Future Dystopia...
There are a few things comic writers return to again and again. Evil twins, people returning from the dead (real or imagined), finding out your brother is an archvillain (or maybe just a minion). One of those things is the "dystopia" story.
We've all read them, even if we don't quite get the term. A "utopia" a wonderful place. A place where all are wise and enlightened, where peace reigns, and the society is filled with justice (all the various forms of justice for that matter). A dystopia is the opposite of that. It's a place where everything has gone wrong.
I'm not going to claim that I know what the "first" one is. I'm sure there are many stories in this "genre" that I'm not familiar with. That said, the first one that's truly burnt into my memory is the legendary "Days of Future Past" storyline in X-Men. This is a story that works, and works well.
We have young Kitty Pryde, barely on the team, still full of wonder and innocence, and then suddenly she's switched with Kate Pryde. Kate Pryde, who has seen the horrors that are to come. A woman who has lost family, friends and freedom. No more innocence there, though still the decency that young Kitty exhibited.
The future? Dark and bleak. What's more, the "trigger" makes sense. Mutants killing a major politician would very easily lead to major repression.
Yet, while I consider the story brilliant standing alone, I think it's been destroyed. The stark clarity of the "future" is too cluttered now. Too many additions. I think "Days of Future Present" was a strong addition to the story, drawing out elements of the dark days, without ruining the story. Yet, the "future timeline" of the X-Men has become horribly cluttered. You've not only got the "Days of" stuff, but then the Bishop XSE, the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, and other "future" stories that clutter the picture, and remove focus from them.
Still, that's far from the only future dystopia story out there. It seems most books have gone into this realm. Some do it very well ("Future Imperfect" in the Hulk was on a par with Days of Future Past"). Others? Not so well (I have little use for "Titans of Tomorrow").
A deeper problem though, is what does having this future nightmare hanging over a book do to the book? If the writers take them seriously, then the entire book loses a sense of hope. What are people fighting for, if not a better tomorrow? Yet, here we have "proof" that tomorrow is not only worse, but catastrophically worse. On the other hand, if the writers discount the future story (alternate timeline, dream, or whatever), that erodes the story. It becomes less. Less powerful, less meaningful, less, less, less.
It's this reason that I generally don't like this sort of story. It either ties the hands of the writer, or it becomes an excursus to nowhere in the development of the book. It can be done well, and can shape a book, as Days of Future Past certainly did in the X-Men. Yet, for that, it just creates too many problems.
