NB of the Week

A Month Off? Man, Somebody Got Lazy

(Spoils)

Batman: Eternal #52

New 52: Futures' End #48

Earth 2: World's End

Written by: Various

Drawn by: Even More Various.

DC's next big event started this week in Convergence #0 and with that start came the three endings to DC's three, weekly titles.

And that was the best part about all three of them.

My excitement this week comes from the fact that these awful stories are no longer running. For the last year, DC has put out 126 weekly issues costing fans $378 and almost nothing happened. Batman Eternal was the struggle of the Bat-family as all shit rained down on them. Gordon framed for murder, Batman wanted by the police, Selina cutting ties and becoming a crime boss who shows her boobs more. And in all that, nothing happened. Stephanie Brown was introduced and the world got Bluebird in Harper Row and that was it. Hush came and went, Cluemaster was apparently smart but not smart enough to see he was gonna die and Lincoln March aka Thomas Wayne Jr was the baddie who set it all up. And then was defeated and put to sleep by the Court of Owls. And Gordon was cleared and back to being in charge. And Batman was a hero again. One year to tell this story and have everything back to where it was at the start.

Futures' End (started in last years Free Comic Book Day issue) was the story of Batman Beyond traveling to his past but still five years into our future in order to stop Brother Eye and Mr Terrific from creating the awful future he's from. So what ends up happening> nothing. Batman Beyond dies and passes the torch to Tim Drake, who is dead in Beyond's future. Tim then ends up traveling back to the future only to find that... nothing changed. Except some characters that were dead before Beyond left are now alive. Almost one year to tell this story and have everything back to where it was at the start.

World's End was sadly (happily?) the one that kinda did something. The heroes of Earth 2 were about to be invaded by Darkseid and their planet was to be the new Apokalips. So of course they all had to band together and stop the forces. Which meant that every issue was pretty much people running into another baddie and fighting and repeating. For 26 weeks. However, as I said, some things did happen. Alan Scott became something of a White Lantern as he has come to embody all the Avatars and not just the Green. Original Superman was found to not have actually died as was set up at the beginning of Earth 2 but he then died for real. Good job there. Mostly, they all lost. Darkseid won and took their Earth and now all living life that was able to escape on giant ships now has to find a new home. 26 issues that could have been told in 6.

But at least it's over. Now everybody can go join Convergence where DC is going to say "Ah screw it" and bring back the Pre52 stuff into their still newly rebooted universe.