Hey Match-heads, Shag here! Today our good friend Tim Wallace continues his monthly coverage of DC’s weekly event, The New 52: Futures End! If you missed the previous installments, click here! Warning, Tim’s entries contain SPOILERS for the related issues of The New 52: Futures End. Consider yourself warned! Be sure to follow Tim’s regular work over on his exceptional site, Kord Industries: A Blue Beetle Blog! Get all your Ted Kord, Jaime Reyes, and Dan Garrett goodness there! You can also stalk Tim on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. And now, let’s turn it over to Tim…
I assume if you’re reading this that you either a) are enjoying the sci-fi mash-up that is DC’s “The New 52 Futures End”, b) you are entertained by my recaps of the book, or c) you are a Firestorm fan who’s wondering “Who is this guy and why does he keep doing this to me?” In any case…welcome back! And now, on with the countdown…
The New 52: Futures End #08
Five years from now King Faraday and Deathstroke walk and talk around Cadmus Island, basically recapping what happened so far. At the same time Fifty Sue lets Grifter know she doesn’t like him around. She blasts him into the ocean where he’s nabbed by an OMAC who thinks he’s breaching the perimeter. When he gets back to land she lets him know SHE is Deathstroke’s sidekick and if he thinks otherwise, “no one will miss you when you’re gone.” Maybe I watched too many sitcoms as a kid, but I keep waiting for this little bully to show us her soft side. In Metropolis, Lois discovers the paper she received in her mystery box contains coordinates…coordinates that lead to nothing but water, specifically the Indian Ocean. (my money is on Cadmus Island) In New York, Dr. Yamazake and Jason face setbacks with their teleporter. Not “Brundle-fly” level, just instability causing explosions type setbacks. The masked Superman shows up and tells Jason to fix things with Ronnie, “Firestorm is needed.”
Out in space, after recovering the bodies of the fallen members of Stormwatch, Ray Palmer goes a little off the deep end and hacks an arm off the body of Hawkman.
In Southeast Asia an expedition follows up on rumors of a golden temple being uncovered by explosions during the “war”. They find the temple, and it’s covered in faces and designs reminiscent of the crop circles…and Braniac. To bad they don’t live long enough to reap the rewards of their discovery. Then something that looks like the offspring of Marvel’s “Earth-X” Machine Man X-51 and DC’s Parasite attacks the remaining expedition crew that was waiting on a boat. Is this Braniac?
The incident is “seen” by Constantine’s friend Midge who informs John, “The end is coming.” He knows…and he thinks he might need help staving it off.
The New 52: Futures End #09
Lois Lane has taken a private plane to the Indian Ocean to check the coordinates from her mysterious package. Even though the last panel reveals they’re right on top of an island, neither her or the pilot can see it. The pilot’s sonar isn’t even picking up anything below. A page turn later and we’re back on Cadmus Island. Coincidence? I think not! Deathstroke, with some amusing side commentary by Fifty Sue, explains to Grifter why he’s there. They are aware of his ability to “see” aliens and demons in disguise as humans. Faraday believes, with some training and practice, they can use his ability to locate “closeted” super humans. To drive home the point Deathstroke shows Grifter the island’s secret…jailed Earth 2 super humans!
In Metropolis, Madison Payne visits her dad in prison. She wants to know about when he “conspired with the enemy” and how the “invaders trusted him with secrets”. Before he says much at all Rampage busts in on a mission to rescue another prisoner, Ethan Boyer. Masked Superman shows up, but Rampage and Ethan get away while Supes is busy saving Madison. Meanwhile, in New York, Mister Terrific is studying the robo-bug body of Plastique…and talking to Brother Eye? He notes that the tech involved in her cyberform is something he’d theorized, but didn’t currently have the resources to bring to fruition. They rule out it being from Earth 2 “the doppelganger earth”, but when Terrific pushes for more Brother Eye advises he’s only here to observe. Interesting.
Terry McGinnis heads to the “Wounded Duck”, after discussing his options with A.L.F.R.E.D. and the fact that Brother Eye should have been deactivated at this point in history, with plans to team up with Plastique, Coil and Key. While out in space Ray Palmer is playing Frankenstein with…well, Frankenstein, and attaching Hawkman’s severed arm to replace the creature’s missing limb. But faster than you can say “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” Hawkman is sitting up saying “I’m not dead yet!” Ray thinks he’s a zombie, but turns out it’s the Nth metal.
Back on Earth, Father Time and S.H.A.D.E. are watching, and hoping that Frankenstein and company can stop something before it happens or else “it will be the end of everything.”
The New 52: Futures End #10
Masked Superman causes a red alert in Metropolis as he recklessly demolishes a building looking for Ethan Boyer. (hmmm…maybe that’s Henry Cavill under the mask?) Lois arrives, with cops behind her, to find out what’s going on. When the big S says he’s looking for Boyer though Lois realizes something isn’t right. “Boyer abandoned this genetic experimentation lab long ago. You’re the one who told be, in fact.” She says, before he beats a hasty retreat. Over at the “Wounded Duck” Terry approaches the villainous trio with his plan. Plastique is concerned about what she saw in his shopping cart, Key thinks he’s full of bull, but Coil is listening…so is Cal the bartender, aka Red Robin. Cal is especially intrigued when Terry knocks out a mouthy Key with a “variation of the Tonga death strike”.
They say in space no one can hear you scream, but Amethyst and Hawkman have a shouting match anyway, discussing motivation and the fact that Hawkman is with Stormwatch because the League kicked him out…and it ends with a little sexual tension. Well, technically it ends with Hawkman’s Stormwatch signal device going off, letting him know he isn’t the only survivor after all.
On Cadmus Island, Grifter gets the snot kicked out of him by an invisible man. When Fifty Sue finds him broken and bleeding she’s happy, and intrigued. She informs him it was an OMAC that did this, which means she’s not the only one who wouldn’t mind seeing him dead…and that means he just got more interesting. In Vancouver, Canada, a woman named Jane Kirby is working at a soup kitchen. When she ends her shift she spots someone following her, a girl we find out is named Emiko (Oliver Queen’s ½ sister?). Emiko says she needs a hero, a hero who’s trying to ease her conscience after the War by working in a soup kitchen…a hero named Barda!
The New 52: Futures End #11
With Grifter gone missing, his assistant Justin decides the best course of action is to blow the head of the last alien prisoner and ditches their safe house. He wanders to a seemingly abandoned building in New Jersey to meet up with Voodoo, who has just finished killing some guys (what is it with Wildstorm heroes and killing?) It’s all part of Grifter’s back-up plan. In space Amethyst, Hawkman and Frankenstein head off to track the Stormwatch signal, leaving Ray behind on the Carrier. Frank can’t take his eyes of Amethyst, as they share a joke, and a little back story. (uh oh…flirting with Hawkman last issue, making eyes with Frank now…is this a love triangle forming?)
It doesn’t go too far though, as they close in on the signal, attempting to orbit a nearby planet, the ship’s systems shut down and they crash land. Mister Terrific does a TV interview, outing the existence of Batman Beyond and laying the blame on the uSphere project’s delay on his attempted break-in. While in the Madagascar Sea, a cargo ship is attacked by the weird maybe Brainiac creature. At that same time, 22,300 miles above the Earth, on a Justice League satellite an intervention of sorts is taking place. The League transports Ronnie Raymond out of strip club to tell him Firestorm is needed. He immediately accuses Jason, but in actuality Jason had nothing to do with it. Arsenal, Green Arrow’s replacement, isn’t thrilled to see Ronnie or Jason and starts demanding answers about Ollie’s death. Ronnie finally breaks down and admits he’s to blame. He reminds them that he lost his mother (still gets me!) because she was in Pittsburgh, while Washington and New York were declared priorities. Aquaman tries to reason with him, “It was war, Raymond. We all suffered” but Ronnie doesn’t want to hear it. “I’m living for me now” he declares before transporting himself back to Earth, “Firestorm is finished. Forever”…and Jason seems to agree.
Shag here again – Wow! What an ending! That’s it for this month! Thanks again to Tim for this fantastic coverage! Next month Tim will return with further coverage of, The New 52: Futures End! Let us know what you think of this weekly series in the comments.
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