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!