Hope for Superman and Darkness for Flash in this Week’s Future State Round-Up

Welcome back to the land of tomorrow, where things are still pretty much as crappy as they’ve been for the Flash family in the recent past in Brandon Vietti, Brandon Peterson and Will Conrad’s Future State: The Flash #2. Meanwhile, the heroes of Metropolis get to put a check in the wins column over in Future State: Superman of Metropolis #2.

Future State: The Flash #2

Writer: Brandon Vietti
Artist: Brandon Peterson & Will Conrad
Colorist: Mike Atiyeh
Letterer: Steve Wands

Damn it feels bad to be a speedster in Future State: The Flash #2. Picking up a few months after the speedster bloodbath that was the opening issue, writer Brandon Vietti, artists Will Conrad and Brandon Peterson, and colorist Mike Atiyeh take us deeper into the Flash War that is Barry Allen’s crusade against former partner Wally West (and the necrotic entity puppeting him).

But while the resolution of said war goes to some weirder, more visually trippy places than I expected it to, this Flash finale issue continues to give the Flash boys a real bad time in the DCU. And that is wearing mighty thin for someone who genuinely loves most of the speedster characters. Though gifted with a novel psychedelia and neat re-uses of the Flash Rogues’ many wonderful toys, Future State: The Flash #2 is little more than yet more needless Wally West murderfesting.

Starting with the good, the actual showdown between a depowered Barry Allen, armed with retooled and deadlier versions of his enemies’ weapons, and the zombie-like Wally West is fun to read. Edged with a nifty sheen and surprisingly ‘70s inspired artwork from Brandon Peterson and Will Conrad, ramped up further by the cooly confident colors of Mike Atiyeh, the sequence really leaps from the page as the two square off on two completely different ends of the power spectrum.

The artists also mine a great deal of visual pop from the weapons of the Flash Rogues, now in the hands of Barry Allen. Lashing out with weapons like Captain Boomerang’s boomerangs, Captain Cold’s cold-gun, the Turtle’s “anti-Speed Force shells” and many more, the artists bring a real whiz-bang weirdness to the grim-darkness of the whole proceedings that is much appreciated.

The script for this thing is really where the problems lie. Cracking the mind of Barry Allen while facing him with a foe that can literally eat his hope toward saving the world forever, writer Brandon Vietti just keeps throwing the apparent darkness that has become The Flash title around with little respite. The stroke of the ending beat is particularly cruel, setting Barry up for at least ONE win in this series, only to then snatch it away and doom him to an existence of running the earth as a ghost, tied forever to the demon that has infested the body of Wally West. It is…a lot, after a great deal more in the opening and it all feels like too much.

It also amounts to a pretty bittersweet experience overall. While the artwork brings a real novel and underutilized weirdness that superhero comics ignore, the script here is just more hammering down of Barry Allen and the Flash Family, a set of characters that have been down and kicked for a few years too many by now. I was hoping the future might look bright for Barry Allen but Future State: The Flash #2 proves that that bright future isn’t really a priority for DC right now.

Future State: Superman of Metropolis #2

Writer: Sean Lewis & Brandon Easton
Artist: John Timms, Valentine de Landro, and Cully Hammer
Colorist: Gabe Eltaeb, Marissa Louise, and Laura Martin
Letterer: Dave Sharpe & AndWorld Design

The Action Comics of Future State sticks the landing in the groundedly entertaining Future State: Superman of Metropolis #2. Written by Sean Lewis and Brandon Easton and given a wide array of fantastic visuals from a stacked bench of visual talent, Superman of Metropolis #2 finds Jon Kent and the other assorted superheroes of The City of Tomorrow facing their first big tests in the wake of Future State’s opening years.

For Jon that test is his choice to bottle the city of Metropolis, facing off against the fallout of that choice and man-made Brainiac variant Brain Cells, along with his army of cloned faceless Supermen from across the eras. For the Metropolis Guardian and Mister Miracle, the problems are a little closer to the street, but no less compelling as the title once again provides us the full scope of the city’s heroes and their exploits. All wrapped up in consistently kinetic, eye-grabbing artwork. I am still pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this series and hope Future State: Superman of Metropolis #2 signals a better direction for the Superman line in the coming weeks.

Neatly trisected once again between the main story of Jon Kent and the backups of Guardian and Mister Miracle, this second installment of Jon Kent’s first years as Superman makes a fantastic use of the backup based storytelling conventions this event has been built on. Though the downshift in scale and visual look from the main story into the backups is still a bit jarring, the actual content itself is fun.

Writer Sean Lewis bookends the issue, providing us a rousing self-actualization from Jon in the main story supported by the return of a brand new Newsboy Legion behind the Guardian in the issue’s last story. Nestled neatly between the two is a mind-bending, but practically explained Mister Miracle story, picking up directly after his latest “death” in the opening issue and writing around his trip to Warworld in Superman: Worlds of War.  It all runs together rather smoothly and provides once again the canny mix of high heroics and street-level daring do that Superman comics can deliver once they really get cooking.

The artwork comes together once again for the finale. The scaling of the art teams is a bit stuttering; going from the conceptual and splashy artwork of the first two teams into the grounded, almost gritty look of Cully Hammer still doesn’t cut together as well as it should. But even with the downstep, the actual panels and pages themselves hang together well on a tonal level, keeping each story at least looking somewhat similar (despite the very different points of view they each come with).

It all culminates in another unexpected win from what was deemed the most “boring looking” title upon Future State’s announcement. Delivering a solid triple-feature and rock solid DC action, Future State: Superman of Metropolis #2 might just be the sleeper hit of this whole fracking thing.