Good Endings Abound in Future State Justice League, Superwoman and Superman/Wonder Woman

The Future is still NOW as DC’s Future State rolls into wave six! This week we bring you the fabled Detective Comics Comics triple-shot! Join us, futurecateers, as we kill the moon with Marguerite Bennett and Marguerite Sauvage’s Kara Zor-El, Superwoman #2, engage in some team building with Josuha Williamson, Ram V, Marcelo Maiolo, Marcio Takara, Robson Rocha, and Romulo Fajardo, Jr’s Justice League/Justice League Dark finale and witness feats of myth & super-science with the new a potential new DC OTP in Dan Watters, Leila Del Duca, and Nick Filardi’s Superman/Wonder Woman #2! 

The Worlds and Heroes of Tomorrow! TODAY! (Or, at least, three more weeks…)

Future State: Kara Zor-El, Superwoman #2

Writer: Marguerite Bennett
Artist and Colorist: Marguerite Sauvage
Letterer: Wes Abbott

Superwoman inspires a galaxy to be more in the beautifully moving finale of Future State: Kara Zor-El, Superwoman. Once again shepherded by our favorite Marguerites, this second and final issue of the series finds the “forgotten” member of the House of El facing down an ancient blood feud from across the stars. But when that feud threatens the safety of her Moon colony and destroys her version of the Fortress of Solitude, Kara is forced to display a power, fueled by her own deep harbored resentment and self-doubt, that might position her as a self-professed “tyrant queen”.

But while that might sound a touch Snyder Cut, both Bennett and Sauvage pivot wonderfully in the issue’s denouement, settling the brisk plot with a joyful and genuinely affecting love letter to Superwoman’s legacy, both as the savior of this last vestige of galactic community and as a symbol of goodness and change throughout the Detective Comics Comics line. Though I think this particular series ends right before it gets to some really good stuff, Future State: Kara Zor-El, Superwoman #2 does right by the secretly best member of the Superman Family.

Admittedly a lot of the plot involving Kara’s new alien companion, Lynari, and her aunt Kimara is just comic book nonsense and positions a sort of flimsy “political” plot to the emotionally charged action that I feel muddles the premise a bit more than Bennett intended. But that said, the actual emotional followthrough OF the plot is wonderful and provides the title a neatly compact, less-action-heavy resolution to the series, guiding the issue into it’s tremendous final beats (which might be too good and tear inducing to spoil here). It even manages to throw in some pretty nice Super-action as Kara tussles and overpowers Kimara through almost storybook inspired fisticuffs.

Though it doesn’t have the same “gimmicks” as a Worlds of War or Superman of Metropolis, I feel that Future State: Kara Zor-El, Superwoman bares the standard of the House of El very well, providing readers a much more emotionally focused and operatic take on the Super Family than we are used to seeing in modern Super titles. Proving that not all Kryptonians solve their problems with only their fists, Future State: Kara Zor-El, Superwoman #2 gracefully ends Kara’s efforts in this event with poise, heart and an eye toward what the S means to us as readers and people. 

Future State: Justice League #2

Writers: Joshua Williamson & Ram V
Artists: Robson Rocha & Marcio Takara
Inker: Daniel Henriques
Colorists: Romulo Fajardo Jr. & Marcelo Maiolo
Letterers: Tom Napolitano & Rob Leigh

The Nu-JLA win the day with the power of friendship and Ram V’s fave cult-faves fight for the right to sling spells in the absurdly entertaining finale of Future State: Justice League!

Headlined once again by Joshua Williamson and Ram V and graced one last time by the gorgeously cinematic one-two punch of Robson Rocha and Marcio Takara, this team based finale finds both our squads at a crossroads. But not the Devil one (though it wouldn’t totally be out of place in this title). 

In the main action, our heroes, having been exiled to a hell planet and replaced by the Hyperclan, find themselves having to break their own rules in order to gain the upperhand, divulging personal information to one another in an attempt to curb the Hyperclan’s mimicry. While in the mighty and magical backup, the demon Etrigan and his wayward allies must look within their souls and move past their shared trauma to stand against Merlin and his forces before they gain control over all of Earth’s magic.

From page one, panel one, this finale issue is in a dead sprint. The Hyperclan have gained the trust and adulation of the people of Earth. Obviously, they don’t know they are wearing the skins of the Justice League in order to do it, but you have to take what you can get apparently in the future. But while the Hyperclan mustache-twirls on Earth-0 (the explicitly named Earth of Future State), the real Leaguers languish on a barren planet, the same planet their forebears exiled the Hyperclan to all those years and volumes ago.

The Hyperclan’s hyper-plan is absolutely shoe leathery in a way you can’t really get around but the real sparks from Williamson come from the interactions between the Leaguers, all bickering and bantering as they try to suss out if they are actually the real deals or just White Martians in highly detailed cosplay. This whole sequence really highlights the wonderful, and instantly forged rapport between this new team and even manages to throw in a bunch of genuinely charming character texture in and around the characters to boot! 

Rocha and Fajardo, Jr. also really play up the moment, blocking the characters well across the barren “staging” and allowing them plenty of engaging expressionism to cut the really quick moving action. It all culminates in a stellar ending beat as the League moves into their next stage, looking to get closer as comrades and opening up their roster to all manner of juicy potential roster expansions (Tim Drake! Mister Miracle! Miss Martian! And more!).

It all moves…rather briskly, I have to say. And the main action is a bit hamstrung by Williamson’s wordiness, as big-mommy-milker-esque balloons choke the kineticism of Robson and Fajardo, Jr’s artwork momentarily with unwieldy villain monologues. But even with those slight quibbles, the end result is absolutely charming and makes a great use of the whole roster, both light and dark, positioning them for neat, clean follow ups in the incoming “reboots” of both titles. Obviously people’s mileages are going to vary on the, “The Real Victory is the Friends We Made Along the Way” aspects of these stories, but if you are into that (like I am), Future State: Justice League #2 is absolutely the book for you.

And then Ram V,  Marcio Takara and Marcelo Maiolo give us a dark, Vertigo flavored aperitif with the JLD backup! Merlin’s war to control magic has reached a fever pitch and the daemon Etrigan cannot afford to continue to sit on the sidelines. Hinged around the new and improved Doctor Fate Khalid Ben-Hassin and the unexpectedly engaging symbiosis of Detective Chimp and Etrigan, Ram and company give us a stirring last stand turned reunion against Merlin and his cruel knights Enchantress and Jason Blood. Just putting a nice dark icing on top of this already pretty solidly constructed cape comic cake.

Like I said above, someone else could absolutely read this and think it pretty sacaraine and cloying. And that wouldn’t be an unfair read! But for my money, I will take jaunty, well-laid out team books over any old grim/gritty bullshit any day of the week. I am happy to report that Future State: Justice League #2 is for sure the former and it’s okay if it never really reached higher than that during its opening two-parter.

Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman #2

Writer: Dan Watters
Artist: Leila del Duca
Colorist: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Tom Napolitano

The 7 Trials of Yara Florr and Jon Kent are just getting started in the immensely charming and endearingly weird finale of Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman. Armed once again with the sharp wit and even sharper ethos of writer Dan Watters and shined with a dewy, cinemascope inspired look and feel by art team Leila Del Duca and Nick Filardi, this second installment of
“The Planet’s Finest” finds the heroes switching gigs for a minute.

Renewing their sparring with the Sun God and Solaris, the Tyrant Sun (Enemy of Superman), the heroes decide they need a different approach. Switching off with one another between the rational and irrational, both Yara and Jon vow to “handle” each other’s problem. For the Sun God, it is a rematch of his and Yara’s race across the cosmos with Jon in her stead and for Solaris, The Tyrant Sun (Enemy of Superman), it’s the new Wonder Woman armed with a rocket launcher that shoots black holes.

LIKE I SAID, it is absolutely buckwyld and rarely ever slows up much to allow the reader to truly absorb just HOW bananas it is. But under the steady pen of Watters, who also continues to pepper in wonderful bits of characterization and development of Yara and Jon’s friendship, it all gets laid out fairly matter of factly. Sure, there is a bit of technobabble that the script gets tangled in around the comic book science of it all, but the joy of watching Jon and Yara work together along with their already sparkling banter far outweighs the wordiness.

The artwork too leans into the pair’s charm and expressionistic patter with one another. Though quite a touch less action heavy than the opening and contained largely in one interior location (Jon’s Fortress of Solitude) and one exterior (like…ALL OF outer space), Del Duca and Filardi still manage to bring a great deal of visual wonder to the whole affair, all while not letting the staging, movement and range of emotions from their leads dip in the meantime. This is particularly noticeable in the issue’s main splash page, wherein Jon recharges himself in the yellow sun to punch OUT the Sun God amidst a sea of stars. Drawing a truly funny line and panel set reaction shot centered around Yara in the meantime.
All in all, I couldn’t be happier with the finale of Superman/Wonder Woman. Chock to bursting with charm, visual acuity and two tremendously engaging leads that are just plain fun to hang out with, this new team up book stands more than worthy of the title of “Planet’s Finest”. Fingers crossed that Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman #2 is not the last we see these new unbearably cute daring doers together.