Justice League: Futures End #1 (DC)

writer: Jeff Lemire
artist: Jed Dougherty

The first thing you should know about this, in case you skipped my writer/artist credits at the top, is that it isn't written by Geoff Johns.  The second is that it is in fact a continuation of the Justice League United: Futures End special.

The whole Futures End thing is the first time the annual New 52 September celebration has dedicated itself to something other than strictly matters of continuity.  In a way, it does, because one way or another, the Futures End weekly and its September one-shots are part of the canon (and by extension, the familiar character of Batman Beyond, who plays a prominent role in the weekly), but they're also by necessity and design headed toward a reboot.  Which means pretty much everything that happens in these specials won't have happened, not five years from now, not by next year, when DC has reached its latest Crisis event, which Futures End is leading toward.

All of that is also to say, because these issues are not necessarily part of the actual series, their contents don't have to reflect what's been going on in them.  Which is to say, it's okay to sub creators.  Which is to say, no Geoff Johns.

Yeah, I guess it was kind of foolish to expect that (this goes for Superman: Futures End, too), although as I understand Scott Snyder did choose to participate over in Batman: Futures End, and he seemed to play around with the nifty story he did for Detectives Comics #27, the idea of Batman cloning himself to keep his mission as well as himself alive.  

So what does this issue do, besides feature Jeff Lemire and continue from the other League title?  It's another shot at reconciling Captain Atom with his Alan Moore doppelganger from Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan.  Captain Atom traditionally been a kind of Hulk mixed with Superman, a superhero created in a nuclear accident who tends to be a leader.  Over the years he's had various levels of significance.  He actually did have a New 52 series when the relaunch happened, but it was one of those short-lived ones, and he subsequently became one of the many characters from the revamped landscape bumming around looking for continued relevance.  A lot of them seem to have ended up in Futures End, curiously enough.

I didn't read the first part of the story, but it's easy enough to figure out what's happening as it picks up here.  At this point, Captain Atom is threatening to go the full Zero Hour, and it's only the trouble of being contained on Mars and confronted by this era's League standing in his way.  Lemire captures the Dr. Manhattan prototype well in Captain Atom's dialogue and approach to the situation.  Suffice to say, but that's certainly a Dr. Manhattan that everyone would have feared, not the angst-ridden one Moore favored.  (Everyone's angst-ridden in Watchmen.  It's still a surprise that Moore never wrote for Marvel.)

There's a lot of things Moore never did.  He wouldn't have had room for the kind of action from this issue in Watchmen.  Moore's superheroes tended to be reminders of a previous age (his happiest and apparently only memories stem from the early Silver Age) or postmodern deconstructions.  He confronted them with moral dilemmas.  Did Moore ever have a happy ending?

Because Captain Atom receives one here.  Martian Manhunter spends most of the story out of commission, thereby preventing him from using his mental abilities to influence the situation.  That leaves a League comprised of a lot of characters who are reminiscent of all those eras DC periodically reacts against by once again bringing the icons back together.  There's Vostok (Aquaman and the Others), Equinox (Justice League United), Dawnstar and Wildfire (Legion of Super-Heroes), Stormguard (unique to Futures End), as well as The Flash and Cyborg.

My memories of the issue reduce it to the Captain Atom elements, but these heroes make an impression as they fight during the story, too, making it a true mix of Moore and the regular comic book approach.  (I imagine if anyone objects to my impression of Moore, it would have to come from his America's Best Comics days, probably Top Ten.  Feel free to rebut.)

Not what I would've wanted, but still entertaining, with an ending that helps the whole thing work.  It doesn't hurt that Martian Manhunter is involved.  I don't know why there seems to be such extreme reluctance to use him as something other than supporting material in the New 52, but Lemire makes it clear he's still got plenty of potential.