What’s DC up to now? We saw glimpses of it before via a DC All-Access video last month, but now DC Comics has officially announced the Five Years Later event to the Associated Press. The event will kick off on Free Comic Book Day in May 2014, with a weekly series to follow shortly afterwards by Jeff Lemire, Keith Giffen, Brian Azzarello and Dan Jurgens.
The New 52: Futures End will hook you in like a crack dealer with a free “zero” issue on FCBD, before continuing with a weekly series partly set five years into DC’s future. Jeff Lemire expands on the focus of the series in the article:
“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,” he said. “Past present and future all colliding in this story line.”
That means exploring the past with a character like Frankenstein, the present with Firestorm and the future with Batman Beyond who is, Lemire said, making what is his first “in-continuity appearance. He’ll become part of the New 52.”
Artist Ethan Van Sciver will draw the zero issue, along with Jesus Merino, Aaron Lopresti and Jurgens and other artists who will be added as the series progresses. It also seems to mean that Batman Beyond will become a part of the New 52 continuity.
Fans with memories longer than a goldfish might remember a similar previous crossover event from DC. The 2006 “Infinite Crisis” was followed by a “One Year Later” event, in which all books jumped a year, and was accompanied by a weekly series called 52.
