The New 52: Futures End #38

By Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen, Andy MacDonald, Hi-Fi

“You love poetry so much, Frank. Why haven’t you ever tried writing your own?” – Amethyst

“For two hundred years, I have faced every horror imaginable…cannibal trolls, alien hordes and demon spawn…yet I have never had the courage to put quill to paper, M’Lady.” – Frankenstein

Frankenstein makes his return home with the help of Amethyst in this week’s issue of The New 52: Futures End.

Writer Brian Azzarello along with his Futures End writing team take this week to bring some laughs, have a few friends meet over a crazy fight (wonder what Bruce thought when he saw…Bruce), and finally bring Frank home to Papa.

The big action point of this issue takes place featuring the characters you see on the cover. There’s Batman, BatMcGinnis, and Tim Drake in a fight against the Batman/Joker abomination that has been sent back to stop BatMcGinnis from finishing his plan. This is definitely an encounter that’s been brewing for quite a while now, so it’s nice to see it finally come front and center if only for a moment. This has been a series of many different story lines, so it’s hard to have a single one really go anywhere quickly, but this week did deliver on this encounter as well as a few others.

On the artwork side of this issue is artist Andy MacDonald along with colors by Hi-Fi. The artwork throughout was a bit inconsistent in regards to detail; the latter half of the issue, especially the Frankenstein scenes, were much richer with the detail work. But nonetheless the scene describing all the fighting Batman iterations above was still quite enjoyable – it’s the scene that kicked off the issue. A scene from the beginning that’s done well features the Batman side of the Bat/Joker abomination try to take out the current Batman (to ensure he’s never bonded with the Joker?). Batman makes an escape, but finds himself having to dodge the constant firing as Hi-Fi lights up the panels with the impacts of the heavy artillery.

This was an issue full of first encounters (Batman meet Batman, Batman meet Bat..uhh…Joker?) while also wrapping up a few ongoing threats (just let him use the transporters!).