The New 52: Futures End #41 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen
Art By: Jesus Merino, Andy MacDonald, Dan Green, Hi-Fi
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: February 11, 2015

Under The Dome

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Last week........ when it was Five Years From Now, we saw something truly amazing.  Things actually happened in this book and I was so happy..........SO HAPPY!  As the solicit said, all stories converged as Brainiac came down to Earth for his collecting of Manhattan.  So that means that we had the actual Superman get back into action, the Justice League of America breaking into two teams to fight Brainiac on the ground and to stop a Brainiac controlled Engineer from building one of those bad ass skull Brainiac spaceships........ As far as last week though, they didn't achieve either.  Let's jump into this issue and see if it can maintain the momentum that last week's issue gave us and also see if Batman, Tim Drake and Plastique can take out Brother Eye in Terrifitech as shit gets real in New York.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our story begins with Superman (Clark Kent) rushing into Manhattan to save the day while he contemplates to himself why he's always the last resort, which is funny because like Superman does; he rushes in without thinking and simply gets blasted out of the energy dome as it continues forming and it looks like for all his complaining about being the "last resort" that Superman is now out of this fight.  Up in space, half the Justice League of America and Stormwatch attempt to get Engineer to stop building the skull Brainiac ship that is full of people screaming for some reason and when Hawkman is finally fed up with...........words?  He takes matters into his own hands and we find out where all the screaming is coming from.  Somehow, this ship contains characters from the old continuity of the DCU and when Hawkman attempts to breach it he gets shot and changes into different versions of Hawkman throughout DC's history until fading away screaming out for Shiera......... and I immediately miss Hawkman.

Down in the Dome Zone, Mister Terrific looks on in what looks like horror as he witnesses Brainiac's force field wrapping around Manhattan and as he looks on, Brother Eye asks him questions about how he would describe what he's seeing and it's at this point where I really start to wonder if this really is Brother Eye or just another form of Brainiac because after Batman makes his way up to Michael......... you know, past all the bodies that are just littered throughout the halls of Terrifitech thanks to the reanimated Brother Eyed up future Plastique........... anyway, after all that the voice that is talking to Mister Terrific says " I'm about to save you from your future."  Now the reason that I'm saying that this is some kind of Brainiac is because it said that time isn't linear to it and that it exists at all times, so with that I'm speculating that it knows that Mister Terrific will become a prisoner of Brother Eye in the future and what Brainiac's doing here will save him from that future............... Or I'm just completely off base here.  Anyway, with all that going on, when Batman shows up Michael turns and tells him that he's so glad that he's here to witness this................ So yeah, for right now I'm a bit lost in what's going on.

In the end, Firestorm, Dr. Polaris and Superman (Shazam) teleport down to Manhattan right when the dome is completed and Superman like the previous one, rushes in head first and gets knocked out of the force field as Brainiac links up with the ship in orbit to finish his collecting.  I'm not sure if our heroes are really going to be able to stop this because when the Atom goes and tries to take out the ship, like Hawkman he is vaporized............. Sadly we didn't get versions of Atom throughout time when it happened though.  Really though this issue closes at a weird moment where you'd swear that more had to go down but it's just more panels of the Brainiac ship linked in with the dome and then it's over.

That's it for this issue of Futures End and while I'm really intrigued by what's going on with Mister Terrific and how DC's old continuity is being stored within Brainiac's skull ship, this issue didn't live up to the excitement I felt after reading last week's issue.  Just a lot of back and forth and at times....... some pretty bad dialog.  Maybe I'm just a sucker though because for some reason I really expected things to start moving at a brisk pace after last week's "Shit's getting real" issue.  Even with what I'm naysaying here, this issue is setting the stage and I guess I can cut it some slack because at least I know things are going to continue to happen from here on out.  With that we had some excellent art by Jesus Merino Andy McDonald and Dan Green with the always great Hi-Fi on colors.  Join me next week as we see if my excitement holds from what should be some serious shit going down.

Bits and Pieces:

This week's Futures End sets the stage for what should be the final story to this year long epic.  While it's not as exciting as last week's issue, it does maintain a level of hype that keeps me optimistic for the rest of this story and even has me scratching my head as to where the writers will take us and what it will mean for the New 52.  Check it out because things are continuing to happen and for this series, that's definitely something out of the ordinary.

7/10