Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXIV: Futures End: Five Years Later Omnibus

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2014 (contents: 2014)
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2016

The New 52: Futures End: Five Years Later Omnibus
by Daniel H. Wilson, Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Dan Jurgens, Alvaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez, Sean Chen, Mark Irwin, Robert Venditti, Van Jensen, Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, Jed Dougherty, Paul Levitz, Yildiray Cinar, Ray Fawkes, Juan Ferreyra, Dan DiDio, Keith Giffen, Philip Tan, J. M. DeMatteis, Len Wein, Jason Paz, Andrew Guinaldo, Walden Wong, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Hampton, Charles Soule, Jesus Saiz, Tom Derenick, Francis Portela, Phil Winslade, Martin Coccolo, Aaron Lopresti, Igor Lima, Ruy Jose, Rodney Buchemi, Geraldo Borges, Justin Jordan, Diogenes Neves, Marc Deering, J. Calafiore, Cullen Bunn, Tom King, Tim Seeley, Stephen Mooney, Sholly Fisch, Pat Olliffe, Tom Nguyen, Scott Lobdell, Scott Kolins, Christy Marx, Robson Rocha, Oclair Albert, Julio Ferreira, Gail Simone, Javier Garron, Marc Andreyko, Jason Masters, Eduardo Pansica, Amanda Conner, Chad Hardin, Derek Fridolfs, Brian Buccellato, Scott Hepburn, Cliff Richards, Fabrizio Fiorentino, Scott Snyder, ACO, Greg Pak, Jack Herbert, Vicente Cifuentes, Sean Ryan, Andre Coelho, Scott Hanna, Will Pfeifer, Andy Smith, Keith Champagne, Rags Morales, Jose Marzan Jr., Matt Banning, Bart Sears, Frank J. Barbiere, Ben Caldwell, Tony Bedard, Emanuela Lupacchino, Ray McCarthy, Pascal Alixe, Lee Weeks, Moritat, Will Conrad, Steve Lightle, Stephen Thompson & Ron Frenz

Five years before the "present," the New 52 version of the DC Universe came to life in Zero Year; now, five years after, it comes to an end. The Five Years Later Omnibus presents endpoints for the 52-ish comic books of the New 52. The future in which these stories take place is somewhat obscure: the back cover actually gives the history of a world thirty-five years later, and talks about Batman Beyond, who appears in literally zero of the issues collected here. The blurb ends by saying "Learn how all this and more could come to pass," but the book is actually very poor at filling in backstory; it took me around half the book to piece together that the Prime Earth had been overrun by refugees from Earth-2, and that Darkseid's forces had invaded at some point. I'm not sure if more things happened to create the dark timeline we see, though. Plus, some of the stories aren't consistent with one another: Justice League Dark: Futures End #1 claims that Etrigan is trapped in the House of Mystery outside time and space, but Etrigan also appears in Gotham City in Batwoman: Futures End #1, where he is killed.

Unlike the previous New 52 omnibi, this one isn't subdivided, so I'll just be reviewing the stories en masse, first with some comments on the overall set-up and then hitting up some specific stories. Of the three New 52 omnibi I've read, I found this one the most frustrating. Even though none of the stories in the first omnibus came to an end, they were all designed for new readers; most of the stories in the Villains Omnibus were easily grasped one-shots. But despite being set five years into the future, most of the stories here seemed really embedded in the continuity of the ongoings they span out of-- so too bad for me if I haven't been keeping up with Aquaman and the Others. I pick on it here because it was one of the first stories in the book, and it's filled with characters I knew nothing about, depicting alterations to a status quo I'd never seen before. Unfortunately a lot of the early stories in the book are like this: Flash, Green Arrow, Infinity Man and the Forever People, Star Spangled War Stories were also virtually impossible for me to understand.

I do feel like the artistic quality was higher across the board in this one-- take this nice linework and coloring as Billy Batson talks to Lois Lane, for example.
from Superman: Futures End #1 (script by Dan Jurgens, art by Lee Weeks)

The best stories, I found, drew on nothing more than the basic premises of their characters, meaning that I could be oriented without much effort. For example, the Phantom Stranger tale didn't really depend on me knowing anything particular to the New 52 version of the Phantom Stranger-- it worked as a standalone final Phantom Stranger story, as the Stranger (who you may know better as Judas Iscariot) is called up for judgement a second time, but the jury is made up of the worst demons Hell has to offer. I enjoyed its spooky, weird, mythical tone, even though the last Phantom Stranger stories I read were from his Action Comics Weekly feature back in the 1980s.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXIII: The New 52 Villains Omnibus

Comic hardcover, 1168 pages
Published 2013 (contents: 2013)
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2016

DC Comics: The New 52 Villains Omnibus
by Greg Pak, Paulo Siquiera, Netho Diaz, Marguerite Bennett, Ben Oliver, Cliff Richards, China Miéville, Mateus Santolauco, Carla Berrocal, Riccardo Burchielli, Liam Sharp, Jock, Tula Lotay, Marley Zarcone, Brendan McCarthy, Emma Rids, Emi Lenox, Jeff Lemire, Frazier Irving, David Lapham, Carmen Carnero, Sloane Leong, Kelsey Wroten, Michelle Faran, Annie Wu, Zak Smith, Alberto Ponticelli, Dan Green, Geoff Johns, Sterling Gates, Manuel Garcia, Rob Hunter, Matt Kindt, Sam Basri, Keith Champagne, Bit, Derlis Santacruz, Tom DeFalco, Chad Hardin, Edgar Salazar, Ann Nocenti, Dan DiDio, Fabrizio Fiorentino, Tom Derenick, Philip Tan, Jason Paz, Tony Bedard, Geraldo Borges, Ruy José, Paul Levitz, Yildiray Cinar, Aaron Lopresti, Art Thibert, Brian Buccellato, Chris Batista, Tom Nguyen, Francis Manapul, Scott Hepburn, Andrea Sorrentino, Charles Soule, Jesús Saiz, Marv Wolfman, Cafu, Corey May, Dooma Wendschuh, Moritat, Angel Unzueta, Robson Rocha, John Ostrander, Victor Ibañez, Brian Azzarello, Michael Alan Nelson, Mike Hawthorne, Ken Lashley, Raymund Bermudez, Sholly Fisch, Jeff Johnson, Andy Smith, Steve Pugh, Pascal Alixe, Scott Lobdell, Dan Jurgens, Ray McCarthy, Aaron Kuder, Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Robert Venditti, Rags Morales, Cam Smith, Jim Starlin, Howard Porter, Stefano Landini, Dale Eaglesham, Andy Kubert, Andy Clarke, Scott Snyder, Ray Fawkes, Jeremy Haun, Frank Tieri, Christian Duce, Peter J. Tomasi, Graham Nolan, Guillem March, James Tynion IV, Jorge Lucas, Tim Seeley, Francis Portela, Gail Simone, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Jason Masters, John Layman, Georges Jeanty, Derek Fridolfs, Javier Pina, Neil Googe, Szymon Kudranski, Scot Eaton & Jaime Mendoza

The Book as a Whole
This book ties into Forever Evil, an event where the Crime Syndicate (i.e., the Evil Justice League) temporarily took over the Earth. As a result, most of DC's monthly titles were "taken over" by supervillains-- like, Action Comics #23.2 featured General Zod. Yes, there were decimals in the numbering. Some series were taken over four times, some just once. One presumes this was in proportion to popularity; it's easier to get someone to buy four extra issues of Action Comics than of Swamp Thing. These vary in type: some show what the villain in question was doing during Forever Evil, some show random other adventures of the villain, some show the origin story of the villain, some do more than one. I'd guess that more than half aren't even stories, but just set-up: leading into Forever Evil itself, or a Forever Evil spin-off, or just leading into a forthcoming issue of an ongoing where said villain is going to turn up. Like when I reviewed The New 52 omnibus, I'm going to tackle each individual grouping of issues, since there are too many to look at each on its own.

That's the kind of casual, fun attitude I like my international spies to have.
from Justice League of America vol. 3 #7.3 (script by Tom DeFalco, art by Chad Hardin)

Justice League (Darkseid, Lobo, Dial E, Secret Society, Deadshot, Killer Frost, Shadow Thief, Black Adam, the Creeper, Eclipso, Black Manta, Ocean Master, Desaad, Solomon Grundy, Grodd, Reverse-Flash, the Rogues, Count Vertigo, Arcane, Trigon, Deathstroke, the Cheetah, First Born)

If I learned anything from this section, it's how few people should be allowed to touch the New Gods: to stories featuring Darkseid and Desaad are so mundane as to completely miss the point of the characters. Darkseid doesn't need an origin story, he's "the Tiger-Force at the core of all things! When you cry out in your dreams-- it is Darkseid that you see!" How can such a character have a youth and a backstory? It makes him mundane to give him a motivation, and Darkseid should never be mundane.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Crisis!, Part LXII: The New 52

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2011 (contents: 2011)
Borrowed from the library
Read October 2016

DC Comics: The New 52
by Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Dan Jurgens, Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang, Francis Manapul, Brian Buccellatto, J. T. Krul, Freddie Williams II, Gail Simone, Ethan Van Sciver, Yildiray Cinar, George Pérez, Tony S. Daniel, Philip Tan, Eric Wallace, Gianluca Gugliotta, Wayne Faucher, Paul Jenkins, Bernard Chang, Grant Morrison, Rags Morales, Rick Bryant, Jesús Merino, Scott Lobdell, R. B. Silva, Rob Lean, Michael Green, Mike Johnson, Mahmud Asrar, Dan Green, Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, Ryan Winn, J. H. Williams III, W. Haden Blackman, David Finch, Richard Friend, Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Mick Gray, Ardian Syaf, Vicente Cifuentes, Judd Winick, Ben Oliver, Guillem March, Kyle Higgins, Eddy Barrows, J. P. Mayer, Duane Swierczynski, Jesus Saiz, Kenneth Rocafort, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Fernando Pasarin, Scott Hanna, Tony Bedard, Tyler Kirkham, Batt, Peter Milligan, Ed Benes, Rob Hunter, Mikel Janin, Yanick Paquette, Jeff Lemire, Travel Foreman, Alberto Ponticelli, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Andrea Sorrentino, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Ferndando Dagnino, Paul Cornell, Diogenes Neves, Oclair Albert, Miguel Sepulveda, Nathan Edmondson, Cafu, Jason Gorder, Ron Marz, Sami Basri, Joe Bennett, Art Thibert, Adam Glass, Federico Dallocchio, Ransom Getty, Dan DiDio, Keith Giffen, Scott Koblish, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Moritat, Mike Costa, Graham Nolan, Ken Lashley, Ivan Brandon, Tom Derenick, Jonathan Vankin, Phil Winslade, Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Scott McDaniel, John Rozum, LeBeau Underwood, Sterling Gates, Rob Liefeld, Ig Guara, Ruy José, Fabian Nicieza, Pete Woods, Paul Levitz & Francis Portela

This book is unpaginated, but as it collects 52 issues, and most single issues these days are 20-22 pages long, it must contain around 1,000 pages of comics, making it nearly unreviewable, especially given that this book isn't one big story (like some other DC omnibi I've read, such as 52) but rather the beginnings of 52 different stories. Still, I'm going to try, and I'm going to do it by speaking to 1) the book as a whole, 2) the continuity issues involved, and 3) each subsection of the book. So please bear with me. Each of the issues is a #1 issue, published in the wake of Flashpoint, which reset the DC universe.

The Book as a Whole
To be honest, it's not a very satisfying reading experience. I think it could have been, but that would require a totally different way of approaching the single-issue comic than is normal in the 2010s. None of these are done-in-one stories, a format that still exists, but is probably avoided in the first issue of a series more than anywhere else, given that you want your readers to pick up issue #2. That said, I don't think they needed to be as formulaic as they are: I'd estimate the 75% of the stories here have the same structure of fight scene→bit of personal life or backstory→dramatic last page appearance of someone. Sometimes the order of "fight scene" and "bit of personal life or backstory" is swapped. As I kept on reading, I just got tired of seeing this cliche over and over again. I'd say that it was unsatisfying to not know the end to the fifty-two different stories begun here, but in actuality, I don't want to know the end of the fifty-two different stories begun here, as most didn't do enough to grab my interest in their twenty pages. Some dude turning up on page twenty does not a hook make if you haven't laid an interesting groundwork first.

The Continuity Issues
Sometimes I think people overestimate how much continuity contributes to the reading experience of a book. I've seen a lot of complaints about the New 52 that it's hard to get invested in characters when you don't know what old stories count and what ones don't. But Crisis on Infinite Earths did the exact same thing-- it was ages before the "past" of the new, integrated DC universe was completely built up, and I think people forget how piecemeal it was at first. The pre-Crisis Wonder Woman and Superman continued to appear for a year or two because George Pérez and John Byrne's reboots weren't done yet! The pre-Crisis Superman, for example, turned up in an Omega Men storyline that was explicitly post-Crisis, yet there's no way it could happen with the post-Crisis Superman. So things are going to be a bit muddy when you introduce a new shared universe all at once, and I think that's okay.

That said, I'm not sure why DC didn't got full clean slate with more of these characters. For example, we're told Animal Man has been a hero, retired from heroing, and is now returning to heroing-- but this doesn't add anything to the story when he could just be a recently established hero. Too many of the characters here have semi-complicated backstories because bits of their pre-Flashpoint backstories have been retained, but nothing is done with these backstories. Arsenal and Starfire apparently worked together on a team of teens before, but not in the Teen Titans because the Teen Titans #1 here is about the first Teen Titans team coming together. So they were just on... some team? But it doesn't really matter because they don't act like they know each other at all. Why not make it their first meeting then? Though the idea of there being a bunch of former teen sidekicks is weird anyway given DC's compressed the timeline down to five years. Like, you can have everything be fresh and new, or you can have a bunch of legacy characters, but it seems to me you can't have both. (And yet there are four different Robins!)

Like, this is neat because it gives you enough to go on if you don't know Deadman, but also upends the formula with a genuinely expected yet interesting final-page reveal.
from DC Universe Presents #1 (script by Paul Jenkins, art by Bernard Chang)

Justice League (Justice League, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Captain Atom, Firestorm, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Mister Terrific, Deadman)

Only three of these stuck out to me in a good way: Wonder Woman is slickly drawn, a surprisingly dei noir take on an old character. I read the first few issues of this run on Comixology back in 2011, and though I forgot to keep reading, this reminded me of what I enjoyed then. Everything I've ever seen of Francis Manapul's take on the Flash has been solid, so I ought to pick it up someday, though this one I liked more for the art and layouts than the story (it definitely fits into the cliche #1 format I mention above). I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the take on Deadman here. Like, this had great ideas and amazing artwork. On the other hand, the new Justice League #1 is almost embarrassing, and Justice League International is the perfect example of the kind of comic book you just can't do in a brand-new universe-- none of these also-ran character have backstories now!