This Is Why I Lived To Die Like This
Free Comic Book Day is here and DC has used it to push out a free teaser for its upcoming weekly series Futures End on sale this Wednesday (5/7).
35 years from now, Earth is no longer the domain of heroes; it is the domain of Brother Eye. Having somehow come to power and infected earths superheroes and villains they have become cyborg bug creatures. Like any good dystopian machine run future, the remnants of humanity (Batman, Terry McGuiness, GL John Stewart, Blue Beetle and few others) are on the losing end of a constant struggle for survival.
The nature of this story is a well worn one. Comparisons to the Terminator are inevitable. More recently Marvel’s Age of Ultron did just this; it wasn’t entirely effective in spinning a narrative yarn but we are barely a year out from that book. I’m curious on how this book will function week to week. With how it ends, Terry jumping through the portal but not far enough gives the impression that the journey may not be exactly the straightest course. Which has me slightly cautious on the prospects of this book, will it be able to tell good single issue stories on a weekly basis? I haven’t read any of the more recent weekly series, Batman Eternal, so that isn’t a good point of reference.
Issue 0 “Into the Future, Onto the End” is just a teaser and titillates in showing the grotesque future awaiting heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman, barley any flesh remaining and crawling around on multi pedal insect like limbs, if Terry McGinnis fails. The art of Patrick Zircher and Ethan Van Sciver is a variety of grotesque cyborg bodies and skeletons of the defeated. The harsh reds of this issue shine through and create a somewhat unique color pallet for the dystopic future. The majority of these types of stories, Terminator in particular are all harsh blues and blacks, the reds and silvers saturate the page and create the not so subtle image of how bloody this machine future is. There is a very apparent sense of desperation on all the survivors as things frequently turn bad at the drop of a hat.
This feels like a solid story for a monthly or limited series, as a weekly feature I’ll be taking a more wait and see approach.
I am Michael Mazzacane and you can find on Twitter @MaZZM and at weekntv.com
