Future State - Top Ten: #1. Wonder Woman

 

Writer/Artist: Jöelle Jones

This result was basically self-evident from the first issue. I say “basically” since I had it ranked second when covering just the first two weeks of Future State. Swamp Thing topped it initially, with a truly outstanding first issue that was probably never going to be easy to follow with only one additional issue (though, again, Ram V’s follow-up series has more than adequately rectified that). But Jöelle Jones had created something that was truly effervescent:

A perfect confluence of writer, artist, and character. Two out of three of those were fairly easy to accomplish, as Jones wrote and drew the comic. Her new Wonder Woman, Brazilian (as in Amazon Rainforest) Yara Flor, didn’t bother with any kind of introduction or justification, but rather plunged into Jones’s version of Wonder Woman adventures.

Now, Wonder Woman is one of DC’s Big Three, but she has never had the rich history of Batman or Superman. She’s had continuous publication and significance, but really, none of the classic storytelling. There has been a considerable uptick in great storytelling in the past twenty years or so, with Greg Rucka (at least his classic embassy run) and Brian Azzarello being the obvious highlights, but nothing that feels quite as effortless as what Jones accomplishes here.

Simply put: This is a truly fun read. It’s beautiful to look at (I’m ashamed to admit this is the first time I’ve really appreciated Jones’s artwork), but it’s playful and assured in ways I’ve never really seen in a superhero comic. Usually playful means cartoonish. That’s not what Jones does. Her Wonder Woman enjoys being Wonder Woman, and is prepared for what she encounters. Simple as that.

And it’s a complete revelation. It’s easy to see that DC envisioned Future State to be a platform for new voices. I truly hope Jones has the chance to be elevated as far as she can go. I’ve read the first issue of the follow-up, and it’s just as awesome, but now I want more! I want to see Jones unleashed! The first female lead creator in comics! 

Future State - Top Ten: #2. Mister Miracle

 

Writer: Brandon Easton

Artist: Valentine De Landro

Out of all the backup features in Future State, Easton & De Landro’s Mister Miracle was not only the longest (running four segments serialized between Superman of Metropolis and Superman: Worlds of War) but the most consistently entertaining, which I assume is why it was longest, and also why it was picked up as an Infinite Frontier miniseries, which recently launched (and I have also enjoyed).

Unlike Tom King’s comic, which featured the more traditional Mister Miracle, Scott Free, this is a spotlight for Shilo Norman, last featured in Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory.

The absolute beauty of it, other than De Landro’s wonderfully simplistic, fantastic art (which, sadly, wasn’t carried over into the sequel project), is Easton’s depiction of Shilo’s relationship with his Mother Box.

Now, as a longtime comics reader who has experienced plenty of Booster Gold conversations with Skeets, just to name one example, I’ve seen this kind of interplay before. But I have never seen it better. The “man in the chair” trope the MCU Spider-Man identified and usually illustrated by Batman and Alfred tends to be defined by an exchange of information. 

Shilo & his Mother Box have a full-blown camaraderie going on.

Again, not like Booster & Skeets. Skeets tends, because Booster is often a comic character, to be the long-suffering counterpoint. The “man in the chair” itself is a gimmick of unequal weight.

Shilo & his Mother Box are pals.

And I loved that! In New Gods lore Mother Boxes are basically smartphones with AI interaction, capable of transporting the protagonist wherever they need to go via Boom Tube. Very infrequently you’ll have a Green Lantern comic where a ring is depicted like Easton does his Mother Box.

(Ooh! Ooh! Get Easton to write Green Lantern!)

The interplay between Shilo & his Mother Box is ubiquitous in the story. For me it was the whole draw. Technically Shilo is involved, the link between, the adventures playing out in the main stories of the Superman Future State titles (which themselves, again, play out in a far more satisfyingly subtle manner than the Batman family’s).

It gives the result a true personality. I hope when the sequel is collected, this is included along with it. The sequel takes a completely different tack, by the way, focusing more on Shilo specifically, but Easton is sufficiently talented, it seems, to not even miss a beat in the transition. A hugely promising new voice at DC.

Future State - Top Ten: #3. Superman: Worlds of War/House of El

 

Writer : Phillip Kennedy Johnson

Artists: Mikel Janín, Scott Godlewski

My only previous experience with Johnson was The Last God, which I had only sampled with one issue, which I found impenetrable, so I had no idea what to expect from this.

So you might say this was the biggest surprise (other than my pick for second best of Future State!), because I thought it was brilliant!

Johnson takes a truly mythic approach to Superman, both in the woman who hero worships him at a human level and the task Superman himself has on Warworld.

What made it so amazing for me was that it turned out to be the very unlikely spiritual sequel to Tom King’s Superman: Up in the Sky, the story originally serialized in the pages of the Walmart Superman giants, which immediately became one of my favorite King comics, and Superman comics in general.

Most writers get caught up in Superman going about his everyday heroics, or try to scale him back, and yet Johnson, like King, is somehow capable of doing both.

It doesn’t hurt this comic’s standing, and legacy, to have subsequently enjoyed the early issues of Johnson’s Infinite Frontier Superman ongoing adventures.

Future State - Top Ten: #4. Superman vs. Imperious Lex

 

Writer: Mark Russell

Artist: Steve Pugh

Future State played out in January and February 2021 for every other title, but this one’s final issue was published in March. In fact, I would’ve started in on this final ranking earlier if it hadn’t. By its first issue I knew it was a highlight, so of course I was eager to read the final one.

Yeah, I’m a Mark Russell guy. Not the most dedicated reader, but I’ve been keeping track since Prez, which was his mainstream breakthrough, and have been following loosely along ever since. Most of all I’ve been eager to see how far mainstream he can actually go.

Russell readers know his strong suit is social commentary, which tends to run contrary to expected mainstream norms, by which I mean anything remotely resembling traditional superhero storytelling. This wouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t pursue superhero comics, but Russell has. This is the first time he’s tackled Superman, though the focus here is more on Lex Luthor, who seems right up his wheelhouse (and not the first brush between the two; Russell previously tackled Luthor with a Porky Pig team-up).

The premise is Lex retiring to Lexor, a planet from Silver Age comics where he discovered he might pull off being considered the good guy.

The results are more classic Russell social commentary, including the media’s complicity in government messaging, and the public’s willingness to play along, no matter how horrible things really are.

Along the way, Superman, as well as Lois! must outsmart Lex (he’s powerless, literally, on Lexor), whose one ally is a robotic lackey willing to believe anything Lex tells him (the truest of true Lexor devotion), all while Lex flirts with going straight, or as straight as he ever gets, until he determines it simply isn’t in his best interests.

(This is significant because the citizens of Lexor really do believe he’s the good guy, which in Lex Luthor mythology is a big deal, since at times he’s depicted as being bad mostly because he knows he exists in Superman’s shadow.)

I don’t know where Russell goes from here (he’s so far absent from Infinite Frontier), but that’s pretty much always the story with one of the most interesting careers in comics.

Future State - Top Ten: #5. Swamp Thing

 

Writer: Ram V

Artist: Mike Perkins

After the first two weeks of Future State I had declared this one the achievement to beat. When all was said and done four other stories beat it, but that hardly diminishes the first issue of Ram V and Mike Perkins’ Swamp Thing, a master class of tone and setting.

I’m not the biggest Swamp Thing fan. Part of that is because I’m also not the biggest Alan Moore fan. His Swamp Thing was Moore’s calling card before he had any other credentials, and remains one of his most celebrated runs. He famously made existentialism cool in comics when he postulated that Swamp Thing wasn’t even Alec Holland but a plant creature who thought he was, a deconstruction of superhero secret origins that still stands as unique in the modern era. 

But I never got around to reading much of it, and what I have suggests much of it is Moore being Moore, which for me isn’t really my thing.

The closest I came to being a fan of Swamp Thing was Charles Soule’s run in the New 52, which rounded out Scott Snyder’s (which has been completely forgotten by the same rabid Snyder fans who proclaimed his Batman to be the only good thing about the New 52). Soule focused heavily on Swamp Thing mythology, which for me is a reliable source of superhero comic entertainment. 

Anyway, so I didn’t come into Future State expecting to love the Swamp Thing entry.

I hadn’t even been overly involved in the career of Ram V. Ram is an emerging talent who was operating below the radar, looking for a breakout work amid consistently excellent material. For me that breakout was this comic. It’s Ram at his most focused, which means a writer who can usually already have an excellent grasp of the potential in arcane characters had found the one character who unlocked his considerable potential.

The first issue is brilliant setup. The second issue is a letdown insofar as the first is so great it’s disappointing that it had to be wrapped up so quickly.

Fortunately DC understood what it had and immediately commissioned a follow-up mini-series from the same team. I have since been reading it, and several issues in Ram and Perkins once again put their magic on full display, which also had the benefit of helping me stick with Ram’s new Boom! series, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, the second issue of which was even better than the first, which I wouldn’t have found out if I had stopped reading either series when it looked like Ram and Perkins were once again coasting on their laurels. 

Won’t make that mistake again.

Future State - Top Ten: #6. Superman/Wonder Woman

 

Writer: Dan Watters

Artist: Leila Del Duca

My favorite thing about these issues is the Lee Weeks art on the covers. Weeks is one of the treasures of modern comics, doesn’t get enough appreciation for that. 

The issues themselves are a welcome reprise of the New 52 team up between Superman and Wonder Woman, with the obvious distinction that there it was a budding romance and here it’s the next generation of Jon Kent and Yara Flor. It’s Jon’s best Future State showing, and another highlight for Yara.

It’s also, very sneaky, evocative of All Star Superman, which for some is kind of the career highlight for Grant Morrison.

That’s how the credit pages appear in both issues, which is the style used in Morrison’s comic. Solaris, the tyrant sun, is also featured. It’s pretty deliberate.

Otherwise, writer Dan Watters and artist Leila Del Duca follow their own fancy. It’s just great to see a comic everyone sees as a classic finally show up as a source of inspiration. Obviously Watchmen shows up like that all the time. This is a welcome way to see Morrison finally reaching that status.

Future State - Top Ten: #7. Aquaman

 

Writer: Brandon Thomas

Artist: Daniel Sampere

To be clear, the casting, and subsequent performance, of Jason Momoa, was the best thing to ever happen to Aquaman.

Aquaman is one of the oldest DC superheroes, and yet his modern reputation in pop culture is as a joke, the dude who “talks to fish.” Peter David’s feverish efforts in the ‘90s to transform him into a more gritty character (sans hand, added hook, beard, long hair) did little outside comic book circles to change this.

Geoff Johns elevated Aquaman as much as he could in the early New 52, writing him simultaneously in the pages of his own comic and Justice League, including the crossover saga “Throne of Atlantis.” Dan Abnett had a much-lauded run in the Rebirth era.

But in the effort to make him look more authentic, DC also pigeonholed him in underwater politics that only further isolated Aquaman.

Momoa’s Aquaman is the most approachable and fun presence of the DCEU. Brandon Thomas’s Future State version (starring a next-generation Aquaman) is the first time a comic book version of the character feels like that.

Simply put, it’s a fun read! Thomas is a new recruit best known for various Image projects, and he has a spectacular debut in these pages. Even if Aquaman still doesn’t command attention, the material is getting there. DC could do a lot worse than give Thomas a permanent assignment, or at least one of those follow-ups, with this version of Aquaman.

Future State - Top Ten: #8. Batman/Superman

 

Writer: Gene Luen Yang

Artist: Ben Oliver

As far as I’m concerned, it seems overly difficult to find a good Batman/Superman comic. The modern gold standard is still the original, Jeph Loeb’s, which achieved its magic by relying heavily on dueling caption narrative. Of course, DC has kept a team-up title going (switching the order of the names, as Batman has once again supplanted Superman in popularity, beginning with with a Loeb comic; I still have no idea how idiot fans managed to convince themselves he’s a bad writer, which of course happened over at Marvel) ever since. No one has seriously challenged Loeb’s work.

Until Gene Luen Yang.

Yang is one of the greats working in superhero comics at the moment. He spent a bunch of time hiding in New Super-Man (the Chinese Superman), and then took over Jeff Lemire’s Terrifics, before getting this Future State assignment.

Yang always knows how to keep things lively. A lot of writers get caught up in tropes, unable to personalize them, so that a superhero comic is just a superhero comic, or try desperately to make it stand out (some succeed, some are just desperate, and only “succeed” because of equally desperate fans). Yang might be able to break off from that because he’s the rare superhero comics writer whose knowledge base isn’t totally superhero comics themselves. Yang made his name writing graphic novels translating his Chinese-American and Chinese heritage. As such he’s aware of the need to adapt rather than simply write. The result, as I’ve encountered it is a style that’s both familiar and distinctive.

His Batman/Superman is a friendship (a friendship) presented in dialogue. They aren’t rivals. It’s not secretly Batman humoring or condescending to Superman, as writers can sometimes slip into. It’s bona fide mutual respect. (Too often in superhero comics, writers will allow the popular status of a character define how they’re presented rather than depict a dynamic, engaging personality.)

With that as a base, Yang also unfolds an actual story involving a father and son caught up in Professor Pyg’s latest scheme, which also ties in with the early days of the Magistrate era that plays out in the Batman titles elsewhere in Future State. Being tangential to that arc, Yang’s story is free to do as it pleases, and also serves as an object lesson in what the other creators might have achieved had they considered their options.

The result is perhaps the Future State comic with the lowest profile but perhaps highest return on investment. Yang has since graduated to the main title, with his innovative approach wowing unsuspecting readers in his first issue, which I skipped (but corrected by the second).

Future State - Top Ten: #9. The Next Batman

 

Writer: John Ridley 

Artist/ Nick Derington, Laura Braga

Here’s the Future State project that received so much attention it guaranteed the seemingly scrapped 5G was going to have to happen somehow (and also ended up giving us, finally, John Ridley’s even better The Other History of the DC Universe).

It was worth it.

It was worth it to get Future State itself as well as Next Batman. Ridley’s Batman, by any other name, whoever under the cowl, reads like a refreshing back-to-basics after years of taking the character at epic size. Finally, Batman is just Batman again!

And the twist concerning his secret identity was great! Fans took it for granted that “Batwing” Luke Fox was getting an upgrade, but instead it’s his brother Tim “Jace” Fox, who comes packaged as a Bruce Wayne with his whole family quite unexpectedly unfortunately still in tow! Ridley’s most radical statement is actually that Bruce was perhaps better off an orphan! So that the real thrust of the story is how his family views Jace, especially Luke, who seems to have no idea his brother is the new Batman, and far more suited for the role!

Some fans were disappointed, at least as far as not getting to have Nick Derington on art in all four issues. Me, if there was any disappointment it’s that the Magistrate arc had to play out in all the other Batman comics from Future State. I think it diluted the full impact of Next Batman. In the Superman comics, there were clear divisions, and every story got to depend on its own merits. Saddled with the same story, the Batman comics felt like none of them got to actually accomplish anything. 

But Ridley at least had his emphasis in the right place. And now I’m enjoying the follow-up!

Future State - Top Ten: #10. Dark Detective

 

Writer: Mariko Tamaki

Artist: Dan Mora

I’ll admit upfront, my interest going into Dark Detective was artist Dan Mora, who readers will probably most recognize from the pages of Once & Future, but for me Grant Morrison’s Klaus. I think he’s a great talent just waiting for full recognition.

The comic being told with his art this time is as worthy of his talent as ever (he also knows how to pick projects, so that’s good).

In the greater scope of Future State, it was probably going to be tough being a Batman book and not being Next Batman, the one that got all the hype and arguably the reason Future State ended up happening at all, but Dark Detective has Bruce Wayne, unexpectedly still very much active.

According to recent canon (“Joker War”) Batman’s just lost his billions, and so he will, at the moment, have to accustom himself to fighting crime on a budget. In Dark Detective he’s had a similar setback, having been assassinated by the Magistrate (in both identities!) and now being forced to exist underground.

One of the neat aspects is Bruce and his roommates, surely a novelty of Batman comics if there ever was one. Mariko Tamaki and Mora have subsequently transitioned to the pages of Detective Comics. I would personally love it if they ended up pursuing a pre-Year One arc involving Bruce’s world travels before returning to mount his crusade. They seem ideally positioned for it.

Future State Countdown: Prelude

Now that the final issue of Future State has been released (last week), I can finish ranking the event (all 52 issues worth, for those keeping score at home). I enjoyed the whole thing. Some of it more, certainly. So this countdown is not, as is so common, suggesting the stuff at the bottom is terrible and deserves scorn. There’s enough of that on the internet.

Without further ado:

24. Immortal Wonder Woman

The one I was least interested in comes closest to calling for outright dismissal. I just didn’t see much real inspiration in these pages. I saw things that just kind of happened. So I’m not really going to write about this one.

23. Harley Quinn

Now, I liked this one! If you go back to look at my thoughts for the first issue, I liked it a lot! I liked the unusual art for a Harley Quinn comic (lately comic cheesecake, if there was ever such a thing...!), so the real issue here is that the second issue wasn’t as impressive as the first, which happens, in two-issue stories like these, and one of my favorite Future State titles had the same problem, but its first issue just happened to be better (and I’ve since read the first issue of the resulting miniseries, of that doesn’t give it away).

22. Shazam!

I saw complaints about this one, but I enjoyed it, the lowest ranking where the ideas were at the very least great. Billy Batson and Shazam have been forced to make a terrible bargain, and one of the consequences is that once again it’s impossible to really explain the predicament to anyone. The idea of splitting them in two is a good one, and at the very least has not been used nearly enough. The complaints were mostly surface (Shazam is bad???), the kind you expect.

21. Suicide Squad

The hook, for me, is Superboy, Kon-El, in the spotlight. That’s the whole thing for me. The story riffs on the clone controversies of the New 52 but otherwise features the classic version of the character, as the white hat reluctantly leading the team via Amanda Walker’s typical manipulations. Also featured is the next attempt to pivot Black Adam as a good guy ahead of next year’s movie. I love the character (thanks to 52), so this is not a tough sell for me.

20. Kara Zor-El, Superwoman 

In a less crowded field at the top I could’ve enjoyed this one a lot more, a fine character study of a familiar character. I guess it just felt like a junior version of the bigger successes.

19. Green Lantern

I might have decided to be annoyed with the new writer of the monthly comic, debuting in these pages, so was kind of prejudiced against the lead material. I might grow up eventually. The supporting material is good.

18. Nightwing

Of all the Batman material, there seemed the least effort put into Nightwing’s specific role, so it’s fairly generic but at least he’s represented, which is always a plus (DC fans love to obsess over a previous regime’s “obsession with getting rid of him,” despite continuous publication of monthly solo adventures).

17. Robin Eternal

Tim Drake’s spotlight shines in his response to a Lazarus Pit resurrection, which ironically might better explain than we’ve gotten otherwise what happened to a different Robin, Jason Todd.

16. Teen Titans

The big mystery of Red X remains a tease in these issues, and will instead play out in the pages of Teen Titans Academy, the first issue of which I have subsequently read and enjoyed.

15. Justice League 

I loved Williamson’s reprise of the Hyperclan, and his depiction of the full assembly of the new generation. And Ram V’s JLDark.

14. Catwoman

V is also at the helm of this heist flick that weaves around the further fate of the late Bruce Wayne.

13.  The Flash

The further redemption (or corruption!) of Wally West was a great tease in this one, as well as a reflection on the legacy of Barry Allen. As a longtime fan of the Speedsters, this was win-win for me.

12. Legion of Super-Heroes

He wasn’t even gone from Marvel when fans decided that he had deviated from a previous existence of doing everything right to suddenly being incapable of it, but I liked the later Bendis there and I have enjoyed his DC work, including this madcap version of his Legion. I mean, if ever there was a team perfectly suited to his machine gun dialogue, it’s the Legion! I just ordered copies of the trade collections for the regular series, including the brilliant Millennium prelude, so yeah, I’m that guy, the one who really enjoy this stuff.

11. Superman of Metropolis 

The adventures of the next Superman had a better spotlight. Still enjoyed the duel with Brainiac and the ironic way it’s resolved.

The top ten (have you figured out there’s a twist somewhere?) will come one at a time! With pictures!

Future State Timeline

The interesting thing about Future State is that it doesn’t all happen at the same time. In fact, there’s apparently a considerable scale to the whole thing. Here’s a timeline from DC Nation Presents Future State:

2025

Arkham Knights, Batgirls, Batman/Superman, Next Batman, Catwoman, Gotham City Sirens, Harley Quinn, Grifters, Nightwing, Outsiders, Red Hood, Robin Eternal

2027

Dark Detective, The Flash, Teen Titans

2029

Shazam

2030

Aquaman, Black Racer, Justice League Dark, Metropolis Midnighter, Mister Miracle, Suicide Squad, Superman of Metropolis, Superman: Worlds of War, Nubia

2035

The Last Lantern

2040

Justice League

2050

Superwoman, Wonder Woman, Imperious Lex

2070

Superman/Wonder Woman

3000

House of El, Legion of Superheroes 

4500

Swamp Thing

82020

Black Adam

End of Time

Immortal Wonder Woman

Ranking the first two weeks of Future State, plus Crossover and more!

Fortified with pandemic money, I decided to read at least the first month of Future State, the DC thing that is not 5G but was originally intended to be. I love these DC event blocks whatever their origins, from Tangent Comics to Convergence. Granted, 5G was conceived as a kind of new Silver Age update, a line wide reset, even more radical than the New 52, a new generation of superheroes, including the big three. DC fired Dan DiDio to stop it from actually happening, but it’s...pretty much going to happen anyway. A lot of people were fired to help set up a new generation of creators, many of whom are unofficially beginning their runs here. I feel bad for people losing their jobs in the pandemic, but I also like bold new ideas executed well, and this is what Future State is already proving. From these first two weeks, I see a ton of good.

I’m ordering all this from Midtown. It took ages to get the first box, and then the second of course arrived a few days later, so while everyone else has just digested the third week, here I’m working with just the first two. Well anyway, here’s a ranking, as depicted in the image:

1. Swamp Thing #1 - Ram V, every time I’ve had a look at his work (mostly in the pages of Justice League Dark), has wowed me as working beyond the level of his peers. This might be the project that makes him, or should make him, hard to ignore. This is as good as Swamp Thing has ever been, a return to the famous existential state of Alan Moore. Mike Perkins, another longtime standout, is on art. 

2. Wonder Woman #1 - Joëlle Jones is another creator finally getting her full due spotlight, as writer and artist of this bold new Brazilian Wonder Woman, steeped in mythology, lively, looking and reading brilliantly. 

3. The Next Batman #1 - I have a feeling Future State is happening at all because this past summer’s BLM protests finally made DC publish John Ridley’s Other History of the DC Universe (the second issue of which publishes next week, and which I will write about... a week later?), and this as well. He’s even getting a followup miniseries with the concept. And it will be worth it. This is a Batman who is a fresh look at the familiar concept, a Wayne Enterprises scion who’s been away and is now entering the impossible task of cleaning up Gotham. The big benefit is that it’s a man with an actual family, Tim Fox, whose brother Luke once filled the costume of Batwing. 

4. Dark Detective #1 - Bruce Wayne is dead, Batman is dead. Long live Bruce Wayne, long live Batman. The art is from Dan Mora, Grant Morrison’s brilliant collaborator in Klaus. But the highlight of this book is the Grifter backup feature. It’s the first time I have ever read a competent Grifter comic, so that’s a very welcome development.

5. Superman of Metropolis #1 - The Jon Kent lead is fine, but like the above comic a backup is the real highlight, the Shilo Norman Mister Miracle feature, with standout art from Valentine de Landro.

6. Kara Zor-El, Superwoman #1 - Marguerites Bennett and Sauvage are once again a potent combination here, writing a grownup Supergirl still making peace, or perhaps finally having done so, with arriving so much later than Superman (and now having his son to contend with, too).

7. Justice League #1 - The lead features the next generation League, which is great in and of itself, until it gets even better with the return of the Hyperclan (!!!), plus a Ram V JLDark backup in which, among other things, Detective Chimp has become the other half of Etrigan.

8. Harley Quinn #1 - The big highlight here is the art from Simone DiMeo, which subverts all the usual isn’t-she-a-rebel-but-also-sooo-sexy stylings of Harley Quinn by...making pretty much everything else the focal point. It might be difficult for some to appreciate what the panels actually do, but for me it’s hugely refreshing. 

9. The Flash #1 - The whole Flash family is here, and the story is a riff on Wally Is Bad!!! that’s been a thing since Heroes in Crisis, which is only going to further infuriate those fans, but the story quickly gives another explanation for what’s happening here, and thus a clever setup for the classic Flash battles with the science-based weaponry of his Rogues. For me it’s really just great seeing that family back together, including Max Mercury.

10. Green Lantern #1 - The lead story from hardcore Hal Jordan hater Geoffrey Thorne is yet another tale of the Corps in crisis (it’s time to put a moratorium on that, even more than Superman Reveals His Secret Identity!!! or Daredevil’s Secret Identity Is Revealed!!!), but happily it features G’Nort (obligatory reminder that it’s actually pronounced “Nort”). But the Guy Gardner backup is the real draw, in which he actually finds himself in the position of solving (a) world(’s) peace, with a bar. Until Lobo shows up.

11. Robin Eternal #1 - The big draw for me in this one (besides a neat subplot with the deaf lady who possibly comes from the pages of We Are Robin) is the art from Eddy Barrows. I cannot fathom how he hasn’t attained superstar status. 

12. Superman/Wonder Woman #1 - There’s no reason to dislike it except I was seriously wowed by the new Wonder Woman’s solo book so it kind of pales in comparison.

13. Teen Titans #1 - I look forward to reading the second issue so I can hopefully better appreciate the intrigue surrounding Red X (a character making his canon debut after debuting in the manic cartoon). This is a concept that will be showing up in the post-Future State comics slate, by the way. 

I don’t know if I will be continuing the ranking concept with the next batch (much less shuffling all of them together, much less revising at the end of next month), but that was fun. I like to thwart expectations for these sorts of things, besides, the assumption always being that if you like the stuff at the top you probably don’t the stuff at the bottom. I liked all of this, generally. Some of it, particularly at the top, was truly great material. I’d hate for fans to miss out on it because they fear change or dismiss this tangent matter.

I had a look at a preview of the new Eternals comic from Marvel. I know there’s a movie coming at...some point. I have no idea why, except maybe because Marvel knew DC was working on a New Gods movie, and the Eternals are the Marvel version of the New Gods, also created by Jack Kirby, with not even a tenth the legacy. The new comic seems equally pointless.

I read the second and third (I had previously read the first) issues of Donny Cates’s Crossover. It’s a clever concept. It might wear thin, depending how long it goes. Image tends to dilute its best stuff this way. It’s weird, because Mark Millar ruins all his stuff by making it so short, but Image otherwise lets everything else drag on and on. Everyone is currently waiting to see if there’s going to be more Saga (which would have hugely benefited from not just throwing every weird idea at the, ah, saga), while Kirkman finally admitted he really didn’t actually have anything else to say about Walking Dead. 

Snyder ended Death Metal. It’s a thing that happened because it could, weird stuff being weird for the sake of being weird, which is what Snyder does. 

I read the second issue of Kaare Andrews’ AWA comic E-ratic, which doesn’t look anything like his Spider-Man Reign, alas. But is still a pretty good read. Just saddled with a terrible title.

Generations Shattered turned out to be classic DC storytelling straight outta the ‘90s. Which was the whole point. Is there more? Probably?

Green Hornet #5 from Dynamite featured one of several Lee Weeks covers from these two weeks, which admittedly was one of two reasons I bought it. The other being that it was written by Scott Lobdell, recently finishing up a decade at DC. The story, or at least the art, evokes the classic Batman animated series, which I assume was quite intentional, Green Hornet as a TV property spinning out of another Batman show.

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4 from Boom! and Al Ewing was interesting enough to justify having already ordered the fifth issue. This was a reprint. I ordered another reprint, from Chip Zdarsky’s Daredevil, in a box arriving...soonish, but passed on the new issue from this coming week. But the cat’s out of the bag: Elektra is now moonlighting as Daredevil.

WW84 lobby display...but when???

When I went to the movies at New Years, I caught this lobby display, handily repurposed from WW84’s original release date. Figured I’d share it. Great movie, too, by the way.