It looks like Batman Beyond is about to become continuity. It wasn’t before?
Announced on The Associated Press, “The New 52: Futures End” will be a weekly series launching in Spring 2014 out of FCBD, where a zero issue will be released. Written by Jeff Lemire, Keith Giffen, Brian Azzarello and Dan Jurgens, the book puts the entirety of the New 52 five years into the future (which is apparently what all those DC All Access videos were about), where everything has gone all disastrous and OMAC-y. The future is never something to get excited about, apparently!
The book will see the past, present and future explored via Frankenstein, Firestorm and Batman Beyond, respectively, all along one storyline leading to the events of what is happening in the Five Years Later element of the book.
The series is set to also have a rotating murderer’s row of artists with Ethan Van Sciver drawing the FCBD issue and Jesus Merino and Aaron Lopresti both contributing to the book in early days.
It’s an interesting mix of talent, as I don’t think what Azzarello is doing in the DCnU is in anywhere close to what Lemire does, let alone Giffen or Jurgens. This isn’t as stylistic a collaboration as “52,” ostensibly, so it’ll be interesting to see how everyone pulls together with a story balanced across three eras. It’s four very different writing styles, to say the least, and it’ll make for an interesting collaboration. I’m particularly excited to see what other artists contribute to the book, though, as apparently Merino and Lopresti are only two of a few contributors.
So if you’re a DC fan, better start apologizing to your wallet now, because it’s going to get pretty hard in 2014 it seems.
