Futures End #32

When did Galactus enter this story?

Are we at the big surprise reveal where we find out that there is a Brainiac above the normal Collector of Worlds Brainiac that is a Collector of Universes Brainiac? No? Okay. I guess we'll just read some more filler until then.

Five years in the Futures End future, people still wear puffy jackets and handlebar mustaches. I find that hard to swallow! Shouldn't everybody be wearing invisible skin warming plasticine which shows off every nook and cranny because in five years we'll all be above such bourgeois notions of nakedness, and everyone has stopped tittering relentlessly when they see other people's ding-dongs and doo-dads? That's how I see the future! A relentless onslaught of penises and vaginas passing by and nobody is turned on in the least, thanks to a daily Governmental cocktail composed of lithium, birth control, and diabetic medications. Oh yeah, we're all super fat and unhealthy in five years as well!

See? Fat and unhealthy! And Coke rules with an iron, yet mouth puckeringly sweet, fist.

This is the kind of dialogue that brings a comic book to life and helps the reader to feel they're sneaking a glimpse at a story that could possibly be taking place just on the other side of some wispy veil separating realities. It's not magical dialogue. It's not intellectual dialogue on profound themes. It's just an unimportant side character stating an opinion contrary to Plastique's opinion. I think, too often, a writer will want to put forth their own opinions of the world through the mouths of the characters instead of building characters with their own perspectives, perspectives that often differ with one another. And while some people might focus on the fact that a grown man has never had a slice of pizza, this pizza guy doesn't bat an eye at that and just points out, from his experience, she's giving a newbie the wrong slice. It's really just a throw away moment that many people might skim past while wondering when the action will start. But moments like this are important. Mundane moments with characters actually interacting with one another instead of being mouthpieces for the writer's opinions. This helps me to connect with the story and the characters. Now maybe when Plastique finally faces her demise, I might actually remember her excited face from this scene as she introduces pizza to a new friend, and her interaction with this working guy that makes sense, and I might fucking care a little bit.

Maybe. It's also possible I'll completely forget this scene in the next twenty minutes.

Terry McBatman is lucky she didn't make his face explode.

Judging by the above scene, I don't think Future-Brother-Eye-Infected Plastique was attacking Terry McBatman in Futures End issues zero and one. She was just trying to give him a kiss.

Cole Cash is busy trying to get his Earth-Main-Earth Registration Card so people will stop thinking he's a Twofer. Or so they stop thinking he's Lana Lang's husband. That could get him in trouble with Superman! Except this is Twofer Lana Lang and I don't think Superman gives a shit about Twofer Lana Lang. If only Cole's brother wasn't a gigantic corpse, they could use him as a character witness. Cole's only choice now is to deal with being thought of as the Earth-2 version of himself (even though he's from the Wildstorm Earth already! Right? The one that merged with the Vertigo and the Main Earth!) or spend six months in lockup as he waits for an inquiry into his origins.

My recommendation to Grifter is that he doesn't go to court. He doesn't want his history dredged up because does he really want to be reminded that he starred in the worst comic of the initial batch of New 52 comics?

The whole toilet seat up or down thing is Sexist Comedy 101 that I could rant about for hours. But since this repartee is adorable, I think I can let it slide this time.

Meanwhile, Fifty Sue becomes Mini-Deathstroke With Pigtails. And by "pigtails," I mean "two unbraided bunches of hair on opposite sides of Fifty Sue's head." Pigtails is easier to say.

The guy on the cover turns out to be what Dr. Yamazake has become. He's an incorporeal being with the power to control magnetism. So he built himself the Different-Enough-From-Galactus-To-Not-Be-Sued suit and begins plotting his revenge against The Justice League. Although can he really call it revenge when they've done nothing to him at all and every slight he believes they've committed against him is entirely made up in his own mind? Isn't that something other than revenge?

And finally, Ray Palmer's Stormwatch has arrived back at Earth. Or at least "an Earth." I'm sure it's not the Earth they think it is. I bet it's...PREBOOT EARTH! But before they can investigate it, Hawkman and The Engineer need to fuck.

The Engineer must be infected by a self-hating, low self-esteem causing virus because ick.

Ray Palmer's Stormwatch is intercepted by Father Time and taken aboard The Ant Farm, SHADE headquarters. They want The Engineer to help them defeat Brainiac and Father Time is willing to release every monster in The Zoo to get her. I guess next issue will be Godzilla versus Frankenstein! How come that was never a Universal Picture?

Futures End #32 Rating: +1 Ranking. Terry McBatman had better stop flirting with Plastique and get on with the Case of the Mister Terrific's Murderer (Hint: It will be Terry McBatman!). Mister Terrific is about to release his uSpheres into New York city and then that will be that. Lois Lane will get her hands on one and then she'll sync up her Brother Eye infected phone to her Brainiac infested uSphere and everybody can kiss the world goodbye. Then Lois will be all, "uSphere, find me the most authentic Indian cuisine in the area that delivers at one in the morning." And her uSphere will be all, "UNH UNH UNH TAKE IT, BROTHER EYE! TAKE MY FULL DATA STREAM!" And her phone will be all, "I HOPE YOU'RE USING WPA2 BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO WIND UP WITH A SELF-REPLICATING EXECUTABLE!" And Lois will be, "I'm starving!"

Justice League Dark #5

Use your spells not your fists!

Justice League Dark begins with a rash of strange occurrences happening across the country. This used to happen every few issues in Shade the Changing Man.

My basement is still flooded with Vic 20s.

In one of her narration boxes, Madame Xanadu admits that it was she who separated June Moon from The Enchantress. How? I don't know. Why? Probably because it needed to be done for something else to be done to help out some obscure future event that she can see. And at what cost? Cost is something magic types never consider. Or they do consider it and they just don't care. They're kind of like modern day pharmaceuticals. They solve one problem while generating a host of crappy symptoms. So Xanadu freed June Moone which caused the whole country to turn to shit. Eh. It couldn't be helped!

John Constantine appears to help June Moone escape the giant Enchantress made from little Enchantresses. Like a Magic Katamari.

Isn't John Dee the guy in the first Sandman story who traps all of the people in the diner in the issue called '24 Hours'? And Choronzon was a major demon player in Morrison's The Demon. I think.

June hops into the magic circle with John before the scene cuts to Shade, Deadman, Zatanna, and Xanadu. Their discussion about how to proceed is mostly composed of Deadman shouting at them. Deadman ditches them all to go help June Moone. The rest M-Vest to the Envelope Farm and find themselves in the Rotten Teeth Tornado.

The title of this comic may be Justice League Dark but it's as much Shade the Changing Man as ever!
The JLD aren't overpowered by the rotten teeth like those wimps in the normal Justice League were. But each member of the team begins seeing things and start slipping from reality. Shade is brought back to his senses when Zatanna makes out with him. But soon after, Zatanna and Xanadu begin speaking nonsense.

Through speaking with June, Constantine realizes the spell which Xanadu used to separate Moone and Enchantress was the rhyme that June kept trying to remember. Constantine also learned that Moone's personality being buried inside the Enchantress actually kept the Enchantress sane and in check. June Moone was both sanity and conscious to The Enchantress. Without June, the Enchantress will just destroy the world. So Constantine begins saying the rhyme that will merge the two when Boston Brand shows up trying to be chivalrous.

What is Deadman going to do? Fly through him a bunch of times?

Deadman does try to possess Constantine but finds Constantine's mind/soul/essence disgusting. Deadman does the ghost equivalent of vomiting and is ejected from Constantine's body and giving Constantine time to finish up his rhyme. June Moone and Enchantress are once again merged and the chaos ends.

During this, Mindwarp appears in his seizure soul and doesn't actually do anything. And really, none of them did anything except for Constantine. But none of that was really the point anyway. As I predicted, the whole thing was caused by Xanadu simply to get these people together to stop a certain future from coming true. But once the Enchantress issue is dealt with, none of them stick around anyway. And so Xanadu failed.

But her failure is only going to mean something horrible is coming and that horror will have to be dealt with by the same group of magic folk. They'll probably realize after the next catastrophe that it might be wise to at least get everyone else's contact number so they don't have to spend four issues finding each other.

If these guys were normal Super Heroes, they would have formed a group and thought up a cool name and started wearing matching costumes after their great big semi-success. But it wouldn't be believable for Constantine or Shade or Mindwarp (probably) to join a group. So they're going to need at least one more near world ending catastrophe to convince them.

Justice League Dark #4

The Enchantress hit by Deadman and June Moone turned out to be an empty shell. But it still had power. It's hunting for June Moone. Perhaps Enchantress can't quite keep her world sane enough to function without June Moone being a part of her. Does that also mean June Moone needs Enchantress? Probably. They probably need to merge to save the world from the destruction Madame Xanadu sees in the future.

Constantine has moved on from Zatanna to Shade and now he finds himself sitting in Deadman's apartment when Dove walks in. It's beginning to look like maybe Madame Xanadu should have approached Constantine to collect everyone. He seems to have a better method of locating everyone than that insane M-Vest that just does whatever it wants. I hate clothing like that.

Meanwhile, while these magick types keep running around and acting mysterious at each other, Enchantress' craziness continues to spread around the country. Kids are killing adults. Songs are driving people crazy. And empty shells of June Moone and Enchantress are killing people in an endless search for the real June Moone.

Enchantress breaks free from her envelope and identifies the solution. Yep. She needs to be reunited with June Moone to regain some semblance of sanity. But she has a problem.

I bet Batman would listen.

Zatanna finally attempts a raid on the envelope farm but it doesn't work out too well. She randomly teleports away and ends up with Shade. Constantine backtracks his way to the source of all of the trouble: Madame Xanadu. And Deadman and June finally enter Shade's Madness Doorway.

Characters Cooler Than Superman is actually a pretty long list.

Unfortunately, June doesn't seem to end up on the correct side of the gateway. That's the funny thing about Magic Portals. June does, however, end up encountering all of the Enchantress and June Moone simulacra joining each other to become a gigantic Enchantress.

While this is going on, Madame Xanadu and John Constantine are busy slapping each other. I think John will come out on top and get Madame Xanadu to admit she did something bad. Possibly she was the one behind separating June and Enchantress. Maybe they'll just end up having sex.

Justice League Dark #3

Issue three is called 'Shibboleths and Alcohol.' So I think it's going to focus on John Constantine. It begins with Enchantress (I don't know if it's The Enchantress or just Enchantress. I'm probably the only one who cares) sitting by the side of the road full of resentment and rotten teeth. Madame Xanadu must have helped her out of the envelope. My guess is that Madame Xanadu understands the world needs these magic loonies to have some gigantic confrontation to save it. So she's helping The Enchantress as much as The Enchantress needs to get back up on her feet and fight the others. I have a feeling the big climactic battle will bring The Enchantress over to the "good" guy's side but she'll still be a loose cannon.

Also, what happened to the Justice League? Did they fly into that tornado of smelly teeth and just give up? Or are they still trapped there? Did Batman actually allow Zatanna to go off on her own without his help? Really? The guy with severe control issues? That whole scene with the Justice League was simply to show that the Justice League, even with its current power levels, can't deal with every disaster. Magic needs to be fought with magic. Magic does not need to be fought with Sonic Cannons and Laser Eyes and Truth Lassos. Except that last one is actually magic. So it would probably help.

John and Zatanna during their Hindu Sex Magick Ritual.

Zatanna refers to The Enchantress as Enchantress so I guess I should have started that sentence with 'Zatanna refers to Enchantress...' instead of the way I did start it.

Here's some of John and Zatanna's sex-talk during the ritual:

John: "I was...runecasting [Hee hee hee] in Brighton. I had a... powerful... intimation... [hee hee hee] you were in trouble."
Zatanna: "I... I was coming [hee hee hee] for Enchantress. The witch."

Okay, that was childish. At least Junior Highish! Moving on to some of their non-innuendo filled conversation, we get this bit of nonsense:

This is one of the following: Ridiculous. Funny. Informative. Maybe it's all of them! I always thought that Zatanna could do anything she wanted just by saying backwards the things she wanted done. But maybe she only has a certain number of spells she can cast with specific backwards phrasings? Or perhaps, John Constantine is just a giant moron and doesn't know how to say words backwards unless he hears somebody else say them. If he had to actually her Zatanna say the spells of hers he now knows, than she muttered, "Ekaw pu," while she was sleeping. That's probably why John woke up to hear the other spells she cast while sleeping. Least surprising of the whole exchange: John and Zatanna are fuck buddies.

Shade is trying to collect the magic people and begins with Deadman. He fails because his method of getting people to come to him is a few rungs below asking a woman to help you put your groceries in your rundown van or approaching a group of school kids with the sad story of your lost puppy.

I was trying to tell Madame Xanadu this back in Issue #1!

Madame Xanadu next asks Shade to find the next mysterious individual on her list. The reader doesn't get to see the card. I'm going to guess that it's Etrigan since Shade says it's insane. And Shade knows insane.

Back at Shade's apartment, he mentions someone named Mindwarp. So not Etrigan. I guess Etrigan is busy in the past in his own title. I have no idea who this Mindwap person is. I wish I had my old Who's Who comics and not just the Who's Who binder! I'm pretty sure those are back in the basement of the family homestead.

Constantine tracks down Shade after a bit of travel.

I like the way Constantine travels. Except the bus part. Never again, Greyhound! Ever.

I'm not sure why Constantine tracks down Shade. Perhaps it was something he saw in his sex magic session with Zatanna. I wonder if he and Shade will now do a circle jerk ritual to find Enchantress.
Constantine doesn't actually talk with Shade. He just watches. And then has more to drink. Shade M-Vests (is that the proper term for the way he travels?) to Mindwarp's apartment.

Comic books from the New 52 Universe. Comics in the DC Universe have usually been windows into alternate DC Worlds. So is Dick Grayson actually Deadman in another world? Makes sense!

He uses the M-Vest to get a link to Mindwarp and encounters him just as he's about to do something untoward (or maybe even vile!) to a young lady. They commence talking. Even after seeing Mindwarp do some thing where he has a seizure and then lifts out of his body in a Seizure Soul, I still don't know who he is. But I now wish their was a DC Character with Tourette's that can change reality by the random things his Tourette's makes him say. He'd be in The Doom Patrol, of course.

Later, Deadman answers a question I believe I asked back when he was riding around on the Roller Coaster with that Carnival Barker Devil's Cousin guy.

Immediately after this, they hit Enchantress who apparently moved her pouting and bitching to the middle of the road. Deadman and June Moone get out of the car to help and, well, you know how these things go.

Whoops!