Art By: Jesus Merino, Dan Green
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 23, 2014
Back To The Future.... The Far Future
Last week in the world of Five Years From Now we saw our trio of space cadets Hawkman, Amethyst and Frankenstein crash land on an alien world inside some metal crater, in search of a possible living member of Storm Watch. Grifter's tech guru Justin finally decided that Cole has been gone long enough and it's time to abandon their base and go head over to the long missing Voodoo's place. Mister Terrific went on TV to try and flush out Batman Beyond by telling the populace he's an illegal alien from another Earth and the JLA try to get the Firestorm band back together, but it seems like getting Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch to be friendly again and want to be inside each other is a lost cause. So let's check out this week's journey to Five Years From Now.
Explain It!:
Our story begins with our space traveling heroes realizing that this metal crater they've landed in is a terrible place to be. They are almost immediately attacked by a horde of robots that seem to think the best way to clean the crater is by killing our heroes. So the fight is on and it might have been curtains for the forces of good, but....... well I can't say luckily but they find Hawkman's Storm Watch teammate The Engineer who stops the robots, but it seems that she's sporting a new Brainiac logo and envelops our heroes in electrical tendrils. I swear that nobody can catch a break in the future, especially now that we're seeing the affects of Nth Metal on Frankenstein. It seems that old Frank is going to have to get used to bleeding like the rest of us and with it possibly dying in the long run. No breaks.
Next we travel to Maryland where King Faraday is in an apartment of a mysterious woman who may or may not be Star Girl of the future. He calls her Courtney before she tells him to shut up, but this girl looks more like Plastique than our lovable Star Girl. I might be completely off base here, but for the life of me I can't think of anyone else named Courtney that might be featured in Futures End. Anyway it seems that King is there to get Courtney off to Cadmus Island because he wants to find out how she does the things that she does and makes a comment about her being a walking toxic waste site. The futures a confusing place, especially when it involves King Faraday. I swear the writers keep his segments so mysterious that half the time you have no idea what's going on. What I take from it is that Faraday wants Courtney and her friends and after he leaves, this mysterious woman calls Voodoo on the phone and she tells her they're compromised and her and some more mysterious characters known as The Twins need to lay low and move to a safe house. I'm so confused.
Now in Metropolis we find out that Rampage broke Ethan Boyer out of the M.A.W. so that he can use his geneticist skills to turn her back into an ordinary woman. While Ethan straps Rampage into a machine he monologues about how the two first met and I understand exposition, but jeez. It doesn't matter how they met, it only matters that Ethan betrays her and intends to up her power level so that Helmeted Superman will have his hands full fighting her, instead of searching for Ethan. Also he seems preoccupied texting to a mysterious person, so we have more questions!
In the end we travel to thirty five years into the future where Brother Eye rules supreme and where Batman Beyond first came from in this series issue zero. As strange as it is in a world full of superheroes transformed into Brother Eye Borgs, it seems that not everyone has been converted. Thirty Five years in the future The Joker with his face intact is being kept in a cell and it seems that Brother Eye finally has a purpose for him. He's escorted to a surgical room by Borg Frankenstein, Borg Lobo, and Random Borg Gorilla, where he finds that in this dark future he can still find something to laugh about. We see that Batman is still alive after the assault on the Bat Cave and after the two look at each other the Joker ends the issue by laughing maniacally.
Holy shit what does Brother Eye have planned for these two? Make sure you're back next week when we hopefully have some answers to this mysterious Courtney woman, the mysterious texter and what the hell will happen to Joker and Batman. See you then.
Bits and Pieces:
Looks like we're back to the unending questions that we've been plagued with since this title started. We were doing so well getting answers for the last couple weeks that I guess this was inevitable. While the issue will drive you nuts wanting to know more, the other segments do a good job of giving you enough not to pull your hair out. Really this issue is a mixed bag and the real thing that will get people to want this issue is the ending, so with that said make sure that you keep reading Futures End because I know I won't be able to stay sane without these questions answered.
6.8/10
So glad to see you say you were confused and that it wasn't just me.
ReplyDeleteYou have no idea how frustrated I am when I can't do a proper Explain It! The series has reached a new low when it adds a segment that is completely incomprehensible.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I read this, too. I always have this problem reading comics like this, where there's no context as to who people are, and I keep thinking, "Wait, am I already supposed to know who this person is? Did they show her/him before?" and then I frantically dig out my short boxes and pull out the previous issues to flip through them, only to find out... Nope. They just randomly introduced more new characters again.
ReplyDeleteI'm fine with that, to an extent, as it's just part of the medium to let things unfold throughout the story. But, I always trick myself into thinking that I must have just forgotten something from a previous issue and it always frustrates me.
Cheers!