Review: Future State- The Next Batman

Quick Summary

Pros: Nearly all of the stories contain great levels of action and excitement. Many of the stories capture great emotions from fan-favorite characters and others contain poignant messages about modern societal problems. The artwork is mostly positive throughout the book.

Cons: The storytelling in two of the chapters is just alright. The artwork in a few chapters is just alright.

Overall: This is a solid collection of stories within the Future State universe. The stories contained here are packed with engaging action scenes, worthwhile emotions, good-looking art, and messages that are relevant to the present. Not every story in this book is a winner but the vast majority are definitely entertaining. All in all, this is a book for readers interested in seeing DC heroes take on a dystopian take on Gotham City’s future.

Story

Future State: The Next Batman manages to combine cool stories and over-the-top action with emotion and meaning. The majority of the stories here are about the heroes of Gotham City rising up against the city’s tyrannical new practices. This leads to crazy confrontations between the heroes and the villains, whether they involve elaborate planning and neat gadgets or straightforward fisticuffs. It also highlights the drive, determination, and friendship within the heroes while examining the perils of a city’s decline in fascism. The collection’s only drawback is that the Grifter and Arkham Knight stories are pretty mediocre. Overall though, this is a solid collection of worthwhile stories.

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Nearly all of the stories in The Next Batman achieve quick success by pulling the reader in through excitement. The Batman story has him almost constantly on the run from the Magistrate’s forces, the Outsiders story depicts a few epic battles featuring Katana, and the Batgirls story features a tense prison break. However, the best example of this takes place within the Nightwing story, which centers around a massive confrontation between Nightwing’s forces and the forces of the Magistrate. When it comes to action, the Nightwing story easily takes the cake but many of the other stories are solid contenders.

The other thing the stories in The Next Batman do really well is infusing some meaning and emotion into these otherwise action-focused narratives. The Nightwing story sees a fractured Bat-family coming together; the Outsiders story has heroes persevering against all odds; the Batgirls story has two best friends learn to forgive each other.

The Batman story is really the primary place where these meaningful messages blend perfectly with the storytelling. Jace’s crusade against Gotham’s corruption feels like a return to Batman’s origins, as many older stories had Batman hampered by GCPD’s corruption more often than he was helped by its brighter elements. Jace’s story also brings up real-world issues about justice, policing, and how modern-day fascism can come into existence.

The biggest drawback in The Next Batman is that some of the stories don’t live up to the standard established by the other stories. Both the Grifter and Arkham Knight tales involve heroes rising up to the occasion, which is great to see. However, overall, they don’t do much to really grab attention and end up feeling pretty forgettable.

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Art

The artwork in The Next Batman is mostly positive. To start with, there are some seriously good looking chapters within this book. Nick Derington’s work on the Batman story starts the collection out right and Nicola Scott’s work on the Nightwing story is fantastic. Later on, I really enjoyed Sumit Kumar’s work on the Outsiders chapters, especially when it came to presenting action and the city of Gotham, and Carmine Di Giandomenico’s work on the Grifter chapters. Though not quite as visually striking as these other chapters, the visuals in the Batgirls and Gotham City Sirens stories, from Aneke, Rob Haynes, and Emanuela Lupacchino, really suit the tone of their specific stories.

Unfortunately, there are a few artistic downsides to this book. The majority of the Batman story is not drawn by Nick Derington and this portion of the story ends up just looking alright. In addition, the visuals in the Arkham Knight chapters are a bit underwhelming, especially in the way shadows and coloring occasionally make characters and objects look weird. Though not every chapter here looks great, the majority of this collection contains pleasing visuals.

Continuity

Future State: The Next Batman, like all Future State comics, flows from the Multiverse altering events taking place in Dark Nights: Death Metal (Review) (Reading Order). However, understanding Death Metal is not necessary to understand this volume.

The larger narrative surrounding the stories contained here is told through the rest of the Future State event.

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• The Arkham Knight debuted not long before this comic was published, in Detective Comics Vol. 2: Arkham Knight (Review).