Future State: The Next Batman #3: Humans, Monsters and Human Monsters

When last we saw the Next Batman, now revealed to be Tim “Jace” Fox, he had located and attempted to subdue what initially appeared to be violent criminals but turned out to be violent criminals with a cause. And, frankly, as causes for murder go, theirs isn’t the worst you could find: their victim was, in fact, a monster who had lured and murdered their young daughter. The brutality of their crime – not to mention the fact that it was committed to begin with – complicates matters for Jace not least because they did it wearing masks, making them “kill on sight” as far as the Magistrate is concerned. All of which has become immediately relevant as Magistrate footsoldiers have now arrived, ready to execute all three of them.

The storyline between Jace and Mr. and Mrs. NotSureWhatTheirNamesAre is an effective demonstration of what has become of Gotham City. Even during the modern era, where corruption remains thick on the ground, The NotSures would probably have gone to the police, or even put out some kind of plea to Batman for help regarding their situation. But here, the GCPD largely has their hands tied, while the Magistrate is more worried about controling people in masks than anything else. There is no concern for justice, only power, and so the NotSures take matters into their own hands, and in so doing end up deepening Gotham’s sickness, not to mention putting themselves on the hitlist.

As for Jace, the way he deals with the danger is clever, but there’s no doubt that he is far less experienced and more naive than Bruce – which isn’t a complaint, of course. He is fallible – he makes mistakes and tries to course correct once he realizes that’s what they are. When injured, he doesn’t have an on the go medical kit in his belt or an army surgeon waiting at home to sew up his wounds. He has to improvise on the spot. He can’t have the criminal and psychological history of everyone he encounters downloaded into his cowl and displayed across his lenses – he has to decide who he can trust and who he can’t based entirely on his own judgment and intuition. Truly a back to basics type of Batman that should really appeal to people.

In this issue we are given a few tantalizing glimpses into Jace’s backstory – hints that will no doubt come to bloom in the upcoming Next Batman miniseries. If you’ve been wondering how he acquired the skills to become Batman, well, you’ll still be wondering but you may start to form suspicions even if they largely go unconfirmed for now.

In the past I haven’t spoken as much about the non-Jace aspects of the story – you could call it infogathering on my part before I felt qualified to comment on the situation regarding Gotham’s police force, for example. But as of this issue we start to see pieces of how the GCPD functions inside the Magistrate and without giving anything away the answer is “not well.”

There is also significant movement in the continuing subplot regarding the Fox family. Lucius Fox makes his first appearance in Future State and all I can think is that the Foxes went from being at the heart of Bruce’s vigilante operation to being supporters of the Magistrate, and that story really needs to be told. As material goes, that is dark chocolate fudge brownie rich, particularly when you consider that Luke used to be a member of Batman Incorporated and Lucius invented most of the equipment Bruce used to wage his war on crime. Now Tanya is legal advocate for the Magistrate, and Lucius has perverted the tools made for Batman into the backbone of the Magistrate’s operation.

Meanwhile, their other son is Batman! The family drama is thick on the ground, but so are the opportunities to explore the characters, their relationships and how they came to be where they are. It’s easy enough to view Lucius in a negative light if you only consider his relationship with Bruce, but Lucius is a person with his own issues and struggles, and one of them appears to be a really nasty case of PTSD stretching back to his experiences during Joker War.

The art team from #2 returns which means whatever you thought of last issue’s visuals you’re probably going to think of this issue as well. Laura Braga is a solid artist, but I miss the certain spark that Nick Derington brought to the first issue. While Braga is working on Derington’s breakdowns, her work lacks Derington’s fluidity. More, because it is softer and less graphic, Gotham in general looks slightly less menacing under her pen than Derington’s. That said, Arif Prianto’s beautifully grungy colors brings the book’s visuals together and bridges the gap between Derington’s and Braga’s styles to maintain a coherent look for the series despite the change.

This issue our backup features are Outsiders and Arkham Knights, which I maintain are by far the stronger duo in comparison to the Batgirls/Gotham City Sirens stories.

“Outsiders” picks up where we left off in issue #1 with its three central figures, Tatsu “Katana” Yamashiro, Jefferson “Black Lightning” Pierce and Duke “The Signal” Thomas, making their way through the mess that has become Gotham and its immediate outskirts. Duke narrates the story through an overlain transcript of a speech he once gave to dissidents.

I have to say, I’ve always enjoyed Duke Thomas as a character, but these two stories have done more to make me really invest in him than anything I’ve read thus far. To me, he’s always felt like a character with potential who hadn’t quite established himself as a unique force in Gotham. This is different – the costume and unmasked face of The Signal has become a symbol of hope for those being crushed under the Magistrate’s heel, and I am loving it. There’s no doubt that Duke is out of his various mentors’ shadows and taking his place centerstage as a lightning rod (haha) for political controversy; truly a powerful figure in 2025 Gotham.

That said, his actions have also drawn considerable attention from the Peacekeepers, which puts Duke in a constant state of danger. It is danger to Duke, in fact, that draws Jefferson out of hiding and back into the light. Tatsu, meanwhile, struggles with her own, largely internalized, grief and duties. Here, we also discover why it is she has taken to talking aloud to her husband so much more than she had in the past.

Brandon Thomas makes great use of Tatsu and Jefferson’s conflicted, fragile and undeniable connection to one another as established in the recent (and fantastic) Batman and the Outsiders series by Bryan Hill, Dexter Soy, etc. Questions remain, with what in the world is going on with Jefferson being the most obvious among them. I expect this will be explored and explained in real time as Gotham begins its slow slide toward dystopia.

Visually, Sumit Kumar, Raul Fernandez and Jordie Bellaire bring the thunder and the (cough) lightning with compositions that set the tone and flow of the story, cutting across the page and dancing along with the characters in all their dynamic grace.As for Jordie Bellaire’s colors, what can I say that hasn’t already been said? Bellaire is a master of her craft.

In fact, the color artists in this book are consistently top notch from the first page of Jace’s story through the last page of Arkham Knights. Eltaeb has consistently done a fantastic job of bringing the look of the new Gotham into Jack Herbert’s more “realistic” art style, and I love to see it. I’ve been a fan of Herbert’s since his magnificent artwork on The Silencer a few years back, and here he continues to excel, bringing humanity to the deeply flawed Knights while still embuing them with a mythic quality.

As you may remember, Arkham Knights is the story of former Arkham patients coming together to form a rebellion in Gotham City in an attempt to bring freedom and hope to the citizenry. Leader Astrid Arkham views them very much in line with the ahistorical idealized view of a knightly orders so common in the modern world. Operating from the abandoned Wayne Manor, the Knights also have access to the former batcave where they make use of Bruce’s aging, yet still impressive, technology to plan their attacks against the Magistrate.

Astrid Arkham’s internal monologue narrates the story, and we finally get a mention of the Penguin (although I’m not 100% certain of his relationship to the Knights or his role in the city at this point).

There’s something capitvating to me about this ragtag group of people who had been condemned as lunatics and locked up out of civilizations’s sight who then come together and find love, support and family with each other… all the while acting as defenders to people who never defended them. It’s a team of villains, and yet they have shown more compassion and humanity than many of the civilians in Gotham 2025 – or even vigilantes like the NotSures. Astrid’s internal narration brings us into her headspace, and it’s pretty fascinating to view the world through her eyes as she cuts through her team’s reputations and insecurities to draw out the best in them.

Honestly, I think if I had to choose which stories will continue moving into canon out of all of the Future State books I’ve read, Arkham Knights would be in my top five picks. Also, as a sidenote Dr. Phosphorous has certainly been getting a lot of airtime recently, hasn’t he? Perhaps this is a signal of things to come!