Art By: Aaron Lopresti, Art Thibert
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: September 17, 2014
Getting inside Batman's Head
Getting to our weekly recap so you know what's going on this issue, we're looking at Cal Corcoran aka Tim Drake who has faked his death and has decided to spend his days dispensing beer at a bar called "The Wounded Duck". All would of been fine and Tim could of lived happily ever after with his girlfriend Madison if Lois Lane hadn't come snooping about with the items from her mystery box, she got after Green Arrow's funeral, pointing her to Tim and other mysterious things. So Lois tried outing Tim and eventually outed Shazam as being an impostor Superman. More things we'll be looking at here involve Batman Beyond teaming up with villains to gain access to Terrifitech, where they planned on stealing the Usphere prototype and Terry planned on gaining info about Brother Eye's location. Well Terry got what he wanted and got Key and Coil arrested. On Cadmus Island we've learned that Brother Eye has been hiding out in their systems and now has full control over it and the Earth 2 heroes that were given implants. Well all of Cadmus except Deathstroke, Lana Lang, Fifty Sue and Grifter. One last thing, awhile ago we jumped further ahead to the future where we saw that Brother Eye didn't kill Batman after sending Terry back in time and after he was captured we also saw that the Joker is alive and well Thirty Five Years From Now. So let's jump into this issue and see where Futures End takes us this week.
Explain It!:
Like I said above Lois Lane recently outed Shazam as being a Superman impostor, even after Stormguard and Shazam personally asked her not to, so with this in mind you can imagine that Tim Drake is a little freaked out about his impending outage....... Is that the word I'm looking for? So he does what any former superhero would do in his position and he makes the most dramatic entrance while trying to break into her office to find out what she has on him. Only problem here is, it turns out she was waiting for him to make said dramatic entrance. So while he could of denied being the Robin of the Red variety before, after a stunt like that there really isn't much to say.
The two talk and it pretty much leads to Lois ironically saying that she could never be with someone who lived a double life and that he should tell his girlfriend Madison the truth. At first when Tim looked at her mystery box....... ha ha.... it seemed like we might have Red Robin going after Cadmus and all the other clues the box holds, but he merely says "Meh" and goes home. You know how women always say you should be honest with them and all that jazz? Well Tim comes clean about his past and Madison freaks out and leaves. Worst advice ever Lois.
Now we'll jump to Thirty Five Years From Now, where we see that in Brother Eye's awful Terminator/Borg world that Mister Terrific is still alive and it seems like he's being held captive within Terrifitech. Brother Eye tells him of "Other Father" Bruce Wayne's plan to send a assassin back in time to stop it, but Brother Eye has dissected his brain to get the information on time travel and plans on building a machine to stop the assassin. So yeah it is totally a Terminator scenario going on. As awful as that sounds I can't help but be stricken with the thought that he DISSECTED BATMAN'S BRAIN! Before the video screen cuts off the grotesqueness that is Batman's dissected brain,....... I'm not going to get over this, we see a familiar smile on the screen, so it looks like Joker got what he finally wanted and for some reason is being kept alive and possibly being sent to the past to stop Batman Beyond, but why Brother Eye would trust Joker with this task is beyond me. Possibly he'll finally get all Borg-ed up.
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| HIS BRAINS! OH THE HUMANITY! |
Back to only Five Years From Now, we head over to Cadmus Island where our group of heroes? Well our group of survivors go to talk to King Faraday, who was also spared Brother Eye's assimilation. We find out that Fifty Sue has a super secret hideout and that it's the safest place for them to go and come up with a plan to try and stop the digital invasion. Yeah not much on Cadmus Island this week.
In the end we head back to New York to Terrifitech, where Mister Terrific goes to talk to the detained Key and Coil. Michael offers the two a job in security and the promise that he won't have them locked up for most of their lives if they just give him the name of the person that hired them to steal the Usphere. After a brief deliberation the two decide to completely throw their employer under the bus and we find out that Bruce Wayne hired them and we're left with the question, why?
That's it for this week's Futures End and man it really feels like it's moving fast and building to a big mind blowing turn of events, but this could just be me drinking too much caffeine again. Make sure you're back next week to talk more about his really interesting title that just makes me so happy that it's a weekly title............ I hate waiting. See you then.
Bits and Pieces:
Not much action really going on here and you know what? It doesn't need it. We jump back and forth throughout time and deal with future plot lines that will affect this world and it's getting me hyped up for the next round of stories coming at us in Futures End. While I have bitched beyond belief at all the questions throughout this series, over the last month I have become reassured that this story won't leave me hanging and now I welcome the questions because I know the payoff will be worth it. Go out and get this issue and continue your foray into the world of Five Years From Now, I'm sure having a good time, don't you want to have a good time too?
8/10
Future's End is now up to 20 issues and apparently still has yet to really establish any kind of plot beyond "Mysterious disjointed events happen, involving DC characters, and a connection is hinted at, but never stated - end with ominous cliffhanger."
ReplyDeleteAlso, "Everything is like, super-dark, yo. Gritty."
I am trying to enjoy Future's End, but it seems .... somewhat directionless. Like either they don't quite know how the plot will play out, or they do but they're trying to stretch it out.
Fifty Sue bothers me - not just because the annoying over-powered brat character is, well, annoying. She bothers me because so much of the story so far has been "Character who has God-like powers singlehandedly steers the course of events." Brother Eye, obviously. But also Faraday, at the start of the series, essentially appeared everywhere, knew everything, and could force anyone to do his will - more or less railroading Grifter into becoming his Cadmus lackey. Brainiac doing as he wills with the Stormwatch. Deathstroke who can never be killed, defeated, or remotely challenged in any way. CADMUS doing whatever it wants. Mr. Terrific being ... terrific.
Plot doesn't build and develop naturally in Futures' End - events happen and then suddenly, a "God" character appears, pushes the plot in the direction it needs to go, and that's it.
And Fifty-Sue is simply the perfect symbol of that trend. A kid who can do whatever she wants, is more powerful than anything or anyone without any visible effort, and automatically understands and knows everything that's going on. She is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God - and in recent issues, the plotline at Cadmus only progresses because she wills it or because she allows it. She is the "deus ex machina" turned into a character.
Maybe that's why i feel like the story isn't really going anywhere - because it clearly is. It just feels like it isn't, because nothing will happen in a certain subplot for several issues, and then suddenly a God character appears and resolves it. Very stop-start.
Really trying to like Futures' End - but honestly, right now, the biggest comfort I have is that by the end of the story, time travel will probably make the whole thing non-canon.
And thank the Monitor for that, because some of the directions that the Futures' End spinoffs have gone are totally whacked and nothing would make me happier than to hear it didn't actually happen.
I'm pretty sure you win for longest comment we've had here at Weird Science and don't take that as a dig, because we really appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteAs for Futures End and it's infinite mysteries, I think all us DC fans can agree that this will probably be written off in the end due to Fifty Sue Ex Machina, Booster Gold or just some Terminator like time travel. We've already seen that Brother Eye intends to Terminator the hell out of Batman Beyond and with so much time travel being introduced it's not that far fetched, like anything that involves comics. While I'm not a fan of all darkness and bleakness that The New 52 has brought and that goes double for this awful future, I do like seeing how these damaged characters go about their day in a post war world and I'm optimistic in thinking that it'll be awesome to see these characters come together to go after the oncoming storm of Brainiac, Brother Eye and Terminator Brother Eye. I love Elseworlds and I chalk this up to that and as long as it doesn't affect the continuity that I love, it's okay by me.