Future State - Week 1
I'm finally able to read DC's Future State "event". For those that don't know, after DC finished with the Dark Knights: Death Metal event (which was not very good), they put all their normal stories on hiatus and did a two month series where they jumped to random points in the possible futures of the DC Universe while they got all their stuffs ready for the next stage of the "normal" timeline. They introduce some new characters, reconnect with some old characters in new situations, and get to be weird.
Or dark and depressing in most cases. Hooray.
This will be spoiler heavy, read at your own risk.
Superman of Metropolis 1
There are actually three stories in this issue: a Superman one, a Mister Miracle one, and a Guardian one.
Superman
This book opens at some point in the future where it turns out Clark is gone and his son, Jonathan, is the current Superman and he protects Metropolis/the world alongside Supergirl. The people have been upgraded (possibly some against their will?) with some nanotech stuff that it seems the Superfolk may have been a part of.
Jonathan puts a hold on a protest that was about to get violent and takes the bit of brainiac that is the core of the new tech and pulls it out of Metropolis into the Fortress of Solitude and they have a chat. But not before Jonathan bottles Metropolis. To save it.
Turns out (SURPRISE!) the Brainiac thing can exert some control over "upgraded" people and Jonathan thought bottling Metropolis was the only way to save it.
Supergirl shows up, want's Jonathan to return Metropolis and step down as Superman. Then she gets controlled and the two Superfolk fight, she's mostly talks about how he's not a good Superman cause he's too human/normal capes at odds banter, blah blah.
Then the Brainiac thing turns fully on them and steals bottled Metropolis.
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I really like the art in this by John Timms and Gabe Eltaeb (though is right forearm looks all messed up in the big reveal on page 2) and the story isn't bad. Spends a little time setting up this story, gives a little backstory on Jonathan's time as Superman, and develops the characters well enough. I don't get the reasoning behind bottling Metropolis, but whatever. It firmly establishes that Jonathan is NOT his father.
There aren't really any issues with the layout or text/bubble alignments/positioning in this.
Pretty solid faux-Superman story. Nothing special, nothing terrible.
Mister Miracle
We jump to a completely different art style (which is fine) and follow a new Mister Miracle and his dealing with being inside a newly bubbled city and his suit is running low on power. Not a whole lot of interest happens in this except to show that the city is bottled and robots are coming into enforce order or something.
Guardian
Pretty standard superheroing six months after the bottling of Metropolis. Riots are happening and it seems there's a villan named Honest Mary behind at least some of it. Jimmy Olsen is going crazy and trying to get Superman to come back. Guardian intercepts a truck full of bombs and tries to save the city, it explodes leaving his shield floating in the water.
This was the "least good" one of the three. That opinion is partially due to the fact that this story is only 12 pages long and it's split between two artists.
Verdict
Superman of Metropolis 1 is...fine. The actual Superman story is good enough to read and I wouldn't stop anyone from reading it, but you're also paying more for two additional stories that don't really do much to evolve the story or the characters. Could I be wrong and they come together to form something really good in the following issue(s), maybe. But I doubt it.
Get it if you want to read all the Future State stuffs.
The Next Batman 1
This is like the Superman of Metropolis issue where you're getting three stories; a Batman one, an Outsiders one, and an Arkham Knights one.
The Next Batman
Turns out that Gotham is under martial law: masks are outlawed (with shoot to kill orders) and a mercenary group called The Magistrate runs things. Very Batman so far. Also similar to the newer Spiderman video game (very good game), just darker...cause Batman.
The Fox's (Lucius's brood, not actual foxes) are taking center stage in this one, while the gang of peole wearing Bane masks are recruiting kids (who need to kill someone to join). I assume Bane is actually the one running the gang, but ... Future State. Who knows.
Anyways, Fox family has drama (someone is in the hospital), a detective doesn't like the current status quo, and Batman prevents the two kids from killing someone to join is most of the issue. It ends on a cliff hanger of someone being tailed by two people in weird red masks.
Art is moody without being too dark/realistic. I'm not a fan of the square ended tails on the bubbles. One thing I think is kind of neat is that they don't come right out and say who the new Batman is (in the comic, not in the real world media). It's got to be one of the Fox's, but it could be either. Or someone else entirely (it's not) which would be cool (it's one of the Fox's).
The Outsiders
Primarily focused on Katana (a.k.a; The Soultaker) with some input from Duke Thomas who is trying to rescue some people from Gotham. Katana doesn't have time for Duke's BS, and flies off to her mission. There's a nice tie in to the most recent Outsiders run (which was VERY bad, unfortunately) in the form of Kaliber working for the Magistrate.
Kaliber beats Katana, but Black Lightning (who is an elemental now?) saves Katana and lets her know that one of the people that Duke saved is a plant for the Magistrate. Oh no!
The art is sketchy, while being clean and the action scenes are really well done.
I liked this more than I thought I was going to.
Arkham Knights
This came out of left field for me. A lady Astrid Arkham is running a group of bat-villains to protect parts of Gotham while trying to help their sanity as well.
They find Killer Croc, he joins, they take out one of the Magistrate's higher up goons, and you find out that Dr. Phosphorus is dying and the treatments aren't working as well as they used to.
The narration boxes are AWFUL and should have been changed. I think they were supposed to look like metal plates, so there's a whole bunch of shine all over them. It's distracting and not good.
Her narration is...okay. It's very her. Story is fine.
Verdict
The Batman and Outsiders stories are pretty good and while there are issues with the Arkham Knights story, it's not awful (except the narration bubbles). The biggest knock against this story is that I read it on Tuesday and I had forgotten just about everything that had happened in it by Friday when I started writing this post.
If you like Batman/Gotham stories, it's not bad.
Harley Quinn 1
This will be pretty quick. The book opens with Harley in a fight, she gets captured. Jonathan Crane (yeah, that guy), is back to being a doctor now and works for the Magistrate and requests Harley's help with catching other villains, starting with Professor Pyg and Firefly. Who Crane really wants to catch is Black Mask (there's some kind of bad history there). Harley agrees to help for getting her restraints removed and then getting her clothes back (as opposed to the orange jumpsuit). There's a brief cameo by Black Mask disciplining one of his crew who stepped out of line.
The artist, Simone DiMeo (hope I got that right), is REALLY GOOD. The art style is pretty stylized, but the characters are pretty consistent between panels and pages. Where they really stand out is the sequential story telling. There are so many panels on the pages, but they don't feel crowded. So much just works.
Hopefully the seeds planted for the Black Mask confrontation pay off later.
Verdict
This should be picked up. Didn't really need to be a Future State story, but I like this.
Swamp Thing 1
Uhhh....this didn't really need to exist. Humans pretty much all got killed off and Swamp Thing got lonely so he figured out how to make plant people (he walks you through some of his experiments with particular aspects of it throughout the story) to keep him company and look for any surviving humans. There is some discord between one of Swamp Thing's children and the idea that he wants to find the humans (I feel like Swampy missed Constantine when he made that guy).
Eventually, Swampy and the favored child find a human and the Undying One (or whatever he was called) is leading them, but a bunch left because they didn't like what the boss man was doing in the north.
Swampy and co want to go north, but the favored child now feels like she's being pushed to the side.
Jump to the facility in the north and it looks like Obsidian is in a big ol' test tube/vat thing being looked over by... the Floronic Man? Pretty sure it's him, but he also looks like he could be half human or something. Anyways, the Floronic Man talks about how he can't wait for Swampy to take the bait and come see what he's been up to.
Verdict
....I just found myself having a hard time caring about this story. None of it is done especially poorly. Just nothing really to grab onto. I barely care about the cliff hanger. Will I read the next one? Yes. But that's because I have the subscription. If I was buying comics week to week, I would not. Take that for what it's worth.
The Flash 1
Just....no. This is so dark and depressing thoughout the whole thing. None of the Speedsters have their powers, but their using the tech of their enemies to get the jump on the Calculator (with the Thinker's cap) and Checkmate so they can use it to do some weird astral projection thing.
Why?
Wally West went evil, drained their powers and started killing people. Barry and the rest want to try to save him (assuming he's being possessed by something), but the others are loosing hope/faith after all Wally's done and the fact that Bart/Impulse got killed raiding Checkmate (oh, and Wally killed new52 Wally in a flashback in the issue).
Barry convinces them that Wally is somewhere in there and is buying time - it's the only reason he can think of for why they haven't been killed yet (doesn't explain why new52 Wally was killed).
They do their projection thing, they see spirit Wally upset about all the killing going on, they try to convince him to let them help him fight back, but before they can, possessed Wally grabs spirit Jay Garrick and drains him. The rest are saved by Iris removing all their helmets back at the apartment where Jay died and Barry looks to see how to kill his old side kick.
Verdict
I didn't love the art, the storytelling was okay, but it's just so dark. I didn't need that in my life. No one does. Lets move on to supers being fun.
The Fun....I mean Wonder Woman 1
OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS BOOK!
I like most of the stuff Joelle Jones does anyways, but this is just fun.
Yara Flor fights a hydra in the opening, interacts with some forest fey creature she has some history with and doesn't want her to take the horn of the hydra. Brief exchange where the fey creature offers to bring Yara to the Underworld to get her sister back from Hades (where Yara wanted to take the horn anyways) if she left the hydra corpse alone.
In the underworld terminal (looks like a jetport) the fey creature tells her to not talk and not cause any problems. While the fey is dealing with someone, Yara gets bored and causes a disturbance, almost waking up Cerberus.
In line to get on the boat, Yara realizes that she doesn't have any change to pay her way, so she and they fey steal it from the sumo guy in front of her. When he goes to pay, he realizes what happened and a fight breaks out, which Yara is all for, until Cerberus shows up.
Only issue I have is, why can't Wonder Woman have pants!
Verdict
Seriously, this book is fun. Go read it if you haven't already.
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