Friday, October 10, 2014

Batman: Futures End #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Fawkes bases this story on the oddest back-up story in "Detective Comics" #27, the one where we learn that Bruce set up a succession of clones to take his place in the future.  Answering a question that we never asked, Fawkes gives us the back story, showing Bruce's successful incursion into Lex Luthor's headquarters to steal cloning technology that Luthor ensured that he alone possessed.

Beyond the fact that I didn't find the story all that interesting the first time, Fawkes' attempt to make it so is undermined by Aco's art.  We're supposed to be seeing Bruce's last hurrah before he finally succumbs to his wounds and loses his ability to walk.  Instead, Aco's art reduces his heroics to some indistinct activities.  Bruce essentially just throws some things at some other things and success ensues.  Fawkes doesn't help matters by not explaining why Bat-device #4 successfully defeated Robot C, but it's really Aco's failure to show us the events clearly that pushes this comic over the line into the "not so great" category.

Moreover, Fawkes never really takes the opportunity to explore the only interesting question to come from this premise, namely why Bruce feels that he alone can be Batman.  His decision to use clones is a repudiation of everyone who ever worked with him -- Dick, Barbara, Jason, Tim, Damian -- because it inherently finds them lacking.  Although Fawkes didn't have time to answer that question fully in just one issue, I would've at least liked to have seen it addressed.  Instead, Alfred's question to that effect is left unanswered and we're left with a pretty forgettable issue.

** (two of five stars)

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