Futures End, DC’s second weekly ongoing series kicks off today with issue #1. After this weekend’s issue #0 showed us a glimpse of the future 35 years from now, we now dive head first into a future 5 years from now. We see a lot of familiar faces with some having drastically different personalities. A lot happens in this issue with many of DC’s favorite B-list characters. So if your fan of the lesser known meta-humans of the DC universe then this review is for you.
Positives
Futures End has an all-star writing cast and it shows. The issue is divided evenly between each writer and while some sections are better than others the overall 
quality is great. Specifically I really enjoyed the segments with Firestorm but that may just be because of his sleek new design courtesy of cover artist Ryan Sook.
While Ryan Sook’s cover looks amazing the internal pages looks fantastic as well. Artist Patrick Zircher has an art style that really suits this futuristic setting. While he obviously can’t do the art on every issue I really look forward to when he returns to the series.
The first issue also sees a lot of death. Though I won’t spoil who dies, I will say that I believe only some of these will be permanent throughout the rest of the series.
Negatives
Unfortunately “Futures End #1” suffers a lot of set-up. There’s four different points of focus and some of them feel a little underdeveloped even though it appears much more is about to happen. Specifically Batman Beyond’s portion feels a little short lived in this issue. However I am hopeful that the weekly format of this book will remedy this issue for most people.
Verdict
Overall this issue is very reminiscent of the format that 52 used during its run. This book is filled with a lot of great lesser known characters and isn’t afraid to kill a couple off in the first issue. The creative team also gives us a quick glimpse into the upcoming issues leaving me personally really excited for what’s to come. While some parts were underdeveloped and felt a little rushed, each section left an impression on me, making me anxious for more.
Rating
(4/5)
