Futures End UPDATE

Welcome back to the long awaited second part of Days of Futures End!

yeah…. Not sure how many people have been waiting for this things. My original plan was to review DC’s weekly series Futures End in a small chunks as it came out. Like 2 or 3 issues at a time. What actually got posted was a review of issues 0 & 1 back in May. I did start in on a review of issue 2 but given that issue was a bit boring & I really did not have anything to say about that issue or then the artist apparently has never Seattle at all.  I never finished that review & never wrote any reviews for the other later issues.

Today, Wednesday October 8th Issue 23 has come out. Will I go back & review the other 22 issues: no.  BUT this is what this post is about: It’s an update! I’m not going to go through it issue by issue or every really skim the plot for series here. I doubt I can really. It’s kind of all over the place. Even reading it weekly I sometimes get lost. There is a lot going on in a few different time & places. At times there are 3 different time periods going on & in those times you might get 2 or 3 different locations.

If you really want to know my opinion of the series. I can sum that up in 1 sentence: Cool stuff is sitting next to some really stupid stuff.  For every Fifty Sue (yes. That is an actual character’s name), Banger & Mash (British themed sisters with super strength), The Nan-Knight (that’s the name of the spaceship The Atom built): there is things like Brainiac. Go check him out Future Brainiac looks AWESOME! Future Firestorm also looks pretty cool.

Is Futures End a must read series?  I don’t know. The end of Futures End (like the last few issues) might be. If you read into things like me DC’s seems to be prepping something for early next year that might be spun out of the aftermath of Futures End. But… is it worth reading on a weekly basis? No. Not really. There are other things you could be reading from DC or the other companies out there.

1 thing: If you only read Issue 0 or only heard about Issue 0 & nothing else: That is not what the series is like. What is seen there in that 1 issue isn’t really touched expect for a few less crudely put together scenes. Issue 0 was a crappy way to get people to read the series. It’s one of the worse parts of the series. I wanted to read the series so I pushed through it & the series did get better as it went along for the most part. It’s still that a great series. It is readable. It’s got some interesting visuals & ideas.

Last month, DC flashed every book forward 5 years to show what their characters are doing in the main future time period of the series. This was this year’s anniversary lenticular event. Are these one-shots worth reading? Depends, do you read  any of those series? If no then no. You don’t need to read them to understand the main series. Of the ones that I looked at (in my local comic shop) very few of them tied into the main Futures End series. There are some “interesting” things in the one-shots. 2 Highlights:

1. Luchador Batgirl. Yes. you read that correctly: a Luchador Batgirl. She who heads a team of other 3 Batgirl (Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, and Tiffany Fox). The Batgirl of the Future has given up the ways of the Bat & has become a now former (by the time of the comic) apprentice of Bane. Most people focused on the fact that Stephanie & Cassandra were back in a comic. I focused on the Luchador Batgirl which we sadly don’t see much of in the comic. At least full shot of her in her costume. It’s awesome in all the worse ways.

2. Harley Quinn in the Suicide Squad one-shot. I’ll just leave you all to find check that out for yourself.

Of all the books that came out there is only 1 book that I think is worth picking up or at looking at is the Booster Gold one-shot. His book was the only 1 not connected to a series & seemed to fore tell of future events. Most likely what ever is coming next year.

Another book that came out today is Earth 2: World’s End, which is connected to Futures End. FE tells us the end of the story where as E2:WE will tell us the beginning. The End of the story is during some sort of battle/war/event, Earth 2 becomes unlivable for the people of that Earth. The heroes of Earth 2 escape from their World in giant flying Arks to Earth 1. The way Future End reads in Earth 2 isn’t just unlivable, it’s not there anymore.

Do you need to read Earth 2: World’s End if you reading Futures End? at the this point it's a toss up. With Issue 1 it does help if you were already reading the Earth 2 book.  It skims over the various past events from the book but does not explain what many of them are. Not sure how much Earth 2: World’s End with tie into Futures End or the main Earth 2 book.

And that's it for this update. I will most likely make another one at...  THE END!

Until then Stay Jazzy everybody!