The New 52 Futures End #19

Writer – Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen
Artist – Scot Eaton
Inker – Drew Geraci, Dan Green
Colours – Hi-Fi

Futures End continues its upward stride with Batman Beyond and his gang breaking into Terrifitech to get the info he needs on Brother Eye.  Things also go surprisingly well for them for a change.  Ray Palmer becomes the leader of Stormwatch and we get some action on Cadmus Island in the meantime too.  Lois is dwelling on whether to run the Superman story or not, even though Shazam begs her not to, but Lois always knowing better than anyone else, does what she wants.  This title, so shaky for so long, has finally started to become a fairly solid book with each segment being just as strong as any other.  It used to be some of the book was good and some of it bad or downright terrible, but for the last few issues, the writers have seemed to have nailed down the formula to make it work.  Great to see future Batman finally make some headway in his quest after nineteen issues.  Perhaps he and the readers will finally get some answers as to what caused Brother Eye to take over so fully and why no one was able to stop it.  There was very little Shazam action which is kind of a shame as he is far more interesting as himself than as Superman.  It would also be nice to see a little more follow-up on the heroes from Earth 2 and find out what is going on with them instead of the terribly named Fifty Sue.  The book was left on a pretty good cliff-hanger and if the next issue runs with the ramifications, it should make for a pretty intriguing story.  Good stuff from everyone involved, including Scot Eaton whose pencils seemed a bit stronger than normal this issue.

4 out of 5

Edge of Spider-Verse #1

Writer – David Hine, Fabrice Sapolsky
Artist – Richard Isanove

The first issue of this series stars the Spidey from Spider-Man Noir.  In this universe, Peter Parker is a journalist who gained his powers from a poisonous spider that had been hiding in the statue of Anansi, the god of spiders.  Mysterio, a magician of some renown wants those powers for himself so that he might rule the criminal underworld and become the new Kingpin.  It will take more than a few tricks to accomplish that though, and it involves the kidnapping of Felicia Hardy.  It will take everything Spidey has to escape Mysterio’s clutches and save the girl, especially when Morlun shows up at the final curtain call.  Edge of Spider-Verse delivers a very solid first issue that echoes The Shadow in the best ways possible.  Hine and Sapolsky’s story give us an alternate Peter Parker that is similar to the regular 616 version, yet lacking any of the humour or wit that we are normally used to.  Another great aspect to the character is that he is more of a realist and is not afraid to use guns to take down his opponents if need be.  Everything in the book is dirtier, grittier and a perfect pulp tale featuring different takes on many of Spidey’s supporting cast.  Isanove’s artwork is a great fit for the tale being very slick and polished and is probably his best work to date as a penciller.  The Spider-Verse event will definitely be made all the better with this version of Spider-Man in play and it would also be great to see even more stories with the character, if at all possible.

4.5 out of 5