The movie world of spies, not counting thrillers like Jason Borne, feature all kind of crazy gadgets, from Austin Powers to the Kingsmen. It’s a tradition started or at least popularized by James Bond movies (though recent James Bond movies dropped them). That’s why Fansided contributor Chad Porto makes the case that these kind of spy movies are totally science fiction.
I’m not giving each group their own article just to draw things out. Most people are only offering an overview of the whole event. I want to actually take time to theorize about where it’s going (though we only have solicitations for the first month of this two month event), look over the costumes, and look over the logos. The logos, as you can see from the promo art, is trying to evoke a futuristic feel. Some of them work and some of them just look lazy or would have been better off playing with the regular logo. We’ll go over that in due course.
Whether or not 5G was intended to be DC’s new direction (and given DiDio’s history I’m still doubtful it wasn’t his plan, or at least he was going to do it for a lot longer than Perch might think) Future State is just going to be a shorter two month event. Every title is canceled except for stuff not tied to the main DC Universe and of course some Batman related side comics. Instead we’re getting larger comics with three different stories and a bunch of one-shots or two issue specials that tie in to the main event…except there doesn’t appear to be a central comic here that the event rallies around. I think that’s another check in the “new direction” column and I’m curious how they’re planning to undo all this by March.
I’m not going to go over every story in each family because that will take to long. It will be a deeper dive than some other articles and videos I’ve seen on the matter though. We’ll start with the Batman family, as it’s the one DC cares about most even now and this does spring out of Dark Nights, the multiversal tale all about how awesome Batman is. I’ve gone over the press release and the January solicitations and I did notice one or two interesting omissions that makes me worried about where they’re taking this. Note that these are only theories and I could (hopefully) be wrong, but given where this comes from I lack hope…and I’m tired of saying that about the universe that gave us Superman. Oh, we’ll get to that one tomorrow.
Patrick Stewart got the same reaction when Picard hit CBS All-Access.
Star Trek: The Next Generation #80
FINAL ISSUE
DC Comics (February, 1996)
“The Abandoned”
WRITER: Michael Jan Friedman
PENCILER: Gordon Purcell
INKER: Terry Pallot
COLORIST: Gene D’Angelo
LETTERER: Chris Eliopoulos
EDITORS: Margaret Clark & Dana Kurtin
Well, this is going to be a fun few days.
Let’s all be honest here. We know this is 5G with a better name and we know why it exists. Dan DiDio tried time and again to get his Darker DC to make contact with fans and while it drew in a few people who like that kind of story it wasn’t able to replace the lost legion of fans who loved what the DC Universe already was and what it stood for. I like Star Trek and I like Star Wars but I don’t want one to imitate the other…or continue in the hands of the current creative teams but that’s another argument. DiDio stopped DC from doing what DC does best while trying to be Marvel and I wasn’t surprised to hear he was responsible for doing the same thing to Transformers when Beast Wars became Beast Machines. It was a warning and we didn’t heed it until it was too late.
When DiDio left we hoped that the 5G idea was going to die with him. Unfortunately his departure happened during the 2020 plague, where Diamond shut down all operations and DC decided to make everyone stop creating instead of using the opportunity to come up with a better direction for the DC Universe and working on stories closer to Rebirth than the New 52. So when comic stores opened up again and Diamond resumed sending stuff out (though still asking for solicits when nobody could order anything…have I mentioned Diamond is run by idiots?) DC had nothing new in place. So the best they could do was tailor this into an event rather than DiDio trying to replace everything in the foolish notion he could draw in more of his kind of people by tossing out everything iconic about the DC Comics brand. We are so better off without him.
At best “Future State” is a retool so they can put something out on store shelves. Whether this leads into the third reboot in the past decade (though Rebirth was more of a fixed direction until DiDio was put back in charge and refused to acknowledge it because he’s obsessed with his vision…just start your own comic company!) or a Zero Hour style tweaking has yet to be seen but we can comb through the announcement and get an idea of what’s coming. I am not hopeful.
“Strange, I can’t see my house from here. The gag lied to me!”
Spider-Man 2099 #1
Marvel Comics (November, 1992)
I should note that I do have the reprint that came with my Spider-Man 2099 action figure but I’m reviewing the version reprinted in Spider-Man Family. Only one more after this. According to the Grand Comics Database the issue’s title is “Begin the Future History of Spider-Man 2099″ but I don’t see that in this story and I don’t remember a title in the Toy Biz reprint either. Part of it is written on the car with the credits but I’m not convinced that’s supposed to be the title of the story.
WRITER: Peter David
PENCILER: Rick Leonardi
INKER: Al Willamson
COLORIST: Steve Buccellato
LETTERER: Rick Parker
EDITOR: Joey Cavalieri
Here at BW Media Spotlight we (which is just me so…I) proudly support introducing kids to the world of comics, even too many comic creators don’t seem to want to make comics for kids and certainly don’t want to make their comics all-ages so kids and adults can enjoy them together. These people generally hate kids but I’m going off-topic. While some look down on comics as a form of storytelling introducing kids to comics can be a benefit to both education and entertainment. Susana Romero, in this article posted at Bleeding Fool, makes the case for introducing kids to comics.
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW’s Daily Videos: Other Takes On DC Future State
Not to be confused with the future state of DC comics. That’s still up in the air. Instead I have two separate videos discussing the upcoming event that I want to use to put this all in context. First comes from Just Some Guy and the other by Comics By Perch. There may be some cursing.
This is an example of some of the harsher critiques of Future State and its 5G predecessor. However, there’s a counterpoint from Perch that even 5G may not have been a new direction (though with Dan DiDio I don’t think any of us would have been surprised) and while he would agree that the story will be uninteresting and a waste of time he’s not so harsh in his assessment.
I’ll be doing my deep dives into the three “families” starting later tonight (or today, or even tomorrow depending on your time zone) but I will be referring to this information so I figured it best to get these videos out there for context.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on October 21, 2020 in DC Spotlight and tagged Comics By Perch, commentary, DC Future State, Just Some Guy.
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