Warning! Spoilers ahead for Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman #2
In the latest edition of Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman, the same planet every morning, proving him to be a true hero worthy of his father. This comes after the first issue's evident criticism of Jon, who is portrayed as quite the arrogant hero. Yara even calls Jon and the Justice League "self-righteous."
DC's Future State is a two-month event that gives fans an insight into the many potential futures of the DC Universe. However, it has been emphasized by the publisher that these futures are just possibilities that could happen if events play out in certain ways and that nothing is definitive. Most of DC's future has been presented as vividly grim due to places like Gotham succumbing to dark and dystopian regimes. But Metropolis is quite different and in issue two, Jon confirms that the future is actually quite the utopia compared to what it could've been.
In Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman #2 by Dan Watters, Leila Del Duca and Nick Filardi, Superman reveals how close the Earth came to being destroyed. Not by some evil force like Darkseid or Brainiac, but by humanity's own doing. He is of course talking about the ticking clock that is climate change. Jon recalls that he "felt every fraction of a degree that the planet warmed" and that he "heard every crack of ice" when at the Fortress of Solitude. These were Earth's last critical days where humanity had a final chance to save their home. Superman its he couldn't do anything about it and it was humanity who managed to turn it around.
It's made clear that no hero could've saved the planet from its predicament, much like Krypton's unpreventable fate. Jon bringing up climate change is especially topical since it's quite clear this is Watters' way of addressing our present issue with global warming. It's good to see comics addressing real-life events and recontextualizing them in a creative way. Ultimately, in DC's future, the real villain of the past wasn't some cosmic threat, but humanity's greed and disregard for the planet.
Now, Jon believes it's Superman's job to look after everyone in order to keep the balance and let the planet thrive. But also that to stay afloat, every person needs to stay able. He claims that as half-human, he feels the smallest of shifts in the environment as every day the "nasty little bits of our nature," as humans, threaten to take hold and return to life like before. Which would be completely unsustainable. Amidst the problems of the future, Metropolis seems to be rather utopian. Its buildings are full of greenery as it thrives since humanity's realization that life the way they knew it was unviable. Jon knows and its that he failed to stop the planet's greatest threat, but he remains optimistic and with his acts in this issue, proves himself worthy of the Superman mantle.
