Futures End #1

Please please please please let Grifter be as poorly written as he was in his own series!

I know that beg is going to fall on deaf eyes because there are too many decent writers working together on this series. Oh well. It'll be interesting to maybe like Grifter for awhile.

I did not pick up Futures End #0 because my local comic book store is way too popular and I hate crowds and I also hate getting up in the morning. So I can't do a commentary on it. Although I did hear that somebody gets their arm ripped off in it! Dammit. If anybody wants to send me a copy, let me know! You'll get a personally drawn cartoon of thanks! It'll be signed and numbered #1 of 1!

I don't really know anything about this story except that I have a feeling it's going to be continuing the story that wanted to begin at the end of Justice League International Annual #1! You remember, right? When future Booster Gold appeared with Rip Hunter's spunk drying in his hair and had a conversation with present Booster Gold.

Future Booster Gold: "You have to stop Superman and Wonder Woman from doing it! Or else it will be the futures end!"
Present Booster Gold: "Which future's end? Our future's end?"
Future Booster Gold: "No, no! All futures will end! It's 'futures' without an apostrophe. So it's like a statement of fact. You know, like, um, 'Hey buddy. You realize futures end, right? Every one of them!'"
Present Booster Gold: "And just because Wonder Woman does it to Superman? That doesn't sound right."
Future Booster Gold: "I know but it seemed important at the moment. Maybe by the time futures end, it will be because of a different reason."
Present Booster Gold: "You know, I did hear Batman whispering to some nutjob named Brother Eye earlier. Could that be the cause of it?"
Future Booster Gold: "How should I know?! We're an idiot, remember?!"
Present and Future Booster Gold: "Where is Skeets when you need him?!"

This issue begins five years in the future with a computer simulation of Alfred Pennyworth, called A.L.F.R.E.D., speaking with Batman Beyond about how the future they're from isn't the future that they're supposed to be experiencing. Fuck you, Futures End. I'm already sick of you.

What could A.L.F.R.E.D. stand for? Probably Artificial Life Form Ruining Everyone's Day.

Logically, I'm sick of it! Illogically, I can't wait to read this thing! I'm hoping it's a lot like Rotworld or Earth 2 where the writers get to completely go off Corporate Script and destroy everything the readers love. You always get truthier writing when you're allowed to write imaginary scenes where Superman's rectum inverts from Kryptonite poisoning and Batman blows a hernia trying to do a throw on Killer Croc. Hopefully that's the kind of shit we'll get in Futures End!

Batman Beyond (who I'll call Terry from now on because that's his name) points out that his and A.L.F.R.E.D.'s future sucks because Mister Terrific created Brother Eye when nobody was confident enough to say to Michael, "Do you think that's such a good idea? Creating a satellite which will eventually control our every move? No? Yes? Maybe think about it a bit?" He also mentions that "the time band had only one jump." And he already made that jump from whatever year Batman Beyond takes place in. It's just that the time band was calculated to move Bruce Wayne through time and Terry's mass differs enough that he winds up landing seven years after that whole Mister Terrific thing. I guess he was supposed to travel back in time to be the one to say, "Do you think that's such a good idea?"

Why is that guy wearing Google Glass in his apartment? Nobody is going to see him and be impressed by him. Oh wait! Porn.

Meanwhile Stormwatch is having problems with their Bleed. Hawkman and Nina from the Black Lagoon are currently members of Stormwatch. Once again, something takes control of The Engineer and begins speaking through her. She needs to update her fucking firewall already because I'm sick of this shit happening to her. The amount of viruses and Trojan horses riddling this woman must mean her operating system is open source. The creature that hijacks her points out that its the storm that Stormwatch was meant to watch for. Then she begins screaming in binary. The first part of her message is garbled by her scream but the last half of her scream is "u". So I'm guessing the first part of her message that was lost was fuck. No, wait. It couldn't have been because the "k" sequence in binary doesn't end in "0101".

It's also possible (and most likely probable) that nobody actually considered that binary is easily translated to text. Each letter is eight digits long though, so printing an actual message in binary is worse than in text. But that's because text is twenty-sixary!

Anyway, whatever infiltrated Angie is the biggest threat the DC Universe has ever witnessed because it kills every member of Stormwatch in just a few pages. Killing Stormwatch is code for big bad motherfucker. I know it might not seem like it if you were reading the latest incarnation of Stormwatch. But if you ever read Stormwatch or The Authority previously, you'd remember that Stormwatch killed gods and shit. And now something has killed them. It's just the creative team's way of saying, "Everybody is fucked."

Whatever killed Stormwatch continues on to Earth now that the penultimate threat to stop it has been destroyed. Now it just has to kill Batman and the rest of its plans will be cake.

Back on Earth, Grifter is busy killing normal people. He believes he's killing Daemonites but I think he's just schizophrenic.

I'm willing to believe he's always wrong. He's just a child murdering son of a bitch. Hmm. Why am I insulting his mom? What the fuck did she do?

Five years in the future, Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch are still intimately connected.

Ronnie's still in denial about his homosexuality?

Firestorm was recruited by Green Arrow to join the Justice League. Things must really be fucked up in the future if Green Arrow is in charge of hiring for the Justice League! While on the way to Seattle, Firestorm mentions something about a war, probably against the Daemonites. And then when they arrive, they find one of the greatest sights in the world! No, not the Space Needle.

It could only be better if it were Condor. But this is five years later, so he's probably long dead.

Futures End #1 Rating: It's off to a slow start but I think Futures End #0 was probably where all the action was. I bet it even explained the war that Firestorm was talking about! Stupid Free Comic Book Day can suck my ass.

Anyway, I guess Futures End is all about futures that ended early which is why this is all about heroes that got their asses cancelled. Is that the big bad motherfucker from outer space that killed Stormwatch? The Cancellator? I suppose we'll be seeing Static Shock and Blue Beetle shortly. Maybe even the Blackhawks! Oh, and if Grifter is here, I bet Voodoo is dancing at a club just down the street! I just hope Captain Atom decides to sit this one out. Although he'd be a lot more interesting not being written by J.T. Krul.