The New 52: Futures End #40 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen
Art By: Patrick Zircher, Hi-Fi
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: February 4, 2015

The Brainiac Cometh

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

In our last jaunt to Five Years From Now, Superman (of the Clark Kent variety) and Constantine were fighting off corn kernel monsters when they discovered that Smallville is some ancient evil place marked by the true Brainiac long ago....... What does that mean?  I don't really know, I think Constantine and Clark just needed something to do during this series.  By the end of the issue we saw that Brainiac had finally made his way to Earth and that his plan was to collect Manhattan mint on card.  Now it's up to Earth's heroes to fight back and stop Brainiac from his collecting chaos.  Let's check out this issue and see if they pull it off.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Superman dashing off to the family homestead to get himself his first year Superman T-shirt so that he can get back into action with a little nostalgic flair.  Even though we have Superman going to save the day the way he does, he did go and leave Constantine surrounded by a bunch of corn kernel monsters........... Yeah, I know that Clark heat visioned the hell out of them last issue, but Smallville is mostly cornfields so it looks like Brainiac's monsters have themselves unlimited reinforcements.  Now I'm not quite sure about how this next part works, like if it's actual magic or some kind of alien monster technology that would look like magic to us folks who don't see that shit on the reg, but Constantine protects himself by using blood to paint a Brainiac symbol on his forehead and out comes a gigantic warthog to go and eat all the corn kernel monsters....... Yeah, I don't think I'll ever understand magic.

Up in the Justice League of America's satellite, the team monitors the situation as Brainiac makes his approach to the Earth and they see objects fall from the sky and Manhattan becomes a scene from the flick Armageddon........ Would it be cheesy right now if I said that I don't want to close my eyes because I don't want to miss a thing?  Okay, noted....... Won't be doing that.  Half the team split off to go rescue people in Manhattan while the remaining members go after Engineer who's gone all Brainiac again and flew off into space......... Now I know that Father Time was a dick and all but really?........ really?....... Stormwatch didn't see her going all darkside again after she'd already been Brainiac's hand puppet?  Dummies.  

Out in space Stormwatch and the JLA see as Engineer builds up one of those nifty skull Brainiac ships... that for some reason is riddled with the screams of people and down in Manhattan, the falling objects come together to form a energy grid around the island....... and a device that somehow projects the gigantic Brainiac god........ You know, the actual Brainiac, not those posers we've seen before.

In the end, Superman (Shazam) and Firestorm say the hell with watching over Dr. Polaris and decide that they'll go down to help out in Manhattan, but I think it's all going to be fine because as the issue closes Superman makes his approach............ Oh and on the Batman front, Tim Drake, Batman and Plastique made their way to Terrifitech where after Batman went and said that Brother Eye could never be used for evil, they find the entire lobby full of dead bodies......... Suck it Batman.

That's it for this issue of Futures End and it was awesome to see a story focused around Brainiac's coming to Earth.  The solicits weren't lying when they said that all stories converge here because while we had different stories going on before this, that shit was all put on hold to deal with the current threat.  I'm still kind of in shock because this is what I've been waiting months for in Futures End......... Something happened......... and it was awesome!  For the most part we've got a clear story ahead and the comic seems to have finally picked a story it wanted to tell, add this to the awesome art of Patrick Zircher and colors by Hi-Fi and you have yourself a damn fine installment to Futures End......... and man was it about time.  See you next week where hopefully this trend continues and we can see Futures End.... uh, end on a high note.

Bits and Pieces:

I'm so happy to say that I really enjoyed this issue of Futures End....... It's about time that I got to say it.  Things actually happen and it seriously got me looking forward to what we'll have for the upcoming weeks.  The solicit didn't lie when it said all stories converge here and it's really the best thing that could have happened to this series.  So maybe the dark days of this comic are behind us and we can all get back on the Futures End trolley........ Hopefully it isn't a too little too late scenario for most readers.

8.5/10