Title: The Last
Author: Rigil Kent
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure
Status: Complete
Length: 282,129
Pairings: Superman/Wonder Woman, Batman/Catwoman
Summary: All people leave a legacy. For some, it simply has a more lasting impression. A tale of the DC Universe with the Trinity at its heart. Ultimately SM/WW
Link: FF.net

This is a re-imagining of how the Justice League is founded by Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman and becomes an ever-growing organization of heroes.

It starts soon after the events of Man of Steel so it's like Rigil Kent's version of the DC Extended Universe from before those other movies ever came out, adapting story lines and characters from the comics/cartoons. The three first chapters are essentially the equivalent of a Man of Steel 2, Wonder Woman's origin set in the modern day and a proper version of the Justice League movie.

As I've said before, I'm not a comic book reader so I don't have a great deal of background knowledge to support me that didn't stop me from enjoying it. A general knowledge of DC would be enough to get you by but I imagine that a comic reader would have better appreciation. There were certainly times when there were clearly references being made that flew right over my head.

Each chapter covers a year on Earth - until the multiverse shenanigans - which focus on the pivotal moments for numerous heroes in a world that just gets crazier over time from the influx of metahumans, aliens and divinities. The Trinity gets the most attention but there are plenty of scenes about those related to them as well and others when necessary; Kryptonians, Amazons, Robins, Batgirls etc. It's not often you can read a story which covers such a large expanse of time so it's interesting to see how big the League becomes and how characters develop over in single timeline.

You get to see plenty of battles against villains ranging from the street level of Gotham's rogues to the apocalyptic might of Greek Titans. I believe that the writer's strength and preference lies with the latter kind as he's pretty good at describing the outrageous feats of power that DC characters are capable of. Not that I can blame him for said preference since there aren't many fandoms that let you write about that kind of thing as standard.

Despite that time-skipping style, there's still an overarching plot regarding certain gods playing the long game and Darkseid casting his long, dark shadow.

All in all, it's quite a journey.

4.5/5 rounded up.

 

One of the greatest failings of comic book fanfiction is that it assumes the reader knows as much of the source material as the writer does. For most fanfiction, this isn’t an issue, and tends to be sort of an assumption of the format. With comic book fanfiction, there is just so much source material that most readers won’t have read all of it, whereas the writers are generally dedicated enough to know all of it. As a result, you end up with huge casts of undeveloped characters and foreshadowing and plot lines that just don’t make sense.

This piece suffers from the same sort of issues. Characters show up and are featured heavily in the narration and then either abruptly exit stage left or continue to have their own meaningless plot lines featured while the author glosses over the main plot line.

Spoiler

I mean, hell, that whole bit with that one bat apprentice who was around for all of a chapter or two and then died. Why was he necessary? Why do we care about Kara’s aging problem when the fucking ending makes any of her struggles irrelevant? Why was Donna ever even necessary? What was the point of the League of Shadows shit? Conner?

Speaking of that fucking ending... why were they thrown forward in time? Did it even accomplish anything for the characters? Hell, all it really did was make any and all development of the other characters entirely irrelevant.

“Hey, here’s all these struggles of these characters, and oh look, this one is probably dying. Let’s just move the story to the 31st century because of reasons.”

2/5 for being unable to actually transition from comic book storytelling into proper literary narration

 

This was about as pleasant as vagina dentata.

2/5

 

So I read this a couple of years ago.
I really appreciated the passing through time and longitudinal look at their careers.

The MCU intersection was a bit unexpected, but I enjoyed the melancholic feel of it and that it told its story and it completes what it sets out to do. I enjoyed the evolution of the world and the writing was good.

This is not the equal of that pam/Harley fic nor the best served cold fic and its sequel, but it's made a lasting impression on me, it's good and I'll rate it 4/5.

 

Oh do I have so many conflicting thoughts on this story. I remember reading it years ago and it was for the longest time among my favorite fanfics that was still a Work In Progress. I literally read every chapter from the moment I got a alert there was a new chapter.

Then it got to chapter 20 (of thirty total chapters in the story) and the entire thing basically went downhill from there. I can't explain more without spoiling the story however, if I can give a comparison to a story that suffered a similar fate, if anyone perhaps remembers the Harry/Bellatrix fanfic Delenda Est by Lord Silvere, basically it's a similar situation as Lord Silvere's absolutely terrible decision to transport Harry and Bellatrix twenty years into the future and how that ultimately killed and ruined Delenda Est (which had once been regarded as one of the best Harry/Bellatrix stories beforehand) for many people including myself.

If you want more info, I'll talk about it in the spoiler bubble below.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Basically the author decides to adapt ACTION COMICS #761 which for those unfamiliar with said issue from 2000, basically it features Wonder Woman and Superman getting sucked through a portal to Asgard and they basically get trapped there (from their perspective at least) for a 1,000 or so years, of which they basically spend fighting side by side. People remember it more these days for the fact there's a scene where Wonder Woman and Superman almost kiss.

Now I have no problem with the author deciding to go ahead and adapt this issue. Rather, the problem I have is that the rest of the finale ten issues of the story (well, technically five as the author basically has all the even chapters centered on Batman while the odd chapters are centered on Superman and/or Wonder Woman) basically continue to adapt the arc. Superman and Wonder Woman for all intents and purposes disappear and are no longer involved with the regular DC universe this story is set in for the rest of the story, for what is literally 1/3rd of the entire total fanfic.

This is made worse when one considers that Superman in Chapter 20 had literally just came back after years of being missing. Long story, but basically he was imprisoned on Apokolips if I remember correctly, and it was the author's attempt at mixing The Death of Superman with Crisis on Infinite Earth's considering the author's Dead People Stay Dead policy, and he apparently wanted to show how the world moved on/existed without Superman absent actually killing him via Doomsday. It's like if two or so years after the Death of Superman comic, DC decided to kill Superman permanently and just never decide to bring him. The author had chapters dedicated when Superman was missing to showing how the world was reacting and moving on to his disappearance and then when he came back, they showed the world reacting to his return for like two or three chapters before having him and Wonder Woman go missing on a permanent basis.

It should also be noted that by Chapter 20 Wonder Woman herself has also return from years of absence as she went to space to rescue Superman and was gone a while. So essentially both heroes are both only ever truly active as Superman and Wonder Woman inside this stories universe for maybe 15 or so years at most. In fact at one point I think it's even mentioned by the Legion of Superheroes that in the future Superman is mostly regarded as a footnote for all intents and purposes in Earth's history, remembered mostly for being the world's first Superhero, the first alien it encountered, and for being related to Supergirl who herself is actually considered a bigger deal overall in Earth's history in the future of this story. I don't even remember if they even knew who Wonder Woman was.

So yeah don't get me wrong, while the Batman chapters remain excellent throughout, this story by the end felt partially like a slap in the fact as a massive Superman and Wonder Woman fan following those last ten chapters.

So yeah, while once upon a time I might have actually given this story a 5/5, now after it's completed I can't give it more than a 3/5, and the only reason it's outright not a 2.5/5 or so is as I said because despite the terrible ending and author's decision on how to end the story, plus the general disservice to the characters of Superman and Wonder Woman in the final chapters, the Batman chapters nonetheless remained consistently excellent throughout.