Female Furies #6 (of 6): Unstoppable

Perhaps, given its poor start and uneven footing as it proceeded, it’s fitting then that Female Furies concludes with a confusing ending that simultaneously sidesteps easy answers but also provides nothing definitive in return.

After trying and failing to a) inspire the women of Apokolips to rise up against he patriarchy of their own accord and b) provide a literal dream of freedom for them (how very on-the-nose), they choose instead to destroy Apokoliptian society as a whole, which accidentally results in the entire planet being destroyed in the process, because a tower they chose to blow up is somehow tied to Darkseid’s power, which is itself tied to the planet, so therefore destroying that one tower results in Apokolips pulling a Krypton.

Uh, what?

The women all join together and flee to a stable chunk of the planet, refusing to grant asylum to any men who might try to leave with them. Instead they let them flee, ultimately claiming the planet for their own. If Darkseid and his cronies want Apokolips back, they reason, they’ll have to work with us. This line of thought completely ignores that just a few pages back in the issue, the majority of women on the planet refused to work with them, for fear of change but also because they saw the Furies as oppressors rather than equals.

Equally confounding is that, for all of its freshman-level (but well-intended) feminism, Female Furies has generally worked within the framework not only of Jack Kirby’s original Fourth World mythos but also the larger DC continuity. But with the sudden swerve this issue takes in cultivating true revolution upon Apokolips, all that goes out the window. Barda gets to go to Earth to be with her love, Scott Free a.k.a. (Mr. Miracle), but everything else has changed. Darkseid and his minions are in exile, and Apokolips is now run by the Furies as a free society. Obviously, no such thing has ever happened in-continuity, so the question becomes: is this a quasi-Elseworlds yarn? Does it take place somewhere else within the multiverse? This issue doesn’t bother to address either of those questions, which means it’s up to the reader to decide. Maybe it’s intended that way, but given some of the shortcuts and bizarre leaps of logic writer Cecil Castellucci has interspersed throughout this series, my gut says it’s not. Which is a shame. Female Furies has, from the beginning, been a mixed bag, but a mixed bag with a good heart and a lot of potential (potential that it lived up to for at least a couple of its chapters). But its lack of focus – crystallized by this tone-deaf ending – and ham-fisted politics ultimately end up dooming this series to the dollar bins rather than a niche cult classic.