This creative team is crafting a truly engaging, emotional, and insightful story that looks at not only the hardships and privilege of one family but also takes a deep look at issues that plague so many of us in reality. Moody-focused artwork brings full attention to the story, making every panel truly engaging whether it's one full of action or one full of talking characters. They are truly doing something special and different set within the confines of Gotham City and the world of Batman. Read Full Review

Things are going great.

Now this is an intriguing origin

" I had a choice to make and i made mine."
- JACE FOX

DC Comics "Future State:" Killers are Heroes.

I thought we already had that storyline on Earth 3?

That is the "success" that John Ridley is having in telling the "story" of "the Next Batman" - who by "chapter 8" (issue 4?) still has no "Next Batman." But we have a killer named Jace Fox? Unlike Bruce Wayne's Batman origin story where he responds to killing of his parents, in the "Future State" DC Comics we have a Jace Fox as "Next Batman" with origin story of being a killer himself.

I mean NO WONDER John Ridley has been dragging his feet on the "Next Batman" origin. How would that have read in the press and the major reviewers (all of which are studiously ignoring Ridley's writing on this now)? "Future State: John Ridley invents the Next Batman as black American character, responsible for hit and run vehicular murder." Oh that would have sold right? (Heavy sarcasm.) But drip, drip, dripping this in these digital only "chapters" is a way to get it out there, and well, not face actual accountability from reviewers, press, and of course fans. Jace Fox wouldn't look so "heroic" in "Future State" after we start off with his past as a hit and run coward, who lets an innocent person die in the street, would he? So DC Comics whispers that part of the story out in "chapters" below the radar of the public. "Accountability." Right.

And by the way, doesn't anyone see how incredibly racist this "Next Batman" storyline is? Of all of the heroic black Americans, John Ridley picks a killer to be the "Next Batman." And this will be "OK," because after all, it is John Ridley writing it.

But if you did NOT know the writer... play how this would have sounded in your mind. "We are going to do a New Batman, who is a black American. But instead of like Bruce Wayne whose parents are killed, we are going to have the black American figure kill someone himself." Before you tell me how "realistic" (shaking my head) the storyline is, honestly - if you didn't know who wrote this - you wouldn't be asking if this was a racist double-standard? It sounds like a storyline we would hear venomously on some white supremacist site. But when John Ridley writes it, this is OK? Because?

As if there are not MILLIONS of actual (in fact - you don't need fiction) black American heroes in USA today, who actually have faced trauma as victims and family victims of crime, and want to do something about it?

As Jace Fox says "Consequences? Accountability? Purpose? They meant nothing to me." And Jace runs someone down and kills them, and flees the scene.

So the "Next Batman" is a killer. An actual cowardly criminal, who leaves a person to die in the street.

Congratulations, John Ridley. You have brought DC Comics "Future State" to exactly where it wants to go.

(Notably - Dark Horse Comics the Orphan and the Five Beasts #2 gets many more reviews than this. And of course, we are not going to get "user reviews" criticizing John Ridley for making "The Next Batman" from a hit and run, cowardly killer. Because, that's OK now, right?)
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