DC announced today, via the Associated Press, that they’re launching a new weekly series on Free Comic Book Day entitled The New 52: Future’s End, which will look five years into the future. It features top-flight writers like Jeff Lemire, Brian Azzarello, Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens crafting stories alongside artists like Jesus Merino, Ethan Van Sciver and Aaron Lopresti. It will be the second of DC’s weekly series in 2014, following Batman Eternal.
Here’s a look at the cover, which features Batman Beyond pretty prominently.
“Really, what we’re trying to do with this book is to explore the nature of what a hero is and we’re doing that, obviously by playing with the future of the New 52 timeline,” Lemire said. “Past present and future all colliding in this story line.” The past includes Frankenstein, the present includes Firestorm, and the future is Batman Beyond joining the New 52 continuity – among many others. The cast is said to be pretty big, which makes sense for a weekly book.
So that’s what all the “5 Years Later” rumors have been about. Will this turn into an event spanning the rest of the books by next September, which is DC’s ‘event month?’ We’ll have to see. Will that also mean the end of the Beyond books that currently stem from the pre-New-52 continuity? Let’s hope not.
