The end of DC Comics New 52 future is here in the form of New 52: Futures End. This is the latest weekly event that DC Comics is publishing, alongside Batman: Eternal, and is set to take place 5 years in the future of the New 52’s current timeline. With such a big time jump being made for a universe that is not even 3 years old, our time, will this new weekly series from DC prove to be a success? Find out in our spoiler review of New 52: Futures End #1.
Creative Team
Writers: Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen
Artist: Patrick Zircher
Art Consultant: Keith Giffen
Colorist: Hi-Fi
Story Rating: 2 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 4 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Five years from now Batman Beyond (Terry McGinnis) is standing on top of a building asking A.L.F.R.E.D (an AI that is exactly like Tony Stark’s JARVIS AI from the movies and current Marvel comics, right down to the snarky banter) what he should do next. A.L.F.R.E.D says that the “now” they find themselves in is not the “now” they are supposed to be in. Batman Beyond is annoyed by A.L.F.R.E.D banter so A.L.F.R.E.D decides to pinpoint where they are in time. Batman Beyond says not to bother since he sees a billboard that clues him in to the fact they arrived seven years too late to stop Mr. Terrific from creating Brother Eye, which is responsible for the hellish future Batman Beyond comes from. Making matters worse is the fact that the time band Batman Beyond used only had a charge for one trip through time.
Batman Beyond then asks A.L.F.R.E.D what they should do with the cyborg that hitched a ride through time with them. The cyborg suddenly wakes up and attacks Batman Beyond. Batman Beyond struggles to take out the cyborg. As this is going on a man is recording this using his Google Glasses-like device from his office. (The DCU is really behind tech-wise from us if they don’t get Google Glasses for another five years.) Batman Beyond eventually shuts the cyborg down and A.L.F.R.E.D asks if he is alright. Batman Beyond says he is but that it is funny since he won’t be born for another few years.
Elsewhere, The Carrier spaceship is flying through the Huron System. Inside the Carrier, Jack Hawksmoor asks the Engineer about what happened to them. The Engineer says that they were pulled out of The Bleed by an unknown energy source. Hawkman wonders how that could happen since they were traveling between universes. Jack asks what the ship is saying. The Engineer says that it is trying to shut her down and just as she says that the ship shuts her down.
The Engineer wakes up now controlled by someone else. It tells Jack that they are the force that Stormwatch was supposed to defend the Earth from. The mysterious thing controlling the Engineer then turns the ship against Stormwatch. Jack tells Apollo to go into space to see if he can find something nearby that could be controlling their ship and the Engineer. Midnighter tells Apollo to be careful. (He says this because they are a couple which isn’t clear through the writing, your just supposed to know that.)
As soon as Apollo goes outside he is detected by some sensors that analyze his threat level as being that of a Level 2. The mysterious entity (that might be Brother Eye but it is not said or shown directly at this point) turns its weapons on Apollo and kills him by completely disintegrating him. Stormwatch does not have time to mourn Apollo’s death as the mysterious entity turns its attention to the Carrier which they analyze as a Level 3 threat. It then activates the Carrier’s auto-destruct system and destroys the ship with Stormwatch inside. The mysterious entity then turns its attention to Earth.
In Conover Cove, the Grifter is killing a family inside their home, while thinking to himself how he loves that he is keeping the people he is hunting from conducting another invasion. The little girl is the only one left and she runs into her room. Grifter corners her and the little girl begins speaking some alien language and the Grifter kills her. (Grifter is made to look like a dull version of Deadpool in this scene.)
In Morningside Heights, Jason Rusch is running through the city trying to call Ronnie Raymond but only gets his voicemail. Jason enters the store Ronnie’s girlfriend works in and asks the clerk if she has seen Ronnie. The clerk says he is up in the storage room with his girlfriend. Jason runs up to the storage room and finds Jason right about to have sex with his girlfriend. Ronnie’s girlfriend quickly gets dressed and gets back to work in frustration. Ronnie is angry but Jason says that Green Arrow called him and asked for their help. Ronnie isn’t up for it so Jason touches him and activates their Firestorm transformation.
As they fly to Seattle to help Green Arrow, Jason tells Ronnie that Ollie would not ask for their help if he did not really need it. Jason then says they owe Ollie for getting them into the Justice League after “The War.” As Firestorm they see smoke coming from the harbor and when they get there they see what looks like a warzone. Firestorm uses his powers to save the people that are alive, with a woman thanking Firestorm for his help.
A kid then asks Firestorm for help as there is someone dying that he is trying to save in the rubble. Firestorm uses his powers to clear the rubble and is shocked to see what he finds. Jason yells at Ronnie for his selfishness in not agreeing to come to the scene faster being the caused for the person’s death. With the smoke fully clear it is seen that the person that is dead is Green Arrow. End of issue
Commentary
The Good: The New 52: Futures End #1 does its best to create a sense of urgency right away but in doing so this issue created a reading experience only friendly to a small select reading group. By doing so Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, and Keith Giffen created an atmosphere that is not as welcoming as Batman: Eternal was before it.
The revelation that Mr. Terrific is responsible for creating Brother Eye is an interesting one because Batman Beyond notes that Brother Eye was created seven years before he arrives in the timeline he is in. That is two years before the current New 52 timeline and when Mr. Terrific was sent to Earth-2 at the end of his series. This could mean that “The War” that Firestorm mentions somehow involves Earth-2 and that to prevent this horrible future the present Justice League have to get Mr. Terrific back to stop Brother Eye.
The other positive I have for The New 52: Futures End #1 is the artwork. Patrick Zircher does a good job aging up Firestorm and selling the fact that not everything is right with this future DC Universe. At the same time, I did wish Zircher would have done more to make this DCU look differently because there is nothing about this Earth that feels truly different other than billboards that talk about the future.
The Bad: Right from the beginning we are placed in a story that feels like it already started before The New 52: Futures End #1 began. As someone that was not able to pick up the Free Comic Book Day zero issue, I felt lost at what was going on. It does not help that outside of Batman Beyond and Hawkman there are no characters the reader can instantly get behind.
Azzarello, Lemire, Jurgens, and Giffen all failed as writers by not being able to make the reader, new or old, feel like they can step right into this new series with the first issue. And that is exactly what The New 52: Futures End #1 does by not clearly defining the story and characters we are following. A clear example of this is the way Batman Beyond is written. It takes us four pages until we find out that Batman Beyond is Terry McGinnis and not one of Bruce’s protégés since he was not written differently from how Dick Grayson, Jason Todd or Tim Drake are characterized in the New 52.
This problem could have been quickly fixed by putting a small title card in the first panel that the characters appear in. Small title cards like the ones Marvel uses for their new series or first issues of events could have helped new readers identify who the characters in this series were since Batman Beyond is the only big superhero in this comic book. There are not going to be many readers who know who Firestorm or Stormwatch are.
As someone that has never read a Stormwatch series, I did not care about their situation since the way the writers wrote them it was like I should know everything about them when reading this issue. The writers took the approach that if I should not know everything about these characters then I should feel ashamed. That is not a feeling I should get when reading a new comic book but it is how The New 52: Futures End #1 made me feel by the end of the story.
The same goes for the Grifter’s part in this story. I got the sense that I was supposed to know who the Grifter was before I even stepped into this issue. And because I do not know who the Grifter is, I actually thought he was a villain due to the fact that he was written to be a jerk and someone that was killing an innocent family. Even though he said that the family he was killing was involved in some sort of invasion I am left wondering if he was just trying to justify his killing of the family since there are known to be all types of creatures in the DCU. How are we supposed to know that the little girl is part of an evil alien species and was not actually forced to go all scary as a defense mechanism by Grifter’s attack? We do not know but are made to buy into it even if the reasoning is not all that great.
The other problem with this issue is that the writers failed to create a sense of urgency in the story. Even though it is great to see Terry as Batman Beyond I never thought of his appearance in this issue as more than fan service for those who enjoyed the animated series. There is nothing about this version of Batman Beyond that gets you to understand why he traveled through time instead of staying in his own timeline.
It would have been better, from a narrative perspective, to start Batman Beyond’s story in his own timeline. By doing that the writers could have quickly presented us the dark future our heroes are trying to prevent right away. It could have been three quick pages of Batman Beyond running away from Brother Eye in order to get enough time to activate his time travel band.
The way the writers wrote Batman Beyond during this issue did not help either. The dialogue that the writers gave Terry makes him sound he comes from a timeline that is not all that different from the Batman Beyond animated series. There should have been some tweaks made to the way Terry carried himself as Batman Beyond in order to show that he was coming from a dark timeline. It would have helped the series build an instant sense of urgency since we are seeing the dark future ourselves instead of having it explained to us as this issue did.
Overall: The biggest question I had after reading The New 52: Futures End #1 was not about what was going to happen next but why I should care about the characters in this issue. There are a lot of characters explaining stuff to me but no real reason is shown about why I should be reading this series other than this being another comic book by DC Comics that is going down a dark and gritty route. The fact that there are not any characters I care about or a world that is different from the current DCU hurts the story event more. By the end of this first issue, I am happy to walk away from this series knowing I am not going to invest any more time or money after The New 52: Futures End #1.