Reign of the Supermen #530: OMAC Death Machine Superman

Source: Futures End #0 (2014)
Type: Alternate future
I promised I wouldn't write a rant about Futures End, DC's newest dismembertastic weekly event, but since it'll feature at least two Supermen - this one from 35 years ahead and another from 5 years ahead - I do have to at least mention it.

First, if you'd like to read a good blog post on why Futures End is terrible, there are plenty out there, which is why I didn't feel the need to add too much to the pile. Check out Anj's post at Supergirl Comic Box Commentary. It pretty much covers all the important bases.

For me, the New52 hits a new high in homogeneity with this stuff. Evil psycho versions of DC characters killing each other violently is something you can already read regularly in Injustice, or Earth 2, or Justice League 3000. A dark dystopian future that must be prevented is what this version of the DCU sprang from LESS THAN THREE YEARS AGO. Since then, in addition to the dystopian futures prevailing in canon and non-canon comics, the "save the future" trope has JUST RECENTLY been used by Marvel in their Age of Ultron event, which also featured killer robots. At this point, saying it's Terminator is disingenuous. Futures End is much more cynically derivative than that. And guess what? Because Batman Beyond goes back in time too late, to yet another dystopian future (or do you believe for one second Green Arrow will be killed in 2019?), he'll end up going back further and undoing THAT timeline as well. What's the point?

And it's the absolutely wrong thing for DC Comics to put out at this point. Not because it cements its reputation as the gloomy, ultraviolent, po-faced alternative to DIVERSITY IN COMICS, but because the New52 universe is still in its infancy. We don't even know what makes half these heroes tick and yet we're intent on deconstructing them as if Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns had just come out and been surprise hits. A dark alternate version of Superman (or Wonder Woman or Firestorm or whoever) doesn't feel all that shocking when for old-time fans, the BASELINE versions of those characters still feel like ALTERNATE versions. DC has to let them settle into their new paradigms, and that's just not happening when crossover events dictate they should face competition from presumably "cooler" Elseworld types, or be pushed out of their own books by villains.

Comments

SallyP said…
Oh hey, a new violent dystopian future/crossover/mismash!

We HAVE seen all of this before. In fact we have seen it so MANY times before.

I will not be buying this. I don't even care about the new 52 characters, because they are only pale shadows of the REAL characters anyway, so if they blow themselves up...I won't give a jot.
Anonymous said…
Anyone else notice that the initials of the new universe-wide event are the same as the last universe-wide event? And that the last FE is still not finished?
Delta said…
"Because Batman Beyond goes back in time too late, to yet another dystopian future (or do you believe for one second Green Arrow will be killed in 2019?), he'll end up going back further and undoing THAT timeline as well. What's the point?"

You know, if I can riff a little bit on a *very large* movie that premiered last night... Which has an opening sequence in which a family loses a member #1, which serves to drive family member #2 obsessively insane, which puts them in peril and die, which motivates family member #3 who is actually the protagonist of the film. WTH have multiple, repetitious layers of setup story like that? Is that not a crazy obvious, wasteful, confusing error in storytelling when you're looking at a script?

Siskoid said…
Sally: And these are shadows of shadows.

Anon: After Futures End is delayed, they'll start on Fatal Error.

Delta: Is it about a giant monster as well? I'm seeing it tomorrow.
Delta said…
Possibly. Don't mean to be spoiling anything. :-)