend with, but he’ll have Jason (who’s angry at him) as well as Ronnie (who likes Madison) who will Firestorm his ass to evil scientist prison.

No Indication of Location — Really. I know by the characters where we are, but consistency sucks when it comes to these scene changes. Let’s either do it, or don’t. Seeing as how we flip between roughly five different settings in these few pages, location notation is needed. Here we have Terry and Plastique discussing their hackneyed plan to change the future while showing a red Obi-Wan Kenobi-style hologram of Tim Drake out of his shoulder. Their plan is to talk to Tim about doing something because in Terry’s future, Tim is dead. Alfred verifies this. But… Tim is in hiding. Lois didn’t release his identity. As far as the world is concerned, Tim died during the war. So, why would they believe he actually died in the future just because Tim was never assimilated with Brother Eye or no DNA record is found of him? He could still be operating in that further future as far as they are concerned, just not caught.

Cadmus Eyeland — No, it does not say “Eyeland” but with Brother Eye saying things like “Eye am capable” it felt appropriate. There is a lot of interesting ramble between Fifty Sue and Brother Eye that will mean something if you are going to continue this series. For the Cliff’s Notes bunch, Fifty Sue is crazy powerful. Slade is working with Brother Eye and this disappoints Fifty Sue. Grifter and Lana talk too. I’m not sure about what, but Lana has a secret she’s hiding that Grifter knows about.
New York City — You know that sweet Sook cover that got me excited? Yeah, that scene plays out here. Minor note, the time on the cover is 2:25ish whereas the one in this section is 11:55. Jason and Ronnie both respond to a text to meet (did they not see the callback number? so they just show up anyway expecting to not be shocked?) and they run into one another. Batman arranged a meeting to tell them two things: 1) Green Arrow isn’t dead. 2) Kiss and make up. This was Batman’s big entrance in Futures End. I’d rather him be here than not, but it just felt like a let-down as a Batman fan. I guess it’s cool that Batman knows stuff that others don’t, but no… no excuses, I un-objectively did not like it.

Recommended if:

You simply just want to see Batman.
You’ve been waiting for an incomplete and unsatisfactory discussion of the perils of time travel.
Friends making up and breaking apart compels you.

Overall:

As a build-up issue, it fares well. We’ve read so many boring issues that were meant to prepare the story for a later payoff that this one seems almost upward trending despite its lack of out-and-out action. My own hype about seeing Batman’s appearance let me down a little (okay a lot) but on the whole, it’s a pretty above average leading-up-to-the-action-at-a-later-time issue. It gets an overall thumbs up in my book.

Get full review from Batman News here