Warning! Spoilers ahead for Future State: Dark Detective #4
It’s said that dark times can bring out the best in our heroes, but for Future State has proven to be an exception to this adage. The story of Bruce’s misadventures in the authoritarian Magistrate’s 1984-esque Gotham came to an explosive conclusion in Future State: Dark Detective #4, with Bruce Wayne finally taking on The Magistrate one-on-one in a fight with the shadowy lead Peacekeeper-01. While ultimately victory was achieved, perhaps the most tragic loss might actually be Bruce’s dissent into paranoia and desperation throughout the series, resulting in the loss of the one thing that made Bruce Wayne truly a great hero: his comion.
Dark Detective tells the tale of how Bruce Wayne is found out and falls victim to an assassination plot by Peacekeeper-01 himself. Surviving the attempt, Bruce is forced to go into hiding, taking up the identity of graphic designer Jeff Marks and moving in with technophobic conspiracy theorist Noah. Constantly living under the threat of discovery by his enemies while also engaging in his classic detective work in an effort to discover the methods behind The Magistrate’s surveillance system, it becomes clear that Bruce is a changed man following his assassination attempt. There's perhaps no clearer indication of this than his somewhat callous treatment of Noah, who he allows to descend further and further into paranoia.
Writer Mariko Tamaki and artist Dan Mora portray the Caped Crusader as essentially a broken, obsessed man who appears to be either so consumed by desperation, afraid of discovery or so focused on his plan to take down The Magistrate that he allows Noah to engage in increasingly paranoid behavior without question, or perhaps with tacit . While Noah places bullhorns at the top of the building to ward off aliens, smashes his electronics with an axe, and drives his neighbors and daughter Hannah to wit’s end, Bruce somewhat emotionlessly stands by and refuses to practice empathy to help Noah assuage his fears. This culminates in Bruce drugging and essentially kidnapping Noah and Hannah after he discovers that The Magistrate’s surveillance system has in fact discovered them, possibly due to Noah’s increasingly ostentatious antics in warding off the “aliens”.
One common criticism that has been levied against Bruce Wayne in recent years is that, superhero or no, he can often come off as as an unfeeling, distant rich person who engages in activities where he inflicts violence upon the poorer denizens of Gotham with the aid of his expensive crime-fighting toys. But Bruce’s depiction in the comics often defies this characterization, highlighting his comion, empathy and status as the only person who can successfully thwart catastrophe in facing the threats his rogues’ gallery continuously bring to Gotham. What Tamaki underscores in Dark Detective is what would happen if Bruce were bereft of all and traumatized to the point where he could no longer trust anyone.
It is a sad and lonely existence that Bruce Wayne must live under in Future State, and one where the inner warmth that keeps the character relatable and inspirational is gone. Highlighted by Dan Mora’s increasingly haggard portrayal of Bruce, the reader is forced to witness the actual cost of The Magistrate’s dictatorial takeover on Gotham’s great hero: Batman being pushed to the point where he no longer has the ability to care about actually helping the people in his life with a human touch.
