Future Tense

With poison gas seeping under the door of a shitty apartment, Arthur explains to all and sundry that they're 50 years in the future, and things have gone to shit. Plans to head home right away are curtailed by Arthur's not knowing how to do that, by Jack's data-self getting "hacked" from an unknown agent (soon revealed to be Jack's future self) and a cadre of soldiers trooping up the stairs.
     Even as Mandy uses air currents to push the gas out of the apartment (and, in the process, gets it all over herself), Brian creates a force field around the group, hoping that it'll be strong enough to keep the soldiers out and buy the gang some time to think. Unfortunately, the soldiers are armed with Promethium bullets, which cut through Brian's force field and Mandy's armored hide like the proverbial hot knife through butter, and Mandy goes down.
     Until Arthur sacrifices a bit of himself to rewind time and save her. The situation goes from bad to worse when the soldiers activate the contingency Brian heard radio chatter about and the "contingency" turns out to be another godlike, who crashes through the outer wall of the apartment and straight through Brian's fore field. In a panic, Brian uses his powers to drop the whole group down four stories and into the sewers, the godlike hot on their trail. At this point, though, Mandy and Arthur are both in a bad state from the gas.
     The godlike turns out to be Maggie Young, kidnapped years before, trained and conditioned, and kept in cryo-sleep. Arthur attacks with a special knife, going for a kill-shot. Terrified of her titanic strength, revolted at what the government's done to her and desperate to keep his friends alive, Brian picks up a gun loaded (he thinks) with Promethium bullets and puts one through the center of Maggie's skull. It's only then that an older Alex Young shows up to lead out heroes to safety.
     Back at Jack's Contingency headquarters, Brian is in a broken state and Arthur's not too much better. Mandy gives Brian motivation enough to get up with a short, fierce speech, but only then do we realize the clip of Promethium bullets is missing, hear the click of a gun and realize that Alex has it pointed straight for Brian's skull. "Kryptonite, Superman," he says as the issue ends.

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FIRST Appearances

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NOTEABLE Appearances

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The AMERICAN GODS