The New 52: Futures End #24 Review
By Steve Lam
Writers: Brian Azzarello, Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens, Jeff Lemire
Artists: Jesus Merino, Dan Green, Hi-Fi, Ryan Sook
Futures End #22 Recap
In the Huron System, Black Adam helps the Atom rescue his team from Brainiac. In New York City, Ronnie Raymond has struck up a quick friendship with Madison Payne. In Las Vegas, Mercy, Voodoo, Banger, and Mash have been forced by Frank Rock into a future confrontation with Fifty Sue. And Thirty-five years in the future, we see Brother Eye’s latest plan — sending a monstrous cyborg, created from the body parts of Batman and the Joker, into the past to stop Batman Beyond.
Spoiler-Free Reaction
Futures End #24 has a hard time keeping up with the pace set by last week’s shocker. The separate plot lines contain cliffhangers, but fail at gaining reader investment.
Plot Details and Spoilers and Deaths: Oh My!
Deep Space, The Huron System: As Black Adam helps the team battle Brainiac’s drones, Engineer comes back to consciousness — free from Brainiac’s control. The Atom crash lands the Nan-Knight into the Carrier for cover, but Brainiac’s drones break through.
Cadmus Island: Mister Miracle and Fury, bruised and battered, find out that they were forced to fight each other due to compromised implants. Mister Miracle, because he’s not human, was able to bypass his implant. Freeing himself, he went after Fury to help her, but ended up fighting her. The two form a plan to go after Brother Eye.
Columbia University, New York City: Ronnie Raymond and Madison Payne continue developing their friendship — bonded by the fact that they feel alone in the world. As Ronnie leaves for practice, Tim moves in to apologize to Madison, but is quickly rebuffed. In the transporter lab, Dr. Yamazake and Jason Rusch pull off a successful experiment. To Jason’s surprise, Yamazake now wants to move directly into human trials.
Africa: Still waiting for Superman to return, Costantine and Tommy get into an argument over the progress of their investigation. Suddenly, an attacking techno-enhanced Parasite slices through Tommy’s chest. Constantine, acting surprisingly nonchalant, watches as Parasite starts to torture and kill Midge. But Superman shows up and strikes Parasite.
Wrapping It Up
With no reminders to larger goals and story arcs, Futures End #24 loses some reader investment. Each plot line, sans the sappy, cheesy Ronnie and Madison budding romance, has micro stakes, but doesn’t offer enough twists to the main plot. Although this was an extremely quick read, I felt that this issue was just going through the motions of presenting action without story. Exposition panels also seem to be repetitive — we keep getting the same message: stop Brother Eye. The reader gets that, but tell us something new … something that’ll take the story into a new direction.