The New 52: Futures End #26 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen
Art By: Scot Eaton, Scott Hanna, Drew Geraci, Hi-Fi
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: October 29, 2014

HEY BARTENDER!

For this week's quick recap, you'll need to know that the person who put Coil, Key and Plastique up to the job of stealing the prototype USphere from Mister Terrific was Bruce Wayne.  Also after Batman Beyond joined that crew to infiltrate Terrifitech and find out info on Brother Eye, he totally screwed the bad guys over by sounding the security alarms and Coil and Key were caught by security and then immediately offered a job by Mister Terrific himself.  You know when he found out the whole Bruce Wayne hired them thing.  Now while those two were captured, Batman Beyond let Plastique pal around with him because..... Well I guess he honestly felt bad because he found Plastique staring at her Brother Eyed self from the future and no one should ever have to see that.  So yeah, Plastique and Batman Beyond; the dynamic duo.  On Cadmus Island, Fifty Sue has decided that Deathstroke, Grifter and Lana Lang are going to simply take down the AI and get their island back and finally, last issue we saw that Dr. Yamazake, Jason Rusch's boss and increasing nutcase found out about Jason's super identity and with his hate on for superheroes........ well it can't end well for our hero.  Okay let's check out this week's foray into Five Years From Now.

Explain It!:

Our story begins on a tarmac in New York City, where Bruce Wayne has just arrived to supposedly check out Mister Terrific's USphere.  Now Mister Terrific knows that Bruce is the one who hired the goons to steal it and I guess he's playing a long game here because the two seem amicable.  But Bruce says that before he see's the tech, he has to have his lawyers make up a contract, due to disclosure and all that.  Bruce excuses himself by saying he's late for something and Mister Terrific then has his two newest employees, Coil and Key follow him.  Yeah, put a tail on Batman....... See how that works out for you.

Next we hop over to Columbia University where Dr. Yamazake is firing Jason Rusch and telling him that he now understands all the hold ups the teleportation machine has incurred because of Jason's true intentions and that it's next test will be a human subject.  Jason is escorted out of the lab and our hero is left wondering if Dr. Yamazake knows who he really is, while we the readers know that he does.  Jason then receives an anonymous text message that asks for him to meet at Central Park and with his night suddenly freed up, he figures why the hell not.  Moving away from Jason, I just want to know, has Madison Payne annoyed the rest of you as much as she's annoyed me over the past few weeks?  Well on top of being annoying apparently she also has the worst timing ever because after Jason leaves she comes to Dr. Yamazake's lab looking for him.  Well since the Doc has been becoming increasingly nutso since he was introduced, when he finds out Madison's last name, he realizes that she's the daughter of the war criminal that sold Earth defense codes to the enemy, which would get his wife killed and lead him to the path of bat shit insane.  So he figures for the sake of justice, he'll simply knock Madison out and use her for her his first human test subject.  Let's see here....... friend of Jason, making eyes at Ronnie and the ex-girlfriend of Tim Drake.  Yeah Yamazake just made a major mistake.  Hopefully if he goes through with the teleportation, Madison doesn't come out all Jeff Goldblum about it.

Elsewhere, Batman Beyond explains to Plastique that they have to get Tim Drake to help them take out Brother Eye because he needs to get someone who doesn't survive to the future he came from because they could inadvertently make that future happen if they have knowledge of it.  You know all that time travel mumbo jumbo that every story has their own take on?  Well this is it for Futures End.  According to the Alfred AI, there is no record of a Tim Drake from this time period on, so even though Terry might be the one to lead Tim to his death, he still has to change the future for everyone else.

On Cadmus Island, Fifty Sue is having a powwow with Brother Eye about how her friends and her are going to take it down and Brother Eye is playing some head games by revealing that Deathstroke was secretly working with Brother Eye from the beginning and even facilitated Brother Eye's control of the island.  Now this could possibly be the worst thing to ever happen to Slade Wilson because just the idea of getting a little on Fifty Sue's bad side scares the hell out of me and when she considers herself Robin to Slade's Batman, well there's a bit of hurt involved in finding out the truth.  RIP Slade Wilson.  On another part of the island Grifter and Lana Lang are getting some air from Fifty Sue's super secret bunker when we find out that Lana is holding on to some pretty disturbing secrets, you know because of Grifter's ability to read deception and all that we get this info, but he says it's not his story to tell, so I guess we'll have to wait and see what it is.  Also it seems like whatever it is freaks Grifter out pretty bad, so it's got to be some pretty juicy gossip.  WOOOOO!

In the end Jason goes to Central Park to meet up with his mystery texter and we see Ronnie Raymond show up.  Right away we realize this trope to get the two together, but these numb skulls actually take time to argue about seeing one another.  It turns out that Batman is the mysterious texter and he tells the two to stop whining and get their shit together.  He explains to the two that Green Arrow isn't dead, so couldn't have killed him and I guess this is the beginning of the two finally patching things up and getting Nuclear.  Man I hope so, this future lacks the amount of Firestorm that I need.  

That's it for this issue and man, shit is really going down here.  We're going to have a Batman and Robin team up........ Well some sort of Batman and Robin team up in the future, human teleportation that could go terribly wrong, Fifty Sue making Deathstroke's insides be on the outside and Firestorm getting back in action.  Some really sweet shit going down, that gets me really excited for next week's issue.  This was a really good issue and I hope everyone who's been whining about the lack of Batman can finally get over it now that we've had the Dark Knight in this series.  I really don't know if people have been whining about that, but there's bound to be a few.  See you next week where hopefully shit will continue to get real.  See you then.

Bits and Pieces:

Just another great issue.  We're dealing with some serious peril here enveloped in mystery which makes a tasty DC burrito that I could sink my teeth into everyday........ Okay that was a little much, but I really had a good time reading this issue and even though I think I say this about this title all the time, I really hope it keeps up this momentum.  I'm just getting really psyched about the things that seem to be about to go down and it makes me jittery waiting for the next week's issue immediately after finishing the book.  Go check it out because the story's great, Scot Eaton's art is superb and really you'll just be pissed if you miss it.

8.7/10