The New 52: Futures End #26

By Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen, Scot Eaton, Scott Hanna, Drew Geraci, Hi-Fi

“Change…get over it and get back to work.”

There’s some seriously awesome artwork in this week’s issue of The New 52: Futures End #26. These scenes are brought to you by the brooding hero seen on the cover this week. You see him? Just…just scroll down and look at the cover image. Yeah, that’s Batman, and he’s pretty pissed at a certain dynamic duo – not himself and Robin, that wouldn’t make sense, but the other duo we’ve been seeing in this series…Firestorm!

Brian Azzarello along with his fellow writers use this week to introduce Batman into the fray. We’ve seen a bit of him in the future – mostly within rather disturbing scenes – so this week it was rather nice to see him in a more natural role, which is being awesome and telling other people what to do. Also this week we got another bit of what Terry McGinnis has been up to and how he plans to use heroes from the past to help save the future. So this week was really well done in regards to seeing how the Bat-family is helping the cause.

On the artwork side this week is Scott Eaton as penciller, with Scott Hana and Dew Geraci sharing ink duty, and colors again done by Hi-Fi. Sticking with the scene mentioned above we get some really cool panels featuring Batman. The opening page to his appearance has him standing atop a building as if a gargoyle set back in the darkness. A tree behind him twirls and claws at the air as the menacing Dark Knight stares down the Firestorm duo. Eaton does a great job at depicting the different types of reactions of Ronnie and Jason. Ronnie is tensed up and looking to fight – really dude? You think you can take Batman?!  – and Jason seems more in a panic. Hi-Fi fills this scene with a partially lit night sky and the whole image really presents an eerie feel.

This week some big scenes were shown and the ball got rolling a little bit faster. It’s always nice to see what Terry is up to, since he’s the one who started this shindig, but now to have the actual Batman in the forefront? Well, this just got a whole lot more interesting.