While offering two entirely different kinds of detective stories, Future State: Dark Detective can be enjoyed by just about anyone. I can't vouch for how accurate it is to earlier Grifter comics but the Batman story offers a twisted cyberpunk take on Gotham City unlike anything I've seen before. For that alone this issue is worth picking up. Read Full Review

It's a back-to-basics story that is anything but basic. Read Full Review

An all-star cast of creators including @MarikoTamaki @Danmora_c #jordiebellaire @adityab @ashcanpress @digiandomenico73 bring the heat with Future State: Dark Detective #1 from #DCComics ! Read Full Review

In the backupstory, we get to see how Grifter and other characters not as well-known or at least known for taking a role in the spotlight are navigating a new Gotham. These characters offer significantly unique viewpoints and show the layered effect of the Magistrate and the no masks rule that has changed the landscape,andtheheartbeat of fabled Gotham. Read Full Review

In the best Future State issue yet, we get a closer look at Gotham under occupation, and it's one of the most compelling alternate realities to come out of DC in a long time. Read Full Review

Simply the best of what Future State has to offer. The one-two punch of Dark Detective and Grifters makes for an excellent package. The artwork is gorgeous and drives home the central theme of vulnerability as well as the dynamic action scenes. Read Full Review

Despite one big plot hole, which I hope will be explained, I thought issue #1 is outstanding and a great way to kick this 4 parter off. It's fast-paced but the story is also told well by Tamaki. And the art by Mora is fantastic! More importantly, at least I think so, the Grifter backup is the most pure fun I've had from new (printed) DC content in awhile. Read Full Review

Some of the bigger Future State books have contained smaller stories within them " some good, some not so much. However, Future Past part 1 is a nice companion piece to Future State: Dark Detective #1. It does a great job of showing some of Gotham's underbelly, as well as the military-like state that Gotham has become. Read Full Review

Im curious about this new direction for Batman, but I immediately want more Grifter/Luke Fox stories from this creative team as it was one of the best Future State stories of the week. Read Full Review

The main story is worth reading. The story by Mariko Tamaki is very good. And artist Dan Mora does a hell of a job on the art. I am intrigued where they are going with this. I have a feeling that it is going to be pretty great. Read Full Review

Both Dan Mora and Carmine Di Giandomenico have unique styles that are perfect for the stories they are telling. Mora's art has a great intensity to it that matches the dark tone of the story. Di Giandomenico brings energy and intensity to the art in the Grifter story because of its fast pace and action. Read Full Review

The first issue of Future State: Dark Detective offers two strong opening chapters. While I still have some questions with regards to the world-building"in particular how much time has passed since the lastest issue of Detective Comics"I'm definitely on-board for now. Read Full Review

A refreshing take on The Caped Crusader that makes him the underdog, updates the setting and introduces a formidable antagonist. Read Full Review

DC Comics'FUTURE STATE: DARK DETECTIVE #1is definitely worth the read. Tamaki, Mora, Bellaire and Bidikar's story is a perfect introduction to this dystopian world. While Rosenberg, Di Giandomenico, Fabela and Andworld Design's story stumbles a little, it's still an action-packed blaze of glory through DC's new FUTURE STATE. Read Full Review

Future State: Dark Detective #1 is an entertaining comic. It works better as part of the puzzle through multiple series in Future State. On its own though, it still delivers a comic you can sit back and enjoy. The art shines as it powers two stories that are similar in some ways and tell us so much about this new reality. So far, this is a Gotham and world I want to see more of it after this mini-event ends. Read Full Review

Dark Detective #1 does a good job in setting the stage for what this series will be addressing when it comes to the future Gotham City in Future State. Mariko Tamaki, Dan Mora, Matthew Rosenberg, and Carmine Di Giandomenico create a Gotham City that does feel like it is being controlled in a police state way by the Magistrate's regime. This makes what we see Bruce Wayne, Luke Fox, and Grifter go up against something that will be extremely difficult to overcome. Read Full Review

This is a strong and well-crafted kick off to Bruce Wayne's Future State story. Read Full Review

Future State: Dark Detectiveis strange, as the main story is a bit of a dud, and the backup is where the real meat lies. Tamaki's story, at least so far, just has very little actually happening, whereas Rosenberg's is so dense and enjoyable. Both stories are illustrated by incredible artists, both of which make the book more than worth the read. Read Full Review

Future State: Dark Detective #1 sets up a delightfully moody, techno nightmare that feels heavily inspired by 80s cyberpunk. It excels in creating a world that ensnares and overwhelms the senses. The Grifter backup story? Not so much. Read Full Review

I am not sure why Future State: Dark Detective #1 wasnt a stand-alone issue without No Future Past Part 1 because it severely detracts from how good Future State: Dark Detective #1 is. I feel deeply frustrated that this was two separate stories shoved into a $5.99 book when Tamakis 24-page intro into her depiction of Gotham was stellar. Overall, this leaves me confused and disappointed. I want to clarify that the Future State: Dark Detective #1 half is worthwhile and a great new entry in the Future State lineup, and I hope the next issues are standalone. Read Full Review

This is the best title I've read from Future State so far. Everything here is really enjoyable. There are some timeline concerns with the Dark Detective story that I'm willingly looking past, because the story is well written, and looks great. I think Mariko Tamaki is hit and miss, but she's usually better when she lets the art tell the story. Her misses usually have a wordiness problem.

The backup by Matthew Rosenberg is great as well. I can't say I'm the most familiar with Grifter, so I'm not sure how in character he is. Based on the responses from others, though, it doesn't seem like he's being written out of character. This reminds me a lot of the Hawkeye: Freefall miniseries from last year, which is why the characterization is in question. Maybe Grifter and Hawkeye are just similar assholes, I don't know. Either way, Matthew Rosenberg writes assholes in a really funny way, that isn't also at the expense of the character's dignity (what little they may have.). This was a decisively good time. more

Put off reading this for a long time, dumb mistake. Neon futuristic Gotham ala Batman Beyond, with Dan Mora’s exquisite pencils and a broke and forsaken Bruce Wayne/Batman makes for a killer plot.

I gotta say this was way better than I thought it would be. Its incredibly easy to get into redundancy when writing Bruce. We've seen what he does. We've seen how he acts. We've seen him in the future, and pretty much any other setting you can possibly think of. And yet rhus book still managed to engage me from start to finish. Dan Mora is a fantastic artist and if he keeps this up his Batman will be as iconic as Jim Lees.

But wanna know the real kicker? I liked the Grifter story way more. I have very little prior knowledge of Grifter. In fact as of writing this I belive I own exactly two comics he appears in, and this is one of them. But now? I'm going to have to change that. I'm a fan. And the backup story kills it on every level. The banter is great, the action is great and the story never let's up. Were seeing this Magistrate takeover from a lot of angles with this Future State line, but this one is one of the more interesting of them. Keep it coming! more

Liked the main story a lot. The Grifter backup was fun too.

I didn't expect going in to like this series more than The Next Batman, but I did. The backups were stronger, not counting Brandon Thomas' in The Next Batman. Just overall it is a better package.

I really enjoyed other stories and am looking forward to the next issue

" Being a masked hero is one thing... Being dead is another."
- BRUCE WAYNE

That was really fucking good, goddamn!

Dark Detective was a really good one. Dan Mora's art was wonderful and I was interested almost immediately. Other Future State comics haven't been that interesting to me, but this one is.

This premise put me on the Future State train and I was given everything I expected. Batman loses everything. This is what I expected to happen at end of Joker War, but better late than never.
Coming from California , forced nomadic living is in my veins. Seeing a rich kid like Batman homeless in a big city brings a smile to my face. And still having the drive to fight crime, despite that , makes my smile even wider !
I live the life of a ghost , but to have your obituary on skyscrapers, is a whole 'nother level.
Plus, I cant help but be called back to tbe first Batman comic I ever bought as an avid Detective reader - Morrison wrote it, Zurr-En-Arrh , the first appearance of that raggedy ass suit . Glimpses of such a spirit have my spirit locked in to see what will happen in issue two and with Grifter , my favorite Wildstorm character not named Vodoo, cutting up all over the side story. My only issue was that Batwing was written like a punk - save that type of attitude for Duke.
Hopefully Fox finds his cajones in the next issue, and if he doesn't, his emasculation won't stop me from enjoying my gateway series into Future State next month !
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Now this is what I'm talking about. The Batman story in this is awesome, probably the best Batman I've read since Batman Universe (not that big of an achievement since the two main titles since have been boring, but still). Dan Mora continues his streak of amazing art here, I really love his art and the vibrant colors from Jordie Bellaire. It's definitely a different feel from the normal Batman book, which usually is filled with muted colors. What I really liked is the setting for Bruce Wayne. It feels very different, and it finally brings Batman back down to his low point. He gets shot and hurt multiple times, so there's tension when you're reading the book. The mystery of the Magistrate is also very cool, I want to see how it plays out. A lot of people will probably notice how this is much more well received than the New Batman Future State book. In my opinion, the Batman story in that book feels very by the numbers, like nothing's changed. This feels like a big change of pace in setting, story, character, art style, and I can't wait to read the next issue. The Grifter story is also pretty cool, I just think this entire book takes advantage of the Magistrate vs Capes environment much better than the other Batman book did, which still just seemed like Batman is some god that the government can't contain or control. more

Not bad at all, definitely one of the standouts of the Future State so far. Both stories were really good, and made me actually want to pull Detective Comics post-Future State to read more stuff by this creative team.

It was better than next batman. The main story was solid with good art and kind of added more depth to the new gotham. The second story i really enjoyed knowing nothing about grifter.

9 for the first story, 7 for the second, I look forward to Bruce's story, so far it's interesting and Mora is really great.

I’ve never heard of this writer so I went into this story without any preconceived notions or bias toward her. As far as the main story goes, I like this one more than the main story in The Next Batman. The backup stories are a miss for me. I did not find them interesting.

This is a BATMAN title isn't it? I bought this to read a Batman story and maybe a bonus side story. What I got was the reverse. Yeah, the story and art were good, but without counting pages, it seemed that the Grifter story was twice as many pages. After I read the whole book and let it sink in, I felt cheated, especially at 5.99. This felt more like a preview than a real issue.

The Batman story is bolstered by fantastic Dan Mora art and superb mood setting by Mariko Tamaki's narration, even if the plot itself is rote. Grifters is a decent--though forgettable--rogue outlaw tale.

Finally Batman has something decent to read, I did not bet on this series, however it was good. NOT ORIGINAL since this has the X Men copy stamp all over the place, hunted heroes, running away is something that Marvel has seen, however it was agile, Bruce has literally lost everything, family, fortune, he is forced to lay his hands of what little he has to go on.

On the other hand he presents the story of Grifter, he was good agile, I like the personality of this antihero, good job Mat.

So Bruce Wayne is stupid now? Going to his grave was dumb, but the diner scene was laughable. A woman talking about the death of Bruce Wayne to Bruce... ok fine. Follow that up with Bruce stopping a cliche' mugging only to run away and put on his mask. It just came across as silly.

I honestly don't get why the Magistrate is bad at this point. They're essentially a better version of what Batman was. Why is it ok for an individual to enact "justice," but a private firm doing it crosses some line? This comic paints Batman as a failure, which is pretty symbolic for Future State as a whole.

The only reason this isn't a sub-six rating is b.c the Grifter story was pretty fun. Decent action and a cliff hanger I actually was interested in. more

DC Comic’s new publishing initiative of adding back-up stories and raising the cover price comes to Detective Comics for the Future State debacle in the form of Future State: Dark Detective. This time, the mediocre writing talents of Mariko Tamaki get the proper Bruce Wayne/Batman story while the superior writing talents of Mathew Rosenberg get the mediocre character of Grifter to work with. Both stories run the full twenty-two pages of a modern comic book for the cover price of $5.99, but one delivers an action-packed narrative while the other drifts along, drowning in a meandering monologue.

Dark Detective follows the story of Bruce Wayne after the events that led the public to believe that the Batman had been killed. Shot in a fight with The Magistrate, Batman makes his way to a back-alley doctor who stitches him up just enough to keep him from dying. Bruce emerges to find that Gotham City has now been told that the Batman died at the hands of The Magistrate and Bruce Wayne died sometime later. Of course, Bruce happens to find that crime is still a problem in Gotham, even with facial recognition drones and a militarized private police force, so he pieces together the remains of his Batsuit and what appears to be scraps of armor from The Magistrate’s Peacekeepers and sets out to retrain and retake Gotham City.

At the very basic level, Tamaki gets Bruce Wayne and his commitment to Gotham City correct. Tom King never quite seemed to understand Bruce’s undying fealty to a city that openly seemed to despise him, so the writer gets points for structuring that part of the story correctly (though to be fair, that could’ve easily been the story outline given by editorial). The problem is that she borrows heavily from the Tom King book of “make the character drone on endlessly in a pointless monologue that accomplishes nothing other than to make a 50-year-old man sound like an emo-teen.” There’s a moment where Bruce is confronted by a Blade Runner inspired version of Gotham City, with its high towers covered in bright lights and holographic imagery, and he has to run away with his head hung low in a full sprint towards a dark alley to escape the noise and the lights and the commotion, as if the New York City/Chicago inspired Gotham City of old was never lit up or noisy. This scene plays out on a full splash page of art to give it some sort of falsely enhanced gravitas, but in reality, just wastes a page on what should’ve been a panel on the bottom of the preceding page, at best.

The art is from Dan Mora with colors by Jordie Bellaire, and it is beautiful to look at. Mora is able to make each character stand out and provides a wide range of expressions, making the story work at times when it shouldn’t. It elevates the story beyond the script in many places, which is good because there’s not a whole lot of meat on the bones of this story. However, there are a few puzzling issues plaguing the story and I wish there was a better explanation given as to what was happening. For instance, there’s a flashback sequence of Bruce getting shot by Peacekeeper-01, the head of The Magistrate’s police force, which is what lead to the stories of his death. He’s in his Batsuit pants, t-shirt, and leather jacket. When we see the next flashback of him getting operated on, he’s in jeans with kneepads and wearing his cowl to protect his identity. Did he change clothes to get a lifesaving operation from a back-alley doctor? If so, why change out of half a Batsuit to half a Batsuit? Is this an artist error or did the script specifically call for this? Someone get Cinema Sins on the line because I need to know how many points this kind of mistake is worth.

The back-up story has a completely different problem. Grifter is not a Bat-family character and has no business being in this comic (but I guess Jim Lee has a mortgage too, so we’re getting Wildstorm characters shoe-horned into the DC Universe these days). I really don’t care for Grifter – it’s not that I hate the character, but much like Marvel’s Winter Soldier, I just don’t have much of a reason to care about the guy. The only thing that makes Winter Soldier enjoyable is his buddy-cop team-ups with The Falcon, and Matthew Rosenberg must’ve been reading my diary again because this Grifter story is a buddy-cop styled team-up with (former) Batwing, Luke Fox.

Grifter is in an illegal high stakes card game when approached by two plainclothes police officers who out his real identity to everyone in the underground casino when he refuses to leave to talk to them. In the ensuing battle, the fight spills onto the street where The Magistrate is waiting to arrest Cole and take him away for being a masked vigilante. This is where he meets Luke Fox who is also locked-up in the paddy-wagon, even though he hasn’t been Batwing for a long time. Luke offers Cole a lot of money to help get him out of Gotham City, and the hijinks begin. The story is just a downright fun action spectacle in the vein of an explosion laden popcorn flick. This is mini-series I’d add to my regular list of pulls at the local comic shop, even though it has Grifter in it.

Carmine Di Giandomenico and Antonio Fabela provide that artwork, and it’s some of the best looking in any comic book on the shelves from any company publishing comics today. Di Giandomenico puts so much detail into every panel that you often find yourself looking at all the people and objects packed into each page. He’s an artist from the same school as Ethan Van Sciver, so every poker chip, every windowpane, and every car headlight is drawn in and detailed. Fabela not only adds the proper colors to make things pop and come alive in the action, but the texture and depth is added when it needs to be. I’ve marveled over Di Giandomenico’s work before, and this story is another great work from him.

So once again, the mix of stories from DC in these expanded issues are a mixed bag of quality. The art is top notch in both stories, and I can see how many people might not care about how shallow the feature story is because the art is so good, but I just can’t let something that bad go without commenting on it because it is costing you money to read it. The $5.99 price tag is essentially getting you two comics for the price of two comics (drawing the line at $2.99), but I’d honestly rather pay the modern standard of $3.99 for the stand alone tale by Matthew Rosenberg, because he knows how to put a good story together.


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I guess I expected more from one of the biggest comics in the entirety of Future State. It's Bruce Wayne, guys, of course it must be a big book, right? Right?
Well, it's not. Not really. It contains some action, but when you think about it clearly, with no excitement, anger or any emotion for that matter, you're going to realize it's... empty. It has no beginning, it has no middle, it has no end. It's like a figment, or even better, a bubble, existing on its own and not really impacting anything.

We know that Bruce Wayne is a wanted man from the get go, and we see him dealing with this situation til the end. And that's pretty much it - there's no background information we get, no reasons, no explanations, no causality. Just Bruce being broken, poor and on the run, like we've never seen that before, and a bunch of faceless fascist militiants popping out of nowhere to shoot at him whenever the plot demands them to.

In comparison, Grifter's additional story is pretty fun to read and does right what Dark Detective gets wrong. For starters, Cole interacts with the world - we can see that Gotham is bigger than him. There's always more challenges waiting for him around every corner, there are people living there. And while overall it may not be anything close to an outstanding comic, it is, as I said, a fun, entertaining read. It captures your attention and doesn't let go until the last page and its cliffhanger. For once a supplementary comic outshines the main one, I think. Last Week's The Next Batman suffered from the exactly opposite syndrome - the main comic was darn good, but the addons, freebies you could say, were pretty weak to say the least. more

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myconius - Jan 12, 2021

"empty" is the best way to describe this story.

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very decompressed.
no actual information is given.
there's no stakes to invest in.
nice art though.

SO it's Batman without money...Because having money is considered a bad thing these days? There is really nothing to this story. A bad Elseworlds story to appeal to Edgelords. How would Batman be without money in a future where he hasn't aged? Not really deep story concepts here. Future State continues to be a salvage operation for DC who had the good sense to abandon the reboot. Save your money.

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Nihilist - Jan 15, 2021

No. Having money means Batman can do whatever he wants, therefore taking it away from him means depowering, crippling him. That's why so many writers resort to this extremely tired and overused trope. Talking about strawman, mate. And that comes from someone who genuinely disliked this comic and gave it a mixed review only because of Grifter's additional tale. Appealing to edgelords, lol. That's a good one.

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