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! Just so no one is confused, this particular entry takes place BEFORE Tim’s recent post covering big changes for Firestorm.
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! Get even more Tim-time over at the Legion of Super-Bloggers! You can also stalk Tim on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. And now, let’s turn it over to Tim…
We’re halfway through this adventure, and what do we know? Green Arrow’s not dead. Neither is Red Robin or Firestorm, but Ronnie and Jason aren’t seeing things eye to eye. Superman is Shazam, and Kal-El is pulling a Kingdom Come farming existence in Africa. Wolverine is dead. Wait, what? Just making sure you were paying attention! Stormwatch is lost in space, though. The E2 heroes are now mindless drones to Brother Eye and Brainiac is in deep space and on Earth in different forms? Let’s see what else can happen…
The New 52: Futures End #24
Five years from now in deep space the remains of Stormwatch fly away from Brainiac’s Blood Moon in Ray Palmer’s Nan-Knight with Black Adam flying along outside. Hot on their tail are hundreds of Brainiac drones. Ray crash lands the Nan-Knight onto Stormwatch’s Carrier hoping they can bring Angie/Engineer back from Brainiac’s influence to start the ship up and get them home…but those hundreds of drones following them may prevent that.
On Cadmus Island a beaten and bruised Mister Miracle approaches an equally roughed up Fury. It seems that Fury beat the tar out of her former friend while under the influence of Brother Eye. Luckily for him, Mister Miracle is an escape artist and used the fact that Fury wasn’t exactly “herself” to take her down, and remove the implant.
In New York, Madison Payne and Ronnie Raymond walk around campus discussing life and loss. Ronnie’s mother, Madison’s father…even Ronnie’s loss of Jason’s friendship is touched on briefly. They pinky promise to be there for each other, “Alone together” before Ronnie heads to practice.
Cal/Tim shows up and tries to apologize to Madison, but she says she’s not ready…yet. Meanwhile, in Dr. Yamazake’s lab, Jason and the odd doctor manage to successfully teleport a mannequin (looks like a dead body to me, but they say “mannequin”).
And in Africa, Constantine and his companions wonder where Superman is? Last they saw he was chasing after the Machine Man/Parasite/Brainiac monster…who, speak of the devil, shows up and starts slaughtering Constantine’s friends. Who can stop him? Superman!
The New 52: Futures End #25
In deep space the remaining members of Stormwatch are still dealing with that army of Brainiac drones. They’re keeping them at bay to give the Engineer a chance to restart the Carrier and get them home. When she manages to link into the system though, she finds that the navigation system is in a damaged part of the ship, meaning she can get them away from where they are she just doesn’t know where they’ll end up! Kind of like “Quantum Leap”, but with superheroes…and a spaceship. On Cadmus Island, in Fifty Sue’s “Ultra Top Secret, Authorized Personnel Only, Trespassers Will Be Eviscerated, Super Secure Sidekick Bunker” the little lunatic connects with Brother Eye via her own computer system to “play with it” while Grifter, Faraday, Deathstroke and E2 Lana look on in shock. Fifty Sue assures them Brother Eye can’t track them, but Deathstroke pulls the plug just to be sure. As the group tries to figure how they can escape the island, Grifter reveals that Faraday is a superhuman…who can teleport. While Deathstroke fumes about Grifter withholding this key bit of info, Faraday vanishes. That’s when Fifty Sue announces her plan…they’re going to storm the compound and take down Brother Eye!
In Africa, Constantine identifies the monster Superman is battling as an avatar of Brainiac, a surrogate. And after Kal-El blows the creature up with a blast of heat vision, Constantine says they’ll regret that…he believes the thing was just testing Supes…and now Brainiac will know what to expect!
And in New York, Ronnie is enjoying a chat with Madison in the student union when he sees a report that a tsunami is about to hit. He goes into hero mode and asks if she knows where Jason might be. He finds him in Dr. Yamazake’s lab, but Jason still holds a grudge and refuses to become Firestorm. Trust issues.
Instead, Jason texts Billy Batson, so Masked Superman can handle things. What they don’t realize is that crazy, hero hating, Yamazake just heard their whole conversations…and knows they are/were Firestorm!
The New 52: Futures End #26
In New York, Mr. Terrific arrives at a small airport, with new employees Key and Coil in tow, to meet billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. A few issues ago, Key and Coil said Bruce was the man that hired them to break into Terrifitech. Everyone knows something is up. Bruce shows only to cut the meeting short moments later, suggesting they meet for a late dinner, at which point Terrific has the villains tail him. While at his lab, Yamazake has security throw Jason out. He knows who he is now, and believes the teen has been sabotaging his teleportation experiments.
Minutes later Madison shows up at the lab looking for Jason, and falls right into the evil grasp of Dr. Y. Her father was a criminal, and no one will miss her if things go wrong, so she will be his first live human test subject. Batman Beyond, lets Plastique in on the identity of Cal Corcoran aka Tim Drake/Red Robin against A.L.F.R.E.D.’s advice. They’re going to approach Cal/Tim for help…and it’s ok, because according to A.L.F.R.E.D Tim is dead in the future?!
On Cadmus Island, Fifty Sue and Brother Eye sit down for a little chat. Fifty Sue says they’re going to kick the computer’s butt. Brother Eye, through an E2 human surrogate, says the girl is crazy…and the surrogate is promptly blown to pieces. Brother Eye isn’t done though…it reveals the girl is a genetically engineered test subject, created by combining 52 DNA strands. It also taunts her with video which appears to show Deathstroke partnering with Brother Eye and expressing distrust of Fifty Sue.
Back in New York, Ronnie arrives in Central Park at the request of an text. So does Jason, though both deny sending the message. Batman arrives, and confesses it was him. He tells them Green Arrow is alive, and they need to get over whatever it is they’re going through…the world needs Firestorm!
The New 52: Futures End #27
On Arrow Island, Oliver Queen rallies his troops. Their transport is loaded with supplies…it’s time to find Cadmus Island and rescue the E2 heroes! In Metropolis, Lois Lane comes home to a not so empty apartment. Cal/Tim is waiting for her. He’s looking for Madison, who’s gone missing. Lois hasn’t seen the girl but asks him again about coming with her to the coordinates from the note in her mystery box. He declines, especially while Madison is missing, but suggests Lois tries checking it out again and take a “leap of faith”. On Cadmus Island, Grifter, Deathstroke and E2 Lana try to find Fifty Sue. The little girl has gone missing, and all they seem to be able to find are OMAC patrols and dead people. At the same time Mister Miracle is wandering the same island, undetected…until he is. Brother Eye picks him up based on his heat signature and sends the mind controlled E2 Huntress after him. She (well technically Brother Eye) tells him they are both gods, and “Eye am of a Mother Box” so there’s no reason Mister Miracle shouldn’t be an interesting addition to its collection.
While out a sea, Green Arrow and his crew prepare for war! Back in New York, Terry “Batman Beyond” McGinnis and Plastique are hanging out at “The Wounded Duck”. It’s time to have that chat with Cal/Tim! Terry decides to break into Cal’s apartment and check things out, after A.L.F.R.E.D reveals the former Titan is in Metropolis, and asks Plastique to stay behind in the bar. No sooner does he begin his little B&E session though than he finds himself face to face with an angry Batman! Then things go BOOM!
And finally, against the advice of her pilot, Lois takes that leap of faith…parachuting over the coordinates from her mystery box.
So…halfway through and I felt like a whole lot of nothing happened this month. It wasn’t a terrible read or anything, but it felt like lots of set-up and not much payoff. Fingers crossed that some cool twists are around the corner.
Shag here again! 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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The eighth episode of 
