With three strong stories, this is the biggest must-read Future State title this week and a strong indicator this event could have some legs beyond its two-month schedule. Read Full Review

This is a bold book and it's masterfully done and a great launch into "Future State." Read Full Review

John Ridley is a fantastic writer and he proves it again here. The story is thrilling and just plain awesome. The artwork is by one of my favorite artists, Nick Derington. He does a phenomenal job on this issue. Read Full Review

A fantastic start to the Batman corner of 2025, Future State: The Next Batman #1 wastes no time in establishing the dynamics of this new world and its characters. Each story addresses a different aspect of life in and around Gotham City, painting a fascinating picture of life in what amounts to a fascist city-state. An excellent opening to a series that I expect will feel too short by its closing. Read Full Review

The art is perfect for each story. Derington gives a great, gritty noir feel to the art in his story. Kumar pairs great action with style with his Outsiders story. Herbert delivers great drama and beautiful details to the Arkham Knights story. Read Full Review

Future State: The Next Batman #1 is a winner of a comic. I wanted to read more immediately and now I want an entire series exploring this world. There's some great concepts here and an interesting exploration of the line between justice and fascism. Where the line is drawn is a great concept to dive in to and this comic dances around it with some fantastic writing and characters. A lot is packed into the extended issue and it's such a welcome addition to the DC and Batman mythology. Read Full Review

The Next Batman provides not only a look into the Dark Knight's successor but the future of Gotham in three intriguing tales. Read Full Review

Both stories are important to the world-building " not sure when, or even if, we'll see the new Batman meet either Future State groups. The two issues were good, but Arkham Knights really gets your attention with its wild combination of knowns and unknowns. Read Full Review

Overall, this look at a twisted future Gotham is pretty compelling, even if we need to learn a little more about the Magistrate's regime for me to fully judge how strong they are as a villain. Read Full Review

Nick Derington on art. John Ridley on the script. Sixty-four pages of comics. What else could you ask for? Read Full Review

Future State makes me excited to read comic books again, and I wish it lasted longer " but for the time I have with it, I think I'm going to enjoy it (the good books, anyway). This is a great start, and I'm excited to see what issue two holds " and where this takes the comics I love going into the future. Read Full Review

With three intriguing stories, the only real downside to this new take on Batman, his supporting cast, and numerous villains is the fact that two of the stories won't continue for another two issues. Read Full Review

This was a decent beginning overall. Ridley's story had a slow start but shows signs of promise. Jenkins has done a really good take on the Arkham Knight that Peter Tomasi could not achieve in his arc in Detective Comics. Brandon Thomas, however, gets the gold star of the issue as he has me interested in a Duke Thomas story. This is something previous writers have never been able to accomplish. Read Full Review

This is pretty much a slow burner, that gives a traditional vigilante story rather than the bombastic Batman story of recent months. It will be interesting to see how long this book continues to entertain, especially with the Detective Comics Future State featuring Bruce Wayne as Batman hits. Read Full Review

Very enjoyable, very strong start to this new Batman story, even if I have a couple of quibbles. The back-up features don't really add much beyond page space and price. Read Full Review

Despite my feelings about Future State, I will say that The Next Batman #1 is a story worth looking forward to more from. We're traversing a different kind of Gotham where the dangers are different enough to shake-up the game. Not to mention we have a Batman who knows better how to look out for the little guy. Read Full Review

Future State: The Next Batman #1 takes its time to build up its world, with its creative team presenting a genuinely unique take on a new Dark Knight. I look forward to what the rest of the story holds, and hopefully, this isn't the last we see of this future. Read Full Review

All in all The Next Batman #1 was a decent first issue, and it did leave me interested in finding out more. Read Full Review

It's a new day in Gotham City ... and somehow it's worse than ever before, but has new defenders and new hope. Take a look at the Gotham of tomorrow, like it or not.  Read Full Review

Future State: The Next Batman #1 sets a solid foundation for this series to build on. John Ridley and Nick Derington worked together well to create world with many fascinating elements to build around the new Batman. The Outsiders back-up further elevated what was going on in Gotham City with how Duke Thomas, Katana, and Black Lightning factor into the greater story around the Magistrate. Read Full Review

Overall, I enjoyed Future State: The Next Batman #1. The main story by John Ridley has me intrigued, though I wish there were more pages of this instead of having two backups. However, the Katana backup was cool, especially for Batman and the Outsiders fans, I just didn't need an Astrid Arkham story to end everything on such a dull note. Even with that, I can recommend this to Batman fans, but I don't know why there wasn't more "Next Batman." Read Full Review

Though backed by some serious star power both in and out of comics community, Future State: The Next Batman #1 doesn't shine quite as brightly as one would expect. The potential is very much there, that said. The artwork is tremendous and Ridley has some good ideas here, scaffolded to a fun new flavor and voice for Batman. We can only hope that the next issue, with the foundation fully set, Future State: The Next Batman gets to the level we expected it to be at with the opening. Read Full Review

Despite each story proving weaker than the last, Future State: The Next Batman #1 was an overall enjoyable read. There is enough interest here to push forward into issue two, a prerequisite for the success of Future State. Read Full Review

Ridley's Batman? Great. Brandon Thomas' Outsiders? Fantastic. The Arkham Knight story? I could do without.

Just like dark detective I really enjoyed all three stories here and am looking forward to the next issue. The Arkham knights story really stood out for me it was terrific

As expected this will see some backlash by people who have a "particular" issue about who's wearing the cowl this time around. The less said about that the better.

As an actual Batman comic though this has a lot to offer. The initial story is setup/a quick and easy crime story but its good one. The scenario is a good one and I think we are going to see how about how things came to be this way over the next 3 issues. The art is very strong and the action is fun and cool. Nothing groundbreaking by any means but a solid story.

The Outsiders story surprised me. A Katana showcase for the most part, it has some absolutely killer action sequences with fantastic art. The style reminds me heavily of Sean Gordon Murphy, in a good way. Very much like what was done here. Seriously, there a spread in here that is almost worth the price of admission alone.

The last story is... interesting, but definitely the weakest. Its a decent enough premise but if you didn't read the Detective Comics arc about Arkham Knight(I didn't) its hard to get invested in that character or this story. The art is mostly solid but not as good as the others in my opinion and the way the main character speaks is unnatural, but I am not certain if that is intentional or not.

This is overall well worth the money. It has a surprising amount of content and you get 3 decent-really good stories for the price of a little less than 3 issues. I reccomend. more

I didn’t read the backups. ❤️

" All that but still in Gotham City... The more things change... The more things stay the same."
- BATMAN

Already liking the new Batman and his approach to crimefighting. He focuses more on saving the people then fighting the bad-guys, an approach that has been lost with current Batman stories were it's often more about the villain
Outsiders story didn't do it for me. I found it difficult to understand what was going on, though the panel with Katanna fighting her way through a warehouse was very well done.
The Arkham Knights are very intriguing. It's Suicide Squad meets Arkham Asylum and while I question how it got to this point, its an interesting read regardless.
Fully recommended.

Great first story, pretty good second one, but the third one I could not care less about. Great artwork in the first two stories as well.

DC Future State is upon us. I'm not sure what to expect from this series or the overall event but I know one of the biggest talking points was that we'd see a "Black" Batman. After reading the issue I wasn't all that impressed. John Ridley doesn't really give us enough to go on and I'm not quite sure why the series exists after the first installment.

The Next Batman #1 is actually three stories in one comic. The overall plot seems to be that in Gotham "Masks" are outlawed. Bruce Wayne is MIA or causing trouble elsewhere and a few other vigilantes are operating as a resistance.

The issue doesn't give much away regarding how Luke Fox gets the cowl and without context, the segment featuring Luke reads like a standard Batman story in a slightly futuristic setting. Yes, there are some hints about an inflection point in the past but nothing concrete is provided. Sadly without the hype about the Batman race swap this a pretty ho-hum first appearance. The series may come together but that's where we stand after the first outing.

What manages to save the comic are the backup stories. They add readability and more world-building regarding the overall happenings in Gotham. All of the segments are pretty standard but they add scale and bang for the $7.99 you're paying for in this book.

The first Backup features Outsiders "Katana" and "The Signal". It shows just how fascist Gotham has become. This is the strongest of the three segments and the one I'm most interested in going forward. Not a big fan of Katana's costume design but everything else is exciting and I generally liked the energy of Sumit Kumar's art style.

The second backup story features a group of former Batman Rogues banded together as a team of heroes designated "Arkham Knights". This is the most far-fetched Future State story I've read so far and the one that resonated with me the least. The art in the segment is the strongest but the Idea of Two-Face and Victor Zsasz as costumed heroes is a bit much. The Next Batman is billed as a 4 issue series so I'm sure by the end we'll have a complete and respectable story for these characters we just aren't there yet.

I appreciate the format and the increased page count but I'm not a fan of the price point in this instance. I think The Next Batman may have benefited from the Dawn of X/Hickman style of storytelling where text and graphic elements are used to do the heavy lifting regarding world-building. There is enough content to justify the price point but I also think the price could have been dialed down and some of this could have been explained in a few blurbs.

I also feel that the "Future State" setting may have benefited by having a launch issue that established the status quo a bit better. I've also read Future State Harley Quinn and it does give part of the Gotham story but it feels like we're dropped in the middle of a story and not in a good way. When events like these became the norm with stories like "The Age of Apocalypse" or "Onslaught" there used to be an Alpha and Omega issue to open and close things out. I thought the opening chapter would be "Generations Shattered" but that story seems to be standalone and doesn't really foreshadow anything that we see here.

If you're willing to invest in this story The Next Batman may turn into something great but as it stands it's too early to say. I do like that DC is experimenting with different story concepts and trying something different. I just think the editorial may have fumbled the rollout of this event.

Rating: 7/10
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It was ok. I really liked the art in the main story and also the other stories looked good but it didnt really stick out as a must read. Particularly the main story. Nothing special. I did enjoy the other stories for what they were. Average stories to give some insight into the future state world.

I think this could be a good run. No issues with the man behind the mask. The art was a let down for me it didn't match the story and fell flat. I also do not like the multiple stories in these issues. Are the authors struggling to get a full story here? None of these Future State runs will be on my pull list. We will see what March brings. God I miss Tomasi's Superman run......

The Next Batman storyline had me interested and it was good but it was too short. I didn't really care about those backup-stories, Detective Comics' Arkham Knight -storyline was not that interesting for me and I never really read Outsiders.

The Batman story was legitimately good. I want to see where John Ridley goes with that. Undeniably the best thing I've read from Future State so far. The Outsiders back up was pretty good. It flows well. The Arkham Knights back up is really, really boring. This was almost a solidly good collection of stories, if not for the last one.

So, here it is, the Next Batman, one of the few actually hyped books from Future State. And along it, 2 other stories, one featuring what's left of the Outsiders, and the other featuring Gotham Knights. All of the stories shine some light on the fascist Gotham City controlled by totalitarian corporate interest and its army of mercenaries willing to do anything to preserve the status quo.

The Next Batman itself, as a stand-alone comic, is definitely worth picking up. When I was reviewing The Other History of the DC Universe #1, I said I hope John Ridley improves in the future as a comic writer. Not that he was bad, on the contrary in fact, but there's always room for improvement no matter how promising your abilities may be at the moment. I'm glad to report his chops seem to have improved in this comic. It's good. Damn good, I'd say. It's been a long, long while since I picked a Batman book feeling tension, stakes and drama, actually feeling something while reading it. I found out that I care about this Batman and his mission, I care about what motivates the side characters and how each of them faces different struggles, relieving some pressure from the titular character.
If there was one gripe I have with the comic, it'd be amount of side arcs squeezed in here. Not sure if two cops were actually necessary, but then again, they most likely will play a larger role in the series and they had to be introduced one way or another.

Now, what lowers the book's overall score to me are two other stories featured in it, none of them being above painful average. I've read them, but I don't feel anything afterwards - they're just there to offer some more exposition on the Magistrate and its fascist dictatorship, oh, and of course show where some established heroes or villains are now. They're both pretty forgettable and unsurprisingly, I'd say they serve supplementary filler role to Ridley's work, since otherwise they wouldn't sell. more

So the Magistrate is essentially the fascist Batman from Alex Ross' Kingdom Come? Sure...

The Outsiders was ok, but a bit confusing.

Arkaham Knights... oh boy was that rough.

The beginning of the Next Batman is like the beginnings of Batman without the death of his parents mixed a bit with the problems of the mutants in X-Men, that is, it is an exciting but trite beginning, which is good because it fulfills the function of entertain, however personally there is nothing that tells me to stay and buy me, much less when it is a jumble of stories that follow or summarize, it is a presentation book about the numbers that will come regarding what concerns Gotham.
Outsiders that was decent, nothing extraordinary.
A suicide squad guy with an Arkham Knight who stole Captain America's armor with everything and a ridiculous shield with an A.
In short, it fulfills its function of entertaining, there is nothing new on the horizon, only old formulas that make it seem new and two somewhat boring stories. for my taste. more

It exists. The art looked mostly nice, the stories somewhat intriguing. I don't get why this wasn't a natural plot development in the monthly Batman or Detective Comics series. As a set of miniseries in an elseworld limited high priced book? It's pointless. I would love to read a real Tim Fox as Batman story, set where it really has an impact on DC continuity. Or an evolution of the Outsiders story to go where this series does. The limited, inconsequential nature of these stories makes them impossible to be entertained by.

I have zero interest in Tim as Batman. He's already started off on the wrong foot by jumping the queue of more deserving characters to the Bat mantle.

The Fox family dynamic isn't bad, but this has been done with the Gordons but better since I actually care about them.

Art sucked. The backup stories w/Arkham Knight leading Batman's rogues gallery was cool. Outsiders didn't interest me.

I honestly just wanna go back to Bruce and the Batfamily.

If your going to reboot batman it needs to offer something new or at least something to grab the readers attention this is the epitome of bang average, the art is pretty good definately a Mazzucchelli year one vibe but the story is so cookie cutter its just dull. Ridley has made it clear in interview his only priority was making sure the new batman is black, the sooner DC go under the better.

One of the many problems with Future State is the “Elseworlds” dilemma. We are given a story set in a “possible future” of the DC Universe and are asked to care about it, when we know that it will most likely be gone in 2 months and little, if anything, will ever come of it. Additionally, we get introduced to new characters and find ourselves reading about these strangers in place of the familiar characters we’d rather be reading about it. I planned to skip Future State completely, but the lack of comics on the shelf grabbing my attention forced my hand and I eventually began to try a few comics just to see if any of them weren’t so bad.

Future State: The Next Batman #1 isn’t so bad. The biggest problem is the one outlined above: this is a Batman comic without Batman. There is a guy in a Batman suit, but even he questions if he is the real Batman now, which just further cements in the reader’s mind that this isn’t really Batman. When we see who he is, teased by the story to be Luke Fox the former Batwing but previously spoiled by an overzealous PR department to be Tim Fox the… other… son of Lucious Fox, I guess… it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the story. The real problem is that Tim Fox has no reason to be Batman whereas Luke spent time as a costumed crimefighter in the Bat-Family. Why did writer John Ridley go with Tim over Luke? No clues are given in this story, other than the fact Luke seems to be unreliable now, so I guess he couldn’t be the one. Real clear, isn’t it?

Future State: The Next Batman #1 isn’t all bad. The story and art has plenty of throwbacks to Batman: Year One, so at least you get the feeling that unlike some other Future State books, this team is familiar with the comic books that came before. The art by Nick Derington has a somewhat simplistic feel, but it does enough to convey the dirtiness of Gotham City and the action of the fights. The colors by Tamara Bonavillain strike a good mood and a feeling of depth that the line art often lacks. The two work well together and I hope they are together on future issues, assuming that those issues also work to invoke the early years of the modern Batman mythos.

Unfortunately, Future State: The Next Batman #1 is presented in DC Comics’ new expanded format, meaning it comes with two back-up stories to add to the page count and raise the cover price to $7.99. The lead Batman story is the new industry standard 22 page length, while each of the back-up stories are 20 pages in length with the only non-DC advertising being on the coverstock pages. Honestly, that’s a lot of story for $8.00, but if you only want the lead story and don’t care for the back-ups, you’ll feel hard done to shell out so much money.

The first back-up story features The Outsiders (Katana, The Signal, and Black Lightning) as they attempt to rescue citizens fleeing from Gotham City and take down a former ally who is now working with The Magistrate (the overlord controlling Gotham City and outlawing all superheroes). The story from Brandon Thomas is straightforward and unremarkable, but the artwork from Sumit Kumar, Raul Fernandez, and Jordie Bellaire is fun and energetic, though it can be occasionally goofy. While it might sound like I’m knocking the story and art, I easily enjoyed this entry more than the feature and found the most joy following the action as laid out by the artists. Honestly, if this was a sampler of upcoming titles, I’d most likely buy only The Outsiders and skip the other two, but as an ongoing $8 series, it wouldn’t be enough to get me to buy this title every month.

The final back-up story is about Astrid Arkham, apparently the current head of Arkham Asylum, and vigilante known as the Arkham Knight. The character has previously been established in comics as someone who has the hearts and minds of the Gotham City underworld, so she’s apparently using her talents to turn the psychologically unstable into a superhero team to fight The Magistrate. The art by Jack Herbert and Gabe Eltaeb is phenomenal and easily stands out as among the best you’ll find on comic racks today, but I just can’t find any way to connect to the story by Paul Jenkins. There’s just not enough happening here to make me care about anything going on with these characters. Additionally, all the former villains are each wearing some sort of armor that resembles that of the Knight, making characters like Humpty Dumpty (yes, a big egg-man) look absolutely ridiculous.

Future State: The Next Batman #1 is not the worst comic book in the Future State line-up so far, but with only one story that actually seems to succeed with the correct mixture of writer and artists, the $7.99 price tag makes it an expensive experiment. The lack of a “real” Batman in a Batman comic book is the book’s biggest fault. With no real connection to Batman, Bruce Wayne, or the 80 year mythos readers have come to expect, I can’t say that I’ll miss this “possible future” when it goes away in the coming months.

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I just can't get past the fact that there is nothing Batman like about Tim Fox. He has no connection to Batman at all. Bruce traveled the world training in different ways and learning tactics. He pushed himself to be who he was. Yes the money helps of course,but he is supposed to be the best of the best and his training is what prepared him for it, not his money.
What the hell has Tim Fox done that could have possibly prepared him to be Batman. And nobody better bring up him being in the military or something. No SF training is even close to being enough to be Batman. The only connection to Bruce Wayne is that DC decided to give all of Bruce Wayne's money to a more deserving black family. Why would he even want to be Batman? Why not be his own hero? (I know they are calling a random black dude "Batman"so they can use everything Bruce did to promote "new" character, im talking comic world).
Why would Damien just let some turd that would get his ass handed to him by every Robin prance around ruining his father's legacy? I mean come on. I could put a Batman costume on right now and go fight crime in my city. But I'm not Bruce Wayne so I wouldn't really be Batman and I would be dead pretty fast. I didn't think FS: Superman of Metropolis was great, but it makes sense that his son will take up the mantle one day.
I don't care how good the story is if I can't believe the current character that is Batman just isn't any where near good enough to be Batman. more

I won't waste my money on this.
There is something that I do not understand, DC has been doing poor quality things for a long time and the new ideas do not seem to improve this, it looks as if it is desperate to sell or to bankrupt the company, I have not decided which of the two and I would hate that the company where my favorite comic book character is (not Batman, or Superman, or WW, or Nightwing) goes bankrupt, but I'm not going to buy something that I hate or dislike either, especially when they removed my favorite series from RH and a such a terrible way. This really makes us start flirting with the rival company who is doing a good job even though its price is higher and you really realize that it is worth it.
I hope this changes because I see DC closing in a couple of years. more

This is lazy writing no imagination.

The "Next Batman" as a killer of the innocent. But they save THAT for later, when you aren't looking. Why doesn't John Ridley tell origin here? Deliberately. The Next Batman as Tim (Jace) Fox, the hit and run driver and cold-blooded killer, with the moral values of running some innocent person over and leaving them to die in the street. Of course, John Ridley won't talk about the "origin" of this "Next Batman." He will bury it in "chapters" of a digital-only issue. So the DC Comics audience does not grasp his "Next Batman" begins with a conscienceless killer of the innocent. That wouldn't fit in with DC Comics PR stories on this. They will have PR reviewers call him the "anti Bruce Wayne." But the reality is that a killer with no conscience is still a killer. No matter how they dress him up. Watch for other DC Comics writers, including Ridley, to start rationalizing killing in other books to come. It is part of the "new morality" of DC Comics "Future State," which reimagine "masked hero" comic books as "horror comics." more

This book is a mess.

worst Batman ever.