THE CONCLUSION to this year-long event! Today our good friend Tim Wallace concludes his 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! 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…
This is it, Match-Heads! The final “Futures End” post. I really want to apologize it’s taken me this long to finish. To be honest it was a combination of things, but that doesn’t matter right now. The important thing is answering some questions. Will Batman and Mr. Terrific put aside their differences and raise their child, Brother Eye, together? Will Jason and Madison ever learn to separate, or will they be Firestorm forever? How will Superman shave that silly beard? Will all of this blend right into the already finished “Convergence” and not really matter? Find out all this and more, on the finale of “As the Daily Planet Turns”!
The New 52: Futures End #44
Five years from now in New York, all hell is breaking loose. Brainiac has captured the city under one of his domes and is in the process of airlifting it off the planet! Firestorm and the Justice League are doing their best to prevent casualties.
Superman tries taking on Brainiac with brawn, and manages to throw a punch that momentarily splits Brainiac into his multiversal components.
While the villain tries to restore his systems, Batman, Mr. Terrific and the Atom put their heads together and come up with another plan. Covering Brainiac in Terrific’s uSpheres, the Atom manages to shrink both the spheres and the big baddie!
The only downside? Without Brainiac in control, New York is falling! Luckily Superman is there to save the day!
The New 52: Futures End #45
At Castle Frankenstein, Frank is on his deathbed, literally. As he lays, he speaks of all he’s experienced, and Amethyst writes down his life story…before he passes away. Before he goes, he inspires her to return to Gemworld as its princess.
Back in New York, Polaris, Firestorm and Shazam continue search and rescue efforts while Superman takes Brainiac’s machines and throws them into the sun.
Upstate, Faraday takes Boyer to a safe house…and promptly tasers him. Then, with Voodoo’s help, drags him to an underground bunker, Command D. Faraday sends Voodoo back upstairs, where she gets gassed by Rock and company. At Terrifitech, there seems to be a glitch. Batman, Terrific and the Atom try to get Brother Eye to disengage, but the computer refuses…it’s rewritten it’s protocols. It begins shutting down systems in the tower, and as Batman Beyond and company make their way through the building, begins resurrecting the dead security teams as sort of proto-robo-bugs!
The New 52: Futures End #46
Batman suggests cutting power, but Terrific already tried. Batman suggests the failsafe, but Brother Eye tells them it has disabled the self destruct. As Atom questions the A.I.’s motives, Batman Beyond appears to fill in what he knows. Back in Faraday’s safe house, Rock has made himself at home. He’s nestled all snug in his bed when he’s woken by E2 Lana. She’s paralyzed him. She doesn’t want to kill him…just give him a message. “Leave us alone.” She also reveals a secret…when she came from Earth 2, Cadmus labeled her normal, but she’s not. She can bond with insects and take on their traits…E2 Lana is the Insect Queen! They also warn that if he does mess with them, he’s dealing with Fifty Sue next time!
Firestorm has fully embraced the hero biz, reuniting a mother and child by way of a flying elephant!
Madison and Jason are having a moment, discussing their inability to separate when their Justice League beeper goes off…they’re needed at Terrifitech! Brother Eye has the upperhand! It’s army of Cybermen have the heroes pinned down…and then “The Thing with Two Heads” shows up! Terry McGinnis manages to take it out, but is mortally wounded in the process. He passes the mantle of Batman Beyond to Tim Drake, and looks into the eyes of Plastique, “Please…be the last thing I see.” before he dies.
The New 52: Futures End #47
Five years from now, Brother Eye appears on every TV, monitor, control panel…every device in the world to announce it is taking control. Batman and company haven’t quite given up yet. Though the odds are against them, and hordes of Brother Eye’s Borg army are closing in…one man is there to help…Batman Beyond!
Batman recognizes Tim right away, Plastique is offended, and Madison/Firestorm on realizes who he is when they kiss.
But the most important part is, he needs to time jump! Batman insists he’ll go until A.L.F.R.E.D. reminds them that the time band is calibrated to Terry’s weight…and Tim is a closer match than Bruce. Terrific attaches jumper cables to Firestorm, yeah…jumper cables, so she can power the time band and in a blink Tim finds himself on the Brother Eye satellite. Then things get weird! He’s arrived “now”, or five years prior to the events of the other 46 issues in this series. The Earth 2 refugees, including Mr. Terrific, are on their way. Tim tries to plant explosives, Brother Eye tries to stop him. Tim explains what will happen, based on his future, if events are not changed. Darkseid’s parademons will follow the Earth 2 refugees and millions will die. Brother Eye accepts this to be true and offers to self destruct in order to save millions of lives. Before he does, he’ll even transport Tim back to Madison. Then Tim finds himself falling from the sky, landing in a forest…and he can’t believe what he sees!
The New 52: Futures End #48
Tim has found himself standing in some sort of memorial park, surrounded by statues of heroes. He wanders looking at the heroes represented, and stops in front of Batman Beyond. And that’s when he sees Madison! “You came!” she exclaims as they embrace…then her eyes are replaced with Brother Eye’s symbol.
She fades away. Everything fades away, leaving Tim in a room overlooking a devastated city with Mr. Terrific. They’re not in the past, or the present…but back to the future! Terrific has lost his marbles, and only appears to be alive and not assimilated because Brother Eye likes to keep “Father” around. Tim is not so lucky, he’s been flagged for cyber conversion and robo-Flash and robo-Captain Cold arrive to do the job. Until a mysterious figure blasts his way in! He’s soon followed by a small gun toting mob. He’s the Atom. They make their escape, Terrific in tow, and regroup at their base.
This future isn’t all bad though, as Tim is reunited with a slightly older Madison, another member of the resistance. Tim’s ready to give all of this another chance…Madison, the hero biz, taking down Brother Eye…but the others aren’t so sure about that last one. As they look up to the moon, scarred with Brother Eye’s symbol, they think the battle’s lost…but Tim Drake isn’t convinced.
The End.
And there you have it… DC’s “Futures End”. I don’t know about you, but I was a bit underwhelmed by that ending. As of this ending, there is no more Firestorm. Ronnie’s dead, Jason is MIA… I can’t even remember if we ever saw Dr. Stein? I guess the newest Firestorm, Madison Payne, got a happy ending at least… sort of. But, did any of it matter? Will it even get referenced in the new Firestorm mini coming in 2016? My guess is no, but we’ll have to wait and see. What happened to Fifty Sue? At the start of the series, she was annoying but I won’t lie, by the end she was one of my favorites! Is there any way to stop/prevent Brother Eye? Or have Batman and Mr. Terrific ruined the future of the DCU? Sure several of the storylines were tied up. Sure it sort of led into “Convergence”. Sure it sets up the new “Batman Beyond” series… but a year’s, well almost a year’s, worth of reading and recapping and there’s just as much undone and/or unresolved. I guess we’ll never know. Or at least, Eye guess, we’ll have to wait and see. Eye hope you enjoyed my recaps, and thanks to Shag for asking if Eye would be interested, and subsequently allowing me to infiltrate, Eye mean, contribute here at Firestorm Fan! Eye…Eye…Eye…
Shag here again! What a long, strange trip it’s been! Let us know what you thought of FUTURES END in the comments.
A very special thanks to Tim for this fantastic year-long coverage! Tim was the first “correspondent” ever featured here at FIRESTORM FAN and he did an exceptional job! A real shame he got converted by Brother Eye at the end. THANKS, Robot Tim!
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