And finally, I’m caught up.

It would have been easy to skip out on this series and let it stampede by unattended, but I always get itchy when I don’t know what’s going on in the DC or Marvel universe. It’s a feeling born from the completist in me and exacerbated by the fact that I think you can’t do your best as a retailer without an extensive knowledge of the product. Anyway, I caught up this weekend and it’s… well, it’s a lot better than I thought it would be. The series began in early May with a zero issue that saw much of the DCU turned into weird cyborg murder machines that tended the limbs of anyone who resisted them in a dystopian future. It then took a jump backwards to five years from now where Terry McGuinness (the Batman of the future) has to find a way to prevent a future already in progress.

As the story has gone on, the edges have softened, and the scattershot ensemble have been moving closer and closer together, as the inevitable threatens to arrive. It’s a dark story, but about… I dunno, 8? 9 issues in? The team begins to have a lot of fun with a character named “Fifty Sue” - a young girl who seems to be the most powerful being in the DC Universe at this point in time. As the story goes, Brian Azzarello came up with the name “Fifty Sue” and made the mistake of using it in front of Keith Giffen who ran with it - because of course Azzarello came up with a pun, and of course Giffen would run with that joke. Anyway, she’s the best part of this series, and as it continues, she gets more and more screen time. Honestly, her scenes with Deathstroke and Grifter are what really push me forward in this series, with all the others providing a bit of variety as things progress.

While it’s not a series I’d recommend to folks who weren’t deeply invested in the DC Universe, I think it’s a book with much to be enjoyed, if you can get past the odd issue where someone gets dissected or eviscerated.