The Legion Stumbles, Batman/Superman Get Along and Lex Luthor Soars In Future State

The Legion of Super-Heroes confront their rogue member but not is all as it seems in Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 written by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Riley Rossmo, colors by Ivan Plascencia and letters by Dave Sharpe.

Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 is only 19 pages. But somehow it felt like an eternity.

I almost thought I was going crazy, if I’m being honest! I read it over twice! I thought to myself, “How could so much and yet so little happen in this comic?!” But still, there it sat. As if it was MOCKING me. I think I might hate it. I think it also might hate ME. 

But despite my hatred, Future State: LOSH #2 still at least LOOKS good. Under the steady and always kinetic pencils of Riley Rossmo and splotchy, but tonally sound colors of Ivan Plascencia, the whole thing looks great, and consistently so! We hop and bop around the cosmos with this new, four-times-broken Legion as they chase down Element Lad across all sorts of trippy cosmic backdrops.

The new Legion designs pop from the page. Cosmic Boy gets some fun shorts and Saturn Girl’s new Jet Set Radio inspired get up is really fun. There is even a really ginchy, Allred-like sequence in which Element Lad is on the run, but jumping from panel to panel bridged by the Periodic Table classification for whatever element he’s morphing into. That’s fun, huh?! By all accounts this comic SHOULD just be that! Crazy fun and a breezy good time, right?

But man, oh, man is Brian Michael Bendis’ version of fun in “Future State” just total pants. We pick up where we left off last issue. This new Legion has Element Lad cornered, aiming to bring him to justice for his Galactic crimes. Except, oh, no! He didn’t actually commit them! Saturn Girl did! Oh, but wait, she actually didn’t, the alien race she belongs to did, using her as a psychic tuning fork to spread discord throughout the universe. Also, all the fight scenes here are happening in a shared mindspace? Like…it is absolute fuckin’ nonsense.

And NOT the kind of usual nonsense I can get behind! It’s like every narrative reveal Bendis deploys, he reverses it. Every big “breakthrough” or moment of awareness every character has is only there because Saturn Girl has connected them all. It makes no sense and has no real hook to it, either narratively or with the character roster he’s collected. And naturally it’s all strung together by his hyper-verbal, not at all charming anymore version of banter. I just…yeah, I think I might hate this.

Co-workers and peers of mine always tell me I need to get meaner (Editor’s Note: Not me! Your inherent positivity is a balm to my weary soul) and if they keep assigning me comics like Future State: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 to cover, I am absolutely going to get there. Though handsomely rendered and armed with a few visually novel sequences, the Legion’s efforts in the “Future State” line ups have amounted to nothing more than occasionally fun, but consistently aggravating noise.

The original Batman and Superman have one last adventure together before the future takes them in different directions in Future State: Batman/Superman #2 written by Gene Luen Yang, art by Ben Oliver and Stephen Segovia over Scott McDaniel breakdowns, colors by Arif Prianto and letter by Tom Napolitano

The Future’s Finest opts for grounded sweetness and Morrisonian weirdness in its final bow before ascending to the main Detective Comics Comics title line in Future State: Batman/Superman #2!

Framed as the “final” time the original Batman and Superman teamed up before the Magistrate’s stranglehold on Gotham and Superman’s Warworld imprisonment, writer Gene Luen Yang hits the ground with a springing step. Superman has been captured by Mr. Toad, revealing the real mastermind behind the False Face Society as Professor Pyg, working to twist and replicate flesh for the Magistrate’s bidding! While on the outside of Pyg’s facility, Batman is injured and on the run, dodging the Magistrate’s new Kryptonian-biotech upgraded patrol drones with the help of the people of Gotham.

The reveal of Pyg is genuinely so grossly appealing I can hardly articulate it in words here. And the odd turn Yang takes into Super-Cronenbergian body horror with the reveal of Pyg and the Magistrate’s experiments into DNA-splicing, leading to rats with Super eyes on their backs and Pyg armed with LITERAL PIGS FOR ARMS is just precisely the kind of comic book gonzo-ness you would want from a title like Batman/Superman.

But even more than that, Yang taps into a real deep well of emotion with his take on Bruce and Clark’s working relationship. Supported further by the relatively grounded scope of the plot, Yang just allows them to be friends, worrying after, and genuinely appreciating, one another for the first time in what feels like a long time. All too often, books like this like to flint the characters against each other or have them have “comedy” banter. Batman and Superman are often the victims of that school of thought, but thankfully Gene Luen Yang’s take on the World’s Finest is far more interesting and stronger than their stock “Vs” positions.

Better still, it’s all wrapped in more emotive, truly cinematically slick artwork from Ben Oliver and Stephen Segovia. Though the pair hand off the art duties relatively smoothly (albeit noticeably, just in the shift of styles which can’t be helped), skeletoned by breakdowns from Scott McDaniel, the whole affair has a drive and emotionally textured quality that you don’t see very often in “higher profile” superhero comics. Usually it’s one or the other, right? It can either have good action or good character beats. But for my money Batman/Superman #2 threads that needle well even if you can clearly tell there are two artists at play here.

And so with obvious heart, fun comic-book-crazy theatrics and strikingly momentive artwork, Future State: Batman/Superman #2 starts the Gene Luen Yang era on the team up title strong, poised to make the leap to “Main Title” with strong legs underneath it already and a tight handle on the icons it will be featuring. Might it be a little hokey? Sure, but after years of Batman vs. Superman discourse and constant glowering between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel, maybe hokey (and heartfelt) is exactly what the World’s Finest need right now.

Don’t trust Lex Luthor. Just don’t. If that wasn’t clear to you, you can find another reason why in Future State: Superman Vs. Imperious Lex #2 written by Mark Russell, drawn by Steve Pugh, colored by Romulo Fajardo Jr. and lettered by Carlos M. Mangual.

Superman and Lois Lane fight to protect a world that hates, fears and thinks they are super dumb in Future State: Superman Vs. Imperious Lex #2.

Once again granted a sardonically hilarious edge by writer Mark Russell and provided an emotive, but highly tuned, look and feel by art team Steve Pugh and Romulo Fajardo Jr., this second of three installments finds the world’s finest couple playing diplomats to the planet Lexor, the very same planet whose predatory but vital economy Superman tanked with his bare hands the issue before.

But now Lex Luthor is playing nice, welcoming both Lois and his big blue rival with “open arms” to show them the planet they are accepting into the new United Planets’ political sphere. That is, until Lois’ survey team discovers a precious mineral Lex can use for more galactic clout and wealth, which naturally leads to everything going tits up and them reverting to their normally combative dynamics with one another.

But while that might sound like just another issue of Action Comics (or maybe even Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane), in the hands of Russell it’s far more madcap and attention holding than that. Which…actually makes it EXACTLY like an old-school issue of Action. Pinging his acerbic takes on Lois and Lex against one another (supported by his lovably himbo-like take on Superman), Russell continues to wring real-deal comedy out of the cast and endearingly dysfunctional (and maybe even a little dystopian) setting of Lexor.

The issue’s inciting incident, the discovery of the mineral, once again proves Russell understands not just the petty, hysterically self-interested heart of Lex, but also the constant moral sparring he will always be embroiled in around Lois and Superman. I would argue that maybe, if I was forced to nitpick, the stakes aren’t really that high for this series, as the narrative hook of Lex being admitted to the new galactic U.N. are pretty well dashed and dealt with here. But even with that slight stumbling block, the characterizations, comedy and voice of the characters keep me from really minding too much about it.

The cherry on top is absolutely the artwork of Pugh and Fajardo. Though the aforementioned smaller scale of the plot keeps a lot of their work restricted to dialogue exchanges and interior-based blocking, Pugh and Fajardo continue to play up the comedy well and provide each page a few really striking bits of comic book emoting that you don’t often see in big AAA superhero comics. The pair also REALLY sell some of Russell’s more quiet gags and japes built into the set dressing. For example, Lex kills one of the two talking head alien newscasters with his armor’s weapons and then a couple of pages later we see the now single, surviving anchor of the team is slightly charred on the side where her vaporized colleague sat. Is it dumb? Totally. But that doesn’t make it any less funny or good.

I genuinely was not expecting a book about interplanetary politics and mineral market prices to be my favorite of “Future State’s” offerings, but I’ll be damned if Superman Vs. Imperious Lex isn’t my odds-on cult fave of this whole insane line now with this second issue. It’s goofy, it’s weird, it looks cool and best of all it’s a comedy book about superheroes that actually UNDERSTANDS the characters it’s using and supporting the gags from there, not the other way around or worse still, using the actual characters AS gags (which we have absolutely seen before). That is totally a win in my book. Let’s just hope now Future State: Superman Vs. Imperious Lex can stick its landing.