The Batman of five years from now finally makes his first appearance in Futures End. Is it good?
Spoilers Below!
Futures End #26 (DC Comics)
Writers: Brian Azzarello, Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens, and Jeff Lemire
Artists: Patrick Zircher and Jesus Merino
Story:
At a New York City airport, Mr. Terrific meets with Bruce Wayne to discuss a big business plan between their two corporations. Terrific tells Wayne to drop the act, but he refuses to. As he leaves, Mr. Terrific tells Coil and Key (whom he has now hired to work for him) to follow Wayne.
At Columbia University, Dr. Yamazake forces Jason Rusch to leave, believing him to be the cause of all his failures and delays with his teleportation project. As Rusch is forced to leave by security, Yamazake informs him that he’ll be testing his machine on humans next.
Spoiler Corner:
As Jason leaves for Central Park (having gotten a message from someone), Madison Payne shows up at Yamazake’s lab searching for him since he is a part of their study group. However, Yamazake recognizes her, being the daughter of the man who sold out the plan. He then attacks her and plans to use her for his tests.
Elsewhere, Batman Beyond and Plastique are working on their plans to stop Brother Eye. Terry informs her that they’ll try to get help from Cal/Tim, since he would be useful and his DNA hasn’t been catalogued by the AI yet. Apparently, he dies this year and they need his help since they can’t ask anyone else.
On Cadmus Island, Brother Eye and Fifty Sue are playing mind games with one another, each trying to get the upper hand. Brother Eye may have gotten one when he manages to create an (or possibly show a real) image of Deathstroke making a deal with him to escape the island.
When Jason arrives at the destination, Raymond appears as well. Both of them are already confused… and then Batman appears. He reveals to them that Green Arrow isn’t dead after all and tells them to get over their bickering and get back to work since the world needs Firestorm more than ever.
Thoughts:
Yeah, Futures End #26 is still definitely in the setup phase, but the comic is moving some of the storylines into interesting directions. The more we see develop in the Batman Beyond and Firestorm storylines, the more interesting they become and the more you end up really wanting to know where this will all lead. Some stories, like the Cadmus Island one, just feel like they have been going on forever and haven’t made enough interesting progress with the Batman Beyond/Firestorm one in comparison. I’m hoping that the comic picks up the pace for some of the other storylines eventually.
The writing and artwork, like always, is just fine and gets the job done. The pacing and story structure are fine, the dialogue is decent (though there was an odd moment of a character narrating backstory to himself of stuff we already know), the characterization is accurate. The only thing really holding this book back is the slow plot progression.
Most Memorable Moment:
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what you call insanity.
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