Alright, Future State, one last time. We’ve got six series to talk about today, but it won’t take all that long. Some of these are pretty light on Lantern stuff, but I wanted to be thorough and mention them anyway. And if I missed any, let me know. A reminder that I already covered both issues of Future State Green Lantern, as well as the first issue of Future State Justice League, and I’ll link to both of those videos at the end of this one. This time I’ll be spoiling Future State Justice League, Swamp Thing, Immortal Wonder Woman, Shazam, Suicide Squad, and Superman House of El…and I’m gonna save the best for last. So let’s get started by picking up where we left off with Jo and the rest of the League.
JUSTICE LEAGUE
If you remember, issue one of this book was incredibly light on characterization and development because the League has chosen to operate under rules that keep things strictly professional. And because of that, it was easy for the enemy to infiltrate and replace the League, which is why it’s surprising to see Sojourner still argue in favor of keeping their personal lives private, citing the fact that in all her travels, letting people get close only lead to problems. And this tracks with what we the readers know about Jo’s backstory. The way her career as a police officer ended abruptly when she was fired after reporting her partner for use of excessive force, followed immediately by her spending a year in an alien city where she’s the only person who feels real emotions all the time, and the complete mess that is trying to form relationships with people under those conditions. The only problem with this is the fact that Future State Justice League takes place in 2040, and I would hope that becoming more integrated into the larger DC Universe would give Jo a place to belong, especially once she starts interacting with other Green Lanterns. I mean, she is becoming one of the group just in time for the group to be destroyed, so I can’t imagine that helps things.
My big takeaway from Future State Justice League is that I really like this team of legacy characters, I love that they’re THE Justice League and not an offshoot, and I love that Jo was voted to be their leader. I just wish this book told a different story that was more conducive to exploring these characters, because it’s probably going to be a long time before we see this whole group together again.
SWAMP THING
This is the one that surprised me the most, because not only did I never expect to find a Green Lantern connection in Future State Swamp Thing, I never would’ve guessed what character shows up. This story takes place after nature itself rose up and took the planet back from Humanity, killing off most of the population so that we’d stop ruining the planet. In retaliation, the remaining Humans build a machine to block out the sun, shrouding the Earth in endless darkness, killing creatures like Swamp Thing who’ve replaced Humans as the new dominant species. And they’re doing this with the unwilling help of Obsidian, Todd Rice, the son of Alan Scott and brother of Jade. Obsidian is being held in suspended animation, while they hook him up to a machine and use him as a battery. Todd’s powers come from a connection to the Shadowlands, a realm made of living darkness. They’re able to use Todd as an access point and project the darkness of the Shadowlands into the sky and plunge the world into darkness, until generations later when the machines just naturally begin to break from being too old and run down.
Swamp Thing is getting an ongoing series with this same creative team, does that mean this is the book Obsidian will be appearing in? I kind of hope not, unless they’re going to give him a more proactive role as part of the cast, because as much as I loved seeing Todd have an important part to play in the fate of the planet, he was basically just a prop in these issues. I want to see a book remind everyone how awesome Obsidian is, and I don’t really care if that book is Swamp Thing or something else.
IMMORTAL WONDER WOMAN
Diana literally outlives everything else in the universe, and wears moments of her friends on the Justice League. She’s got one of Batman’s utility belts, Superman’s cape, and a Green Lantern ring on a chain around her neck. But other than a personal moment in the Batcave when she takes the belt, none of these items matter much to the story, which feels like a missed opportunity. So much of what Diana’s going through revolves around the finality of things and the guilt of survival, it would’ve been nice to see her spend more time thinking about the specific individuals she’s lost instead of the bigger picture of what’s happened to the universe in general. But maybe I’m just distracted by the fact that I can’t stop wondering who’s ring that was. I’m sure a lot of people assume it’s Hal’s, but I think Diana’s been on the League with John longer at this point. And hell, she’s more than 80,000 years in the future, it could belong to a Lantern who hasn’t even been born yet for all we know.
SHAZAM
Each issue of Future State Shazam gives us a single panel flashback related to Green Lantern. The first is a horde of monsters emerging from the darkness, as a distress call from John Stewart fizzles out, possibly showing us the moment his ring went offline when the Central Battery was destroyed. Now the first place my mind went when I saw these creatures was the Spider Guild, a race of giant intelligent spiders living in the Vega system who’ve always been enemies of the Green Lantern Corps. They’ve always wanted to get the Corps out of their way, and unless I missed something, I don’t think they ever got their revenge for the Corps dealing them a devastating blow during the mini series Green Lantern Corps Recharge. So if this is the Spider Guild, it cold be a really cool way to dust off an old villain group and make them a major threat.
…that’s IF it’s the Spider Guild. Shazam #2 shows an image of John Stewart, still in his Green Lantern uniform, being attacked by some creature that doesn’t look familiar to me at all. Then there’s the fact that another set of mystery creatures were seen in Future State Green Lantern #2, during the Teen Lantern story. I didn’t mention them before, because I thought they were only there to facilitate an action scene and make things more tense, but it’s possible that these could be the things that attacked John. Hell, they could be what attacked Oa, too. These creatures found Keli and Mogo when they were adrift in a completely empty part of space, and the only power source around was Keli’s backpack, which stored energy from the Central Battery. It’s possible that the Central Battery energy she’s carrying around is what drew them to Mogo, which could mean they were what devastated Oa.
SUICIDE SQUAD
I am really surprised at how much Lantern stuff is going on in this book. Both stories just sort of hit you with these Green Lantern elements in a really cool way. Amanda Waller’s backup plan, for if her current team doesn’t work out, is to use a Black Lantern ring to reanimate dead villains to serve on her task force. The villains in the tubes are the Crime Syndicate, and you can tell by the costumes that this is the same version that’s getting a six issue mini series starting in March…and I guess things don’t go so well for them since they’re dead in tubes in Amanda Waller’s clubhouse.
Then we move over to the second story, about Black Adam, which takes place after the events of DC One Million. If you don’t know, DC One Million was set in the 853rd century, one million months after the publication of Action Comics #1 back in 1939. Just the fact that they decided to take this opportunity to revisit DC One Million was a really nice surprise. This story in general is filled with cool surprises that made me really happy, and then really REALLY sad. And it starts right away with the revelation that Mogo is still around so far into the future. The Justice League is now called the Justice Legion, and there’s a different Justice Legion team for every letter in the alphabet, with Mogo affiliated with Justice Legion A. They refer to him as Watchtower Mogo, and he’s reporting in from a graveyard in sector zero, which is the location of Oa, implying the final resting place of either the Guardians or the Green Lantern Corps, or maybe both. This is already way more Green Lantern stuff than we got from the DC One Million event, since It was written in a time when Kyle Rayner was the only Green Lantern in the universe, and his legacy was very much up in the air, and for most of that story it looked like the concept of Green Lantern may have ended with Kyle…that is, until a villain shot a hunk of Kryptonite into the sun to kill the original Superman, who’d been sleeping inside the sun for centuries, only for it to turn out that “Kryptonite” was actually Kyle’s long lost Green Lantern ring in disguise, which woke Superman up and made him even stronger because he has a Green Lantern ring now.
And Future State picks up with this Superman, flying through space, wearing Kyle’s ring…until he’s suddenly jumped by the villains of the book, who defeat him really quickly, and destroying his ring. This one really hurt, that’s the same ring Ganthet handed Kyle in the alley way back in Emerald Twilight. The fact that it lasted until the 853rd century is super cool, but it’s still really sad to see it be destroyed. Kind of like Mogo, who got taken out by these same bad guys off-panel a few pages earlier. I’m not complaining because I wanted to see Mogo die or anything like that, it’s just disappointing to get rid of him immediately after introducing him. Maybe they figured it didn’t matter, since DC One Million really only shows up in cameo appearances anyway, and this let them kill off a character without destroying any of the established Justice Legion. I don’t know, it still bums me out. So just like that, Future State destroys all of the Green Lantern stuff that exists in the time of DC One Million. GREAT, thanks.
HOUSE OF EL
Future State Superman House of El is the one I was looking forward to the most, because it introduces us to a big pile of legacy characters carrying on the Superman tradition in their own unique ways, including Blue Lantern Rowan Kent, descendant of Jon Kent, sister of her era’s Superman, member of the Coalition of Lanterns. Right away she makes a great first impression with her design: a standard, simple Blue Lantern uniform complimented with constructs replicating iconic Superman elements like the cape and and armored S shield. I really like this a lot, it’s incredibly simple, but it works. The only problem with the design is she has two different emblems on top of each other, and they decided to make the S transparent so you can see both emblems at once…the problem being that this kind of effect only looks good in a large panel where there’s plenty of room to draw it all in detail, any time it shows up in a smaller panel the effect gets messy and unclear. They might be able to get around the problem by just having the construct chest piece not be active all the time, or making them solid pieces instead.
Speaking of constructs, it looks like Rowan has some combat training, because she seems to prefer going into battle with a spear and shield, adding in other constructs as needed. Like holding Doomsday in chains while she moves in to strike, or throwing a big monster at the Red King. I should mention that, by the way…based on solicitations, I wasn’t sure if the Red King was going to have anything to do with the God in Red over in Future State Green Lantern. Well now we know it doesn’t, because the Red King is another descendant of Superman, who wants to embody the family legacy while also displaying all the worst traits of Kryptonian culture. But back to Rowan’s ring, it’s surprising how much she’s able to do with it. The Blue Lanterns were originally set up by Ganthet specifically to help the Green Lantern Corps, so most of a blue ring’s functions (like constructs) could only be unlocked by being near a Green Lantern, who had incentive to keep Blue Lanterns around because a blue ring can amplify the power of a green one. Rowan seems to be able to use her ring freely despite there being no Green Lanterns around. If Future State is operating on the idea that the Green Lantern Corps gets wiped out, maybe they never come back, and the only way to still have a Blue Lantern Corps is to eventually redesign the rings to work more independently…they’ve had over a thousand years to make changes, so no idea is off the table.
Now there’s one more really cool thing about this issue, and it has to do with when all of this takes place. DC released a Future State timeline that place both Superman House of El and Future State Legion of Super-Heroes as happening somewhere around the year 3000. That got my attention, because the normal non-Future State Legion book already takes place in the 31st century, which started in the year 3001, which means that the events of Future State Legion of Super-Heroes can’t be happening all that far in the team’s future. And since House of El makes a point of establishing that the entire United Planets has fallen, and the Kryptonians are the last line of defense the galaxy has against the Red King, I think it’s safe to say that House of El must take place sometime long after Future State Legion. There’s 1500 years before the next point on the timeline, and House of El is all by itself somewhere in there. Why does any of that matter to us? Because it lets us do something we don’t get the chance to very often: it lets us look ahead beyond the time of the Legion…and not only are there Blue Lanterns, but Rowan is a member of something called “The Coalition of Lanterns”. A coalition is what you get when different factions agree to work together towards a common goal. By using that word, she just confirmed that there are multiple different color Lanterns active during an uncharted time in DC’s future. There’s no way to know which Lantern Corps are represented, or how many of them there are, but by making the one we do see a Blue Lantern Kryptonian, not only does she play off of the sense of hope that Superman inspires, but it also makes her the perfect ambassador for this unknown future where anything can happen.
…I’m kinda glad House of El was the last Future State book I read, because I think that’s the best possible message to take away from all of this. So much of Future State has focused on the tragedies our heroes will have to endure, but this book delivered hope, in more ways than one.
So overall, Future State was an interesting diversion that was pretty fun some of the time. Some books very blatantly did a better job than others, and your best chance of enjoying a Future State book is to already have a personal investment in the characters, as I don’t think very many of these are new-reader friendly.
I’ve read a little less than half of the Future State books, and there are a few I’ve heard about that actually sound pretty good that I might go back and check out eventually…Superman: Worlds of War sounds like a really thought provoking exploration of how people see the character of Superman, and Nightwing has Nicola Scott artwork which is more than enough reason for me to read it. Out of what I did read, though, the Yara Flor Wonder Woman book was absolutely the best one. Not only did it do a lot to sell you on the character of Yara Flor, it’s packed with different degrees of world building and environmental storytelling, to the point that I came away from those issues feeling like I understood a new side of the DC Universe. After that I’d have to say that Legion of Super-Heroes and House of El did the best job of selling me on their world, and delivering on strong character-driven moments that made me really care about what was going to happen. No, there weren’t any Gold Lantern teases from the Legion this time, but I didn’t even miss them when I had heart wrenching moments like Triplicate Girl coming to terms with the death of one of her selves.
And that’s it, Future State is now behind us, and an Infinite Frontier is ahead of us. And if you want my thoughts on what’s coming down the line for DC, please consider subscribing and hitting the bell notification to make sure you never miss a new video. You can follow Mosaic Comics on Twitter, and the script for this video is available at MosaicComics.blogspot.com, links in the description below. And while you’re down there, leave a comment with your final thoughts on Future State. Was it worth pausing the DC Universe for two months? Let me know what you think.
Thank you for taking the time to watch. My name is Dan, we’ll talk again soon.
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