Written by Scott Snyder
Illustrated by Jorge Jimenez
Published by DC Comics
“It’s a flash fact brother. Here, in this place, we create more than the possible… We create wonders.”
Well it certainly seems like the perfect utopian future.
No war, no crime, no strife, no… villains.
A shining society, in which Scott Snyder and Jorge Jimenez’s very own Future Justice League are freed from their responsibilities as warriors, to instead… build. Whether building bridges to the stars, building universal languages of peace, or building entire worlds themselves.
It’s a veritable peace on Earth, on the far side of a multiversal war of unknown scope and time. (Though one that’s possibly lasted decades, or anyway decades ago, if we’re to go by all the grey hair everyone’s sporting.)
A war won because of something Batman dreams up – even though Clark’s always been quick to point out that Bruce’s obsession with improving everything with his own personal brand of Bat-upgrades might not really be the best thing for him, or for the Justice League as a whole…
And yet, it’s a future that seems to be the best of all possible outcomes, and presumably the war is part of what’s necessary for this timeline to come about. In fact, ‘Future-Superman’ tells the League it’s the one timeline where they survive the current multiversal crisis. A crisis they cannot outrun or prevent. But instead, one they must learn to embrace and mold to their own design.
Though how exactly Clark has navigated all these possible timelines has yet to be explained to anyone. To say nothing of why exactly the 6th dimension appears to consist of a golden utopian version of future perfection, when that’s not at all what it was described to be…
But the League is given plenty to believe in from the moment they cross the threshold from their own world to the new. For the first time, the League is provided the bird’s eye view that we’ve been privy to ourselves for a little while now, beginning with a quick synopsis of Perpetua and her Celestial kin, the multiverse-makers, along with the confirmation that, with the Source Wall gone, our own multiverse is hurtling back through the void of the Omniverse, on a path back to its celestial origins.
At some point, it’s explained, the Future League apparently decided there was no recourse to stop the journey to those far Ominversal shores. But neither could they let Perpetua and her minions of Doom, reshape the multiverse into the cosmic weapon she apparently designed it to be at the start.
Instead, it became the League’s crusade to wrest the multiverse into a higher, harmonious expression, so that its arrival will be welcomed and judged worthy by that great race of Celestial Creators.
Which sounds like a great idea. Except that, for a perfect world of unity, there sure seems to be a lot of secrets and hidden knowledge in play. And for a League that is so eager to impress on everyone just how amazing everything is, the future roster’s wondrous activities seem to be suspiciously tailor-made to keep our current team comfortably distracted from asking tough questions.
Until they’re not.
I mean, c’mon, it all really is just too perfect. So, it’s really no surprise when the League gets the first bits of evidence that it’s not. Even if they – and we – still have no idea why, exactly.
In the meantime, it looks like we’re not quite done with the 5th dimension either. Mr. Mxyzptlyk is acting very strangely, and it’s unclear whose agendas are in play. But it does seem as if another denizen of the 5th dimension is on the board now, and in the hands of Lex Luthor too.
Looks a little like lightning in a bottle.
Which, for a man obsessed with doorways, can’t be a great thing for those who’ve just crossed over a certain wondrous threshold of their own.
Next Issue: The Rule of Threes makes everything more interesting.
