"Impossibly long ago, in the distant future." Unfortunately the stupidity of that line stuck with me to the very end. Like the rest of Future State, it makes little sense and will hopefully be forgotten with time.

I'm confused, Teen Titans has Nightwing acting like a bargain bin Death Stroke but this has him acting as a bargain bin Batman.

Andrew Constant makes good use of Magistrate controlled Gotham City, and portrays the city as a hopeless, totalitarian hellhole where every move you make is being monitored and recorded by fascist overlords. It's a haunting dystopia, certainly explored better than what we've seen in Dark Detective, Harley Quinn and even this week's Catwoman (which is an awesome comic, don't get me wrong, it's just it doesn't delve too deep into this world's mythos and structures of oppressive power). You actually feel like Nightwing is in constant danger and there are consequences to his actions - I like that, a lot in fact.

If there's something I dislike, that'd be completely bad, hateful and irredeemable fascist villains, who are so generic and forgettable, they put some 90's cartoon baddies to shame. Now, granted, it's not just this comic's problem, same thing appeals to every title set in Gotham City, but in this case it's more noticeable because we actually get a scene or two seen through their eyes. That's a waste, but it doesn't make me feel this comic suffers because of it a lot. After all, what matters in a Nightwing comic is Nightwing, and Nightwing's arc is really solid. more

Try as I might, I just can't bring myself to dislike young Cable... It's an interesting story with a unique family dynamic. Also, you can't really go wrong with Phil Noto.

I've decided that the reviews shouldn't have more thought than the comics themselves.

Superman Worlds of War seems like a diet version of Planet Hulk

Mister Miracle seems like a mess.

Midnighter seems like someone read one too many Frank Miller comics and grew up on 90s anime

Black Racer seems stupid.

The problem I keep seeing with Future State is that the "future" it keeps showing us does nothing but paint the heroes in a negative light. The magistrate, w.e the hell is going on with the Teen Titans, Justice League Dark, etc. It's all a bleak post apocalyptic setting that shows how the future is rot with failure. It's lazy writing that does zero justice to legacy characters. Shazam is no exception. Turns out he becomes another Black Adam-esq archtype... gottcha.

The funny thing here is that Death Metal was all about "hope," yet if this is the future I have to look forward to in DC, I think I'll pass. more

You know why Judas Contract worked back when it was released? Because it was set up properly, and took its time to develop the big plot, month by month. Same with so, so many other comics that slowly, cautiously have built their mysteries and gave us crumbs leading to surprising twists. We care about all these long, but engaging stories. We care about characters featured in them. With Future State's Shazam, there's the obvious problem of its length. With only 2 issues to set up and conclude the micro series, how much can be done in it? There's a gigantic world destruction theme, there's side heroes with their struggles and team dynamics, there's a bigger conspiracy... I mean, there's a lot to explain and cover, and if only this was a 6 or 8 issue elseworld series, I could care. I could expect a big bang at the end, I could expect tension and cliffhangers, I could expect development.

Look, I don't think it's a bad comic. Not in the slightest. It's above average, but what holds it back is its totally wasted potential. It's rushed, because Future State is rushed, and we know it has no, well, future, excuse the pun. All that makes me feel like I read something which ain't bad and I could possibly enjoy it, but my mind drifts away from it because I know it's just a temporary short lived novelty. more

I guess I'm alone in enjoying Marauders. I like the world-building, and fan-service, though it does come across heavy-handed at times. That said, I think this book is moving forward rather than falling behind.

I liked the art. Yeah that's about it.

Oh my god... that was just awful.

John Stewart: This felt like a horrible Star Wars fan comic that used old Green Lantern characters that no one cares about.

Jessica Cruz: One human takes down three Yellow Lanterns. Riiiiight. I would have liked it more if it started off with Cruz as a Yellow Lantern.

Guy Gardner: Was this meant to be funny? I feel like it was supposed to be funny.

Why have three Lantern stories about depowered Lanterns? This is almost as dumb as making Wally West a murderer again. more

Cyborg is a Teen Titan again, but not really, but is!

NightStroke is angry... sooooo scary

Red X is... unknown.

I felt like I was channel surfing and just stopped on this story. No clue what was going on, and no idea where it was going.

The one thing I truly liked about this comic was the cover art. They took the mouthpiece off of Batman to show his skin color. It felt less like they were keeping his identity a secret and more like they were hiding his race.

I thought the Flash and Aquawoman were interesting, hopefully those stories don't get lost in whatever this story arc is supposed to be about.

I guess I just expected more from a major title like Justice League. Finding out the horrible team dynamic was intended left me scratching my head. more

Last week I brought up the rotting corpse of the DCEU to show some similarities between its failure and the awfulness of Future State's Flash. Allow me to beat the dead horse a bit more here, by mentioning how Warner Bros tried to replicate Avengers' groundbreaking success while also skipping everything that led to Avengers. They wanted the end result, and the end result only.
Now let's talk about this comic, which suffers from the very same problem. It wants us to see the new Justice League, and it wants us to be invested in their struggles, but it all falls flat when we don't know half of these characters and even they themselves try to avoid getting closer to each other. And then, let's not forget, it's a team-up story, meaning no one really has enough time to shine.

Similarly to Dark Detective #1, I was more entertained by the additional story, in this case the one following Justice League Dark. I wouldn't call it anythiing special, but it's not half bad. There's few surprises awaiting you, the art is solid, so is writing and team chemistry.

Overall meh, you can skip it, you can read it, I'm completely indifferent towards it. It exists, aand that's that. more

Oh man!! I just can't stand how they are just so lazily creating new characters. "He did what the original Batman could not and truly saved Gotham". I ranted about this in another post but are we actually going to see how Tim Fox had the proper training to actually be Batman? He was a full grown adult when he was introduced. Where did he learn everything from? Hes like Rey in the sequels lol.
>But I was planning on skipping Justice League once I heard Bendis was the new writer anyway so I guess I don't care about the far future of Justice League or the near future of it either. more

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

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

Tim is one of my favorite Robins, so call me biased. That said, this issue is falling into the same problems as the rest of Future State. The rushed backstories, with little emotional weight, result in a boring story and wasted potential. The Lazarus Resin was a cool concept and could have been a big reveal, instead it was little more than an off the cuff reference. Tim is the detective, please don't make him some quasi-immortal fighter. more

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

I guess I'm among the minority here, but I really enjoyed this one. I think the team has a nice dynamic, and I love the role they play with Krakoa's resurrection. I think all the X titles are floundering a bit after X of Swords, but X Factor is on the right path.

I remember 30 years ago, back in 2017 when Metal first dropped. I was excited and so was the comic shop owner that sold me the comic. Flash forward to Death Metal #7 and I'm left wondering what was the point of it all? If it was meant to be a fun one-off story, then they should have stopped after Metal. If they wanted it to be a massive reboot, well that's what Rebirth and Doomsday Clock did. If it wanted to showcase the Multiverse, Morrison beat you to it.

Seriously, what was the point? 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.

Future State has set the bar low, and Harley Quinn has barely hurdled over it. I like the idea of turning her into a Hannibal Lecter that tracks down C level villains.

A bricolage that resulted in a mess.

Its name is Brain Cells? *sigh* fine... I still don't understand why shrinking Metropolis was necessary...

The Guardian story was painfully boring and read like something from a 90s dollar bin.

You have got to be kidding me... after reading page after page of Death Metal forcing the word 'hope' into my skull, this is the byproduct? Hey, remember when Tom King made Wally a killer and no one was happy? How about we don't do that again.

Jokes aside, this was pathetic.

One of the main reasons DCEU is so loathed and ridiculed is not that it just goes against the source material and tries to change it completely, mold it into something that its directors would personally like, but because it never improves. Its directors don't learn their lessons and are allowed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again with no consequences other than box office failures and poor reception. And now, clearly, DC Comics does the same too, doubling down on things that were univerally rejected. Enter evil Wally West. Again. I can already imagine Dan Didio sitting in an armchar, drinking a beer and giggling, knowing DC's editorial is stupid enough to continue what he, himself, became infamous for.

And look - I don't have anything aganst creators taking characters wherever they want, especially if it's merely a short lived elseworld comic like this one. I do, however, have a lot against telling an awful, hollow story, especially when its writer has hardcore experience with DC animation. What the hell happened here? This is embarrassing! How is it possible someone with such rich resume came up with this cheap nonsense? How did he manage to write something so empty, emotionless, despite featuring at least two scenes that normally would be considered to be very, very heavy and impactful on the main cast, especially Barry himself?

What a sad excuse for a comic... more