We’re back in the future Gotham, where the Next Batman must race the Magistrate to save people who tried to kill him, Cass Cain and Stephanie Brown save a lost ally from the Magistrate, and Catwoman and Poison Ivy have one last girl’s weekend in Future State: The Next Batman #4 with:
“The Next Batman,” written by John Ridley, drawn by Laura Braga with breakdowns by Nick Derington, colored by Arif Prianto and lettered by Clayton Cowles
“Batgirls,” written by Vita Ayala, drawn by Aneke, colored by Trish Mulvihill and lettered by Becca Carey
“Gotham City Sirens,” written by Paula Sevenbergen, pencilled by Emanuela Lupacchino with breakdowns by Rob Haynes, inked by Wade Von Grawbadger, colored by John Kalisz and lettered by Becca Carey
Meanwhile, in the present and in a different future, Batman and Catwoman deal with the Joker and the Batwoman of the future begins to investigate the murder of the Joker in Batman/Catwoman #3, written by Tom King, drawn by Clay Mann, colored by Tomeu Morey and lettered by Cowles.
Matt Lazorwitz: I don’t know about you, but this week’s books have really shown me one thing: I think I’m done with stories set in the future for a while and would rather see something building the world of the present again.
Will Nevin: The thing is we need good books set in the future, and these — with the exception of “Batgirls,” which I came around on this time — are not that. This was probably my least favorite Batman comic of the last two years without a Ghost-Maker or a Neo-Joker in it. Bad pacing, bad characterization, bad everything. Blech.
The Next Batman #4
WN: There’s a lot wrong to talk about in this book as it finished with a real flippin’ thud, including the same repetitive action, the family drama that didn’t settle anything and probably more stuff that I’m forgetting that you’ll remind me of here in a second. But let’s start with our Aggrieved Male Parent. At the end of the last issue, he’s ready to kill Batman. In this one, he’s trying to strangle him. When that doesn’t work, he says — in a real groaner of a line I’d be too embarrassed to script — “Let’s see if you’re as tough as steel” as he holds what looks to be rebar, ready to beat Bats to death. On the next page — ON THE NEXT PAGE, MATT, THE PAGE THAT DIRECTLY FOLLOWS THAT ONE IN WHICH HE WAS READY TO BEAT A HERO TO DEATH — they make up. Jesus, I hated that stretch. Made me feel dumb for reading the Next Batman series.
ML: Yes, yes, that was very much in the not-good category. Having now read all four parts of this, I can’t quite wrap my brain around how such a short story, with so much going on, can feel like it was about one-third filler. As Batman leaves the church with the two killers, he says they have “thirty-two blocks, three miles” to get them to the GCPD instead of the magistrate. I try not to be an armchair writer/editor, but wouldn’t this series have felt better if that was the premise of the last three quarters of it? Part 1 sets up the premise and introduces Jace, the Foxes, the concept of the Magistrate and Chubb, his police contact. He finds the Aggrieved Parents at the very beginning of Part 2, and the entire story is him using guile, skill and gadgets to get them across 3 miles of Magistrate-infested Gotham; make a tight little action thriller focusing on what he can do as Batman and flashing back to his backstory and his family drama from his POV to fill out his character.
Instead we get a lot of subplots that go nowhere: What is up with Chubb’s ex-partner? Will Tanya Fox be able to pull off the legal maneuver to keep the Magistrate’s shoot-on-sight order in play? What exactly happened to make Luke such a jackass to Jace? At least that last one is probably going to be answered in the spin-off digital first series, but this should have been hooking readers into that, and I don’t know how many will come back for that after reading this.
WN: It was refreshing — and maybe a little silly, I dunno, if I hadn’t been so angry, I probably would have rolled with it totally — to see Batman straight up steal a random SUV to get to the finish line. This series, as you said, should have been more of that — more improvising, more strategy, more worthwhile and less … of whatever it was we got. Looking back on it, having been so thoroughly poisoned by this issue and the last, I can’t think of anything happy to take away from this. If this was going to be *the* Batman book coming out of Future State, I would be very, very nervous.
ML: I still think the first part would have been a decent issue #1 for an ongoing. You do get a lot of character and world building around Jace and the people in his life. It didn’t work as the beginning of a four-issue miniseries where the action of that issue doesn’t impact the rest of the series.
I really wanted to like this series, and so I’m thinking that’s coloring my opinion. The idea of taking the Batman legacy in a completely different direction, one that doesn’t include the Wayne name or Dick Grayson, is novel, and making Batman a person of color helps directly raise a lot of the questions that are implied in Batman stories about a rich white guy beating up poor people who are often of color. But that wasn’t explored in this series. The social aspects of the story are lost behind all the sturm, drang and emotions that don’t get paid off either. Based on The American Way, I know Ridley is a better superhero writer than this, and I just think this was edited from a longer pitch and not edited to be something truly self-contained, making for a very unsatisfactory miniseries.
WN: Not to totally change the subject, but was there ever a moment in which his name (Jace) was explained? Did I miss that, or do you think it’s to come? Luke seemed to get real pissy about it in this issue.
ML: Definitely to come. I’m expecting that to be a big part of Next Batman: Second Son. As far as I recall, from his one appearance in Batman #101 and the mention of him in the Joker Warzone one-shot, he’s still going by Tim in the present.
Batgirls
ML: This? This I liked. This second chapter builds off the first, has its leads’ voices down pat, and the action was well-paced.
WN: It was the talkiness of the first chapter that put me off, and we certainly didn’t have that problem here. Nice, tight action that was motivated by characters with real goals and established relationships. Refreshing!
ML: A lot of these Future State series have focused on new characters interacting with other new characters, so the relationships are things readers have had to pick up fresh. This is one of the few that dealt with two characters with a strong pre-existing relationship (three if you count Barbara), and so the heavy lifting on establishing that is done. And after part one dealt with what had changed, this part moves at a nice clip because the reader isn’t playing catch-up.
This story could also be a textbook example of how to use different timelines that run and overlap. The combination of the timecodes and the repeated dialogue make it easy to follow when Cass’ plot starts versus what already happened with Stephanie, and there’s no point when I was confused by what was happening when. Isn’t that nice?
WN: Refreshing as hell. Also didn’t insult my intelligence like some stories in this book *glares in inexplicable face turn for Aggrieved Dad*
ML: Interestingly, we do see Batwoman for the first time in Future State in this story, and it is Kate Kane, not Ryan Wilder, the new Batwoman of the TV series. This shoots down one of the theories I’ve seen online a few times, that Kate is the Magistrate of Magistrates, but there might be another hint as to what’s really going on in this issue’s last story.
WN: Batwoman was strangely MIA in Future State, wasn’t she?
Gotham City Sirens
ML: So, I know you didn’t read part one on this. Any chance you revisited it for this issue? Because I noticed something very specific that either was a hint of something going on in the background of these books or was just an artistic inconsistency, and I want your opinion.
WN: I think I tolerated it more this week, and I can always re-read and rethink if necessary, my liege. What has you so vexxed?
ML: So you can see this in the Cybers in any panel in this story, but it’s especially clear on Page 16 as the Sirens jump down from a tree to ambush them. Maybe it’s because in all the other books where we’ve seen the Cybers it’s been at night and they’re sort of shadowy that I haven’t noticed before, but we get a really good look at their faceplates here, and is it just me, or do they look like the masks of Talons? Add some funky breathing apparatus, and they look straight out of Greg Capullo’s sketchbook, with the big eyes and the horns. Is the big secret that the Magistrate is just a new front for the Court of Owls to try to take over Gotham? Or is it just this is more simplified cartoony art with a different interpretation of the Cybers and my brain is just seeing patterns that aren’t there?
WN: This has to be the most interesting thing to discuss here because — and I’m going to be honest again — this reads like YA stuff. Which is fine for that crowd, and absolutely has a place in the industry. But I still didn’t like this at all. To your point, however, I can definitely see what you’re talking about. Maybe the Court has run out of whatever comic book mumbo jumbo was keeping their soldiers alive for centuries? Robots are certainly more easily replaced. The greater tapestry of the Magistrate, Peacekeeper-01 and how and why Mayor Nakano broke bad are all stories I’m interested in reading — the latter seems like it might come in Mariko Tamaki’s Detective Comics. The first two? I’m just hoping we get some follow-up.
ML: I agree. This isn’t a bad future world, just one that has been sort of forced on us in such big chunks with so much missing that it’s time to start filling in that background in the present Batbooks. And do it slowly and subtly. I don’t want all Magistrate all the time in the present.
WN: I don’t think we have the time/space/energy to do a full assessment of Future State Batman here, but I’ll say this: It would have been better with more variety (in both tone and substance) and less Magistrate.
ML: That is absolutely true. All the Bat titles were telling the same story, while all four Superman titles (counting Superwoman) were telling stories that were divided very much by space and/or time. It made for a less cohesive, but far more interesting, set of stories.
Batman/Catwoman #3
WN: Speaking of things that aren’t cohesive, Batman/Catwoman #3. The good: Gotham Police Commissioner Dick Grayson. The bad: everything else. Are we missing something in this? Are there people who actually like it? I don’t hate this like I abhor some of the stuff we’ve talked about, but this issue literally put my ass to sleep.
ML: I feel like a broken record, but we’re getting the same problem with this we have had with the first two issues. There is too much going on with too little forward momentum. The future plot seems to be moving, but the other two are ridiculously flat. I don’t understand why Catwoman is dealing with the Joker in the past, other than him blackmailing her now, and I don’t know what the hell is going on in the present. Phantasm is going around killing people associated with Joker who killed her son? Maybe? We haven’t gotten enough from those two plots to really engage me.
WN: Do you think it’s a case of bad writing? Bad editing? Or is this a book we simply don’t need right now?
ML: I don’t think it’s bad writing. Tom King has a story he wants to tell, and it might wind up being a really good story, but his editor is letting him get away with murder. This feels like the last three Harry Potter novels or some of Stephen King’s more bloated books in the late ’90s/early 00s. Corporate knows this is going to sell, so they are telling the editor to just give it a pass for spelling and get it out the door.
WN: But at least it looks, good, right? I vote we give this one more shot for #4, and if it still doesn’t meld into something coherent, I say bail. We’ve got too much cool stuff on the horizon to pluck away at this chicken for another eight months.
ML: Absolutely. One more, and then if we drop it, maybe we revisit it when it’s done to see if it hangs together as a whole, but going at it monthly if this is what we get month in and month out is not worth the time of us or our loyal readers.
Bat-miscellany
- Speaking of cool stuff on the horizon: Batman ’89? Hell yeah!
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
