DC COMICS Announces Next September Event And Weekly Series


DC Comics’ upcoming September event has been revealed, and it’s taking us to the future! DC Co-Publisher Dan Didio announced to Newsarama that in September 2014, all of DC’s New 52 ongoing books (including upcoming titles releasing in June and July) will flash forward five years to “depict what might happen in the future.” The event will tie into DC’s weekly series The New 52: Futures End (note the lack of an apostrophe), which will begin in May. Didio assures readers that even if you’re not reading the Futures End weekly, you’ll still be able to follow the September stories since they’re focusing on the possible future of the characters in those books.

It gives some exciting teases of potential storylines that might be coming for our characters in the near future. These stories aren’t going to just be tied into the weekly. But what you’ll be seeing is a lot of the writers who are working on series right now projecting forward — their ideas, their storylines, where they think their character might be five years from now. We really wanted to show things that seem like the logical progression of the characters and where the story lines are going

The event also brings back the infamous 3D covers that DC introduced during Villains Month last year, though these covers will be much more complex. Didio stated that the future theme follows their previous themes from past September events: launching the New 52, exploring character origins in Zero Month and highlighting the bad guys in Villains Month.

Superman-Futures-EndIf all that wasn’t enough for you, it’s also been announced that DC will launch another weekly series in October. Although the title of the series hasn’t been revealed yet, it’s been described as “world building” and will “have direct implications on what’s happening with the five years later storyline.” This makes three weekly series that DC will be publishing in October, and these weeklies will count towards the 52 monthly books rather than be added to them.

First off, before anybody blows a gasket, let’s reiterate that these futures depicted in the  September books are possible futures. Didio himself stated that the goal of Futures End was to reset the future so that the heroes never have to deal with those events. Considering all the editorial changes DC keeps making, it’s unlikely any of these writers will still be on their book in five years…unless they’re Geoff Johns or Scott Snyder.

I hope that Didio’s telling the truth about these September stories not directly tying into Futures End. While I only pick up DC books monthly (I trade wait on Marvel), that doesn’t mean I’m buying every one of their titles. I’ve already decided only to pick up the Batman: Eternal weekly, so I don’t want to end up being confused when I sit down to read one of my regular books in September and find out understanding it hinders on my knowledge of Futures End. That would be extremely annoying.

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Still, DC is known for their alternate continuity tales, so it’s understandable to see them delving into possible futures. The 3D covers are gimmicky, but if the quality of the stories themselves are good, I’ll be on board (for the 2D versions). As for the new weekly series, I’m curious to see how it will follow the September event considering we already have a weekly series focusing on the near-future. Just be careful with all these tie-in series, DC. Just thinking about it is giving me a headache. The readers care more about quality than quantity. Remember that.

SOURCE: Newsarama