Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman is a comic that I�m pretty sure was built for me in a lab. It�s Superman�s kid and the new Wonder Woman fighting an Amazonian Sun God and Solaris, the Tyrant Sun, the evil stellar supercomputer built by the Justice Legion A of the 853rd century. What�s not to love?
But even beyond my own personal buttons to push, Dan Watters and Leila Del Luca write a really fascinating story.
I spoke at length in my review of Future State: Superman of Metropolis about how Future State heavily borrows from Grant Morrison�s runs, specifically his takes on the JLA and the DC One Million crossover. This issue is perhaps the most Morrisonian of them all, with the issue literally telling a story first recounted in DC One Million, with Solaris the Tyrant Sun attempting to fight Superman Secundus.
And it�s Morrisonian in a broader sense, too, with the way that extreme technology becomes mythology and vice versa in Morrisonian works. I�m thinking of the �ultimate� Superman in DC One Million, and the Super-Doomsday from Morrison�s run on Action Comics. Solaris attempts to take the place of a mythological god, and Superman dismisses the sun god, Kuat, as �some sort of 5th-dimensional imp . . . probably a Zffrian, like Mxytzptlk.� Superman and Wonder Woman are dealing with an ultimate intersection of mythology � the sun, a divine force in almost all mythological pantheons � and technology � the sun is just atomic fusion, after all, and atomic power is the ultimate symbol of the technological age.
This, as well, is a version of Jon Kent that is just better than the one that appeared in Future State: Superman of Metropolis. This is a Superman that is genuinely kind and superheroic, as opposed to the version of Superman that is short-sighted and trigger-happy over in his other book. The fact that Superman begins the day by saying hello to Metropolis, and counts the seconds � like Astro City�s Samaritan � for his rescues, is delightful.
Similarly, Yara Flor, the new Wonder Woman, is just fantastic. She�s angry and rebellious and anti-authoritarian in a way that is both completely unlike Diana Prince while still managing to live up to her ethos. And that costume! I haven�t been able to figure out who designed it � though I assume Joelle Jones � but it�s another costume that is unlike Wonder Woman�s, yet still manages to evoke it.
This isn�t a perfect comic. The characterization being so different between this and Superman of Metropolis is a flaw, even if I like this characterization more, and the art gets strange at times. But still, broadly, this might be the best part of Future State by far.
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