The New 52: Futures End #44 Review and *SPOILERS*

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

The Beginning of The End

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's March and that means we only have four more issues left after this one and man has it been a wild journey......... Well, it's been a journey that had moments of being wild and you know what?  I'll take it.  In the last issue of Futures End, we saw Brainiac turn his control console into a sweet set of handlebars as he learned that his skull ship in orbit was no longer in order and it looked like he was just going to fly Manhattan........... wherever Brainiac keeps his things.  Also we had Mister Terrific seeing the error of his ways out of nowhere and now we've got the world's smartest man working on this Brainiac problem with Batman....... So really, they should lick this no problem.  The story is drawing to a close and this issue is only the beginning.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our story begins with Superman getting back into action and taking the fight to Brainiac, while the other heroes of Earth do their damnedest to secure buildings and rescue the citizens of New York.  Unlike the last two times that Superman's gone up against this Brainiac god and simply been blasted away.......... I guess this time he actually means business because when Brainiac hits him with another blast, (because Superman is incapable of dodging) he pushes through the pain and punches Brainiac hard enough to knock all the previous versions of himself out of him............. Yeah, they're really not knocked out of him but we see them when Brainiac gets hit.  Ha ha, it sounds like an old threat at a bar or something.  "Man, I'm going to hit you so hard that all your past selves are going to feel it!"

It's a good thing that while Superman was keeping Brainiac busy............. Well, maybe you can't call it a good thing but it's something that happened that helped at the moment............ during Superman's battle, The Atom came to help Batman and Mister Terrific and the trio came up with an idea to put the massive Brainiac god down for good......... only thing is, it has to do with fully activating Brother Eye and plugging him into all the Uspheres out there.  Now, this could be just some nit picky bullshit but at one point in this comic we see a dude who refuses to get out of line because he plans on being the first person to get a Usphere because they're supposed to come out that day and later on The Atom says that he can't believe how many people have a Usphere........... Yeah, nit picky bullshit but it still bothered me.  Alright, so The Atom equipped with a ton of Uspheres goes up to Brainiac and does the one thing that always happens when Ray Palmer gets involved........... He shrinks something and this time it happens to be Brainiac.

In the end, with Brainiac shrunk; Superman flies through the ground and prevents Manhattan from falling out of the sky and Ray Palmer uses one of the Uspheres as a Pokeball and collects the tiny Brainiac because as we all know......... you gotta catch them all.  With the city saved and the villain defeated everyone rejoices but all of us out here in the real world looking in understand the ominous closing page as we see Brother Eye staring at us like a jerk off............ Lousy A.I.

That's it for this issue of Futures End and man of I amped up for the last leg of our journey now that Brainiac is defeated and the only place we have to go is that terrible future that Terry McGinnis keeps preaching about.  This was just an awesome action packed issue that featured so many heroes and a lot of cool foreshadowing of what's to come.  Add all that to the great art that was split up between Patrick Zircher......... who I always love and Andy MacDonald, this is definitely one of the best issues of Futures End that I can remember in a long time.  I really can't wait to see what happens this month and what the creators have in store for us as we head towards Convergence.

Bits and Pieces:

Yeah, we had to wait a long time for it but damn was this a great issue of Futures End.  It's the beginning of the end as we jump into the last month of this book and if the rest of the issues are like this then Futures End will be fondly remembered.  Definitely a book you'll want to pick up as we race towards Convergence. 

8.8/10