Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Comic Book / DC Future State

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/future_state_promo_piece_final_r1_scaled.jpg
DC Future State was a mini-DC Comics event taking place early 2021.

In the aftermath of Dark Nights: Death Metal, the heroes have triumphed over Perpetua and the Batman Who Laughs. However, their actions causes time-space to warp, showing a glimpse of the future...or a future. A future where new heroes don classic identities and Earth and the universe evolve in new and exciting...or dangerous ways.

Running through January and February 2021, all prior titles were replaced with a set of new books for this event, all giving a glimpse of both a possible future and events happening in the returning titles come March 2021 under the brand new banner DC Infinite Frontier.

Ahead of the event in November 2020, it was confirmed that Yara Flor, the future Wonder Woman, will star in her own Wonder Girl title later in the year, set in the main DC Universe. Similarly, Jace Fox, who is Batman during Future State, began his journey to becoming Batman in the main DC Universe in the pages of The Next Batman: Second Son.

    List of Titles 

Batman Family

In this future, the villainous regime known as the Magistrate rules over Gotham City with an iron fist. Bruce Wayne is dead (but not really), but a new Batman rises and gathers his vigilante allies to take back Gotham.

Superman/Wonder Woman Family

In the near future, an international incident leads Earth to reject Clark Kent, forcing him to focus his life-saving efforts elsewhere. In Clark's stead, his son Jonathan Kent takes up the mantle of Superman, but his actions immediately put him at odds with his aunt, Kara Zor-El. Meanwhile, Yara Flor becomes the new Wonder Woman and will team-up with the new Superman to become a new team the likes no one has ever seen before!

Then, in the distant future, the Legion of Super-Heroes and the United Planets have both collapsed. Can Ultra Boy and whatever's left of the Legion rise up and save the galaxy again?

Finally, at the End of Time itself, Diana Prince has lost both her friends and most of her fellow Amazons. When a threat that's bigger than even Darkseid himself looms forward, Diana must charge head-on lest everything that's left in the world becomes undone!

Justice League Family

A new Justice League forms with familiar names but secret (even to them) identities, secrets an old foe seeks to use to take over the world. For the Justice League Dark, the hunters become the hunted.

The Four Riders of the Apocalypse attack Titans Academy, cutting Barry Allen off from the Speed Force; Famine possesses Wally West; and Shazam is forced to make a deal with the devil.

Elsewhere in the universe, the last Green Lanterns are overshadowed by a dead Central Power Battery, Arthur Curry and Jackson Hyde are separated across the cosmos and Amanda Waller unleashes a new-yet-creepily-familiar Suicide Squad on Earth-3.

In the far-flung future, Swamp Thing rules the end of time with an iron fist while in the 835th century, the new Black Adam must fix a problem from the past.

  • Justice League #1-2 by Joshua Williamson and Robson Rocha. Includes:
  • Green Lantern #1-2. Includes:
    • Last Lanterns by Geoffrey Thorne and Tom Raney.
    • The Taking of Sector 0123 by Ryan Cady and Sam Basri.
    • Book of Guy by Ernie Altbacker and Clayton Henry.
    • Tales of the Green Lantern Corps by Josie Campbell, Ryan Cady and Ernie Altbacker, with Sami Basri and Clayton Henry.
  • Suicide Squad #1-2 by Robbie Thompson and Javi Fernandez. Includes:
  • Aquaman by Brandon Thomas and Daniel Sampere.
  • The Flash by Brandon Vietti and Dale Eaglesham.
  • Teen Titans by Tim Sheridan and Rafa Sandoval.
  • Shazam!! by Tim Sheridan and Eduardo Pansica.
  • The Swamp Thing by Ram V and Mike Perkins.

Tropes Involved in this Event:

  • Affirmative-Action Legacy:
    • The new Superman, Jonathan Kent, is bisexual.
    • The new Wonder Woman, Yara Flor, is Brazilian.
    • The new Batman, Tim Fox, is African-American.
    • The new Aquaman is Jackson Hyde, the former Aqualad, who is African-American and gay.
      • There's also Aquawoman, the daughter of Arthur Curry and Mera.
    • The new Flash, Jess Chambers, is nonbinary.
    • The newest Bolt is an Australian, dark-skinned, blonde girl with both legs amputated. Subverted in that she is a speedster while the previous Bolt was solely an electricity-themed villain.
  • Alliterative Title: Last Lanterns.
  • Alternate Company Equivalent: The whole event, with every DC title being put on hold for two months while a series of mini-series take their place to tell a story of an Alternate Timeline, is very reminiscent of Marvel's Age of Apocalypse.
  • Alternate Timeline: While some of these titles explored upcoming events, it's quite clear that these are possible futures, not actual. The finale of Future State:Justice League has a character tell another that the events of this timeline are better off averted, although how that happens is not shown in any Future State book, as they follow the timeline through to the very end.
  • Anachronic Order: As different series published to different schedules are set at different times but star the same characters, this is inevitable.
  • Becoming the Mask: One member of Hyperclan impersonating Superman comes to the conclusion being a benevolent and beloved superhero is great and that taking over the world is rather pointless. This desenter is promptly shot and another member impersonating Superman decides to shed the disguise and revel in his true nature.
  • Big Brother Mentor: Jackson Hyde to Andy Curry.
  • Birds of a Feather: The two detectives on The Justice League, Green Lantern(Sojourner Mullein) and Batman(Jace Fox), are less abrasive to each other than the rest of the league. Downplayed in that they're still not friends. Green Lantern simply finds Batman to be the most reliable after herself and Batman finds Green Lantern to be the most trust worthy, convinced the other four are far more liable to turn on him.
  • Brazilian Folklore: Featured in Yara Flor's titles by way of Caipora and the headless mules. There are some liberties taken, as Iae is seen breeding and ranching the latter, suggesting they are "just" fantastically powerful animals or the moon god is inacting some uncharacteristically cruel punishments.
  • Broad Strokes: Although the series was intended to show a "possible future" rather than the canon future of the DCU, some characters and concepts i.e. Yara Flor, Red X, the Magistrate, Gold Beetle, Bolt and Conner Kent joining the Suicide Squad, will be integrated into the main continuity.
  • Brought Down to Badass:
    • The Last Lanterns mini-series sees a Badass Normal John Stewart leading a group of other former Green Lanterns on a quest to defend the galaxy after the Central Battery on Oa is destroyed, rendering the entire Corps powerless.
    • The Dark Detective mini-series follows the exploits of a Bruce Wayne who's been stripped of his fortune, tech, and vast support network after being shot and declared dead by the Magistrate's Peacekeepers.
  • The Bus Came Back:
    • Arkham Knights features the return of Astrid Arkham, Copperhead, and Humpty Dumpty, who all hadn't been seen in quite some time.
    • Superman vs. Imperious Lex reintroduces Lexor, the alien planet rescued by Lex Luthor back in the Silver Age.
    • Justice League reintroduces the Hyperclan, a supervillain team last seen in The '90s.
    • Superman/Wonder Woman brings back Solaris the Sun Tyrant.
    • Shazam reintroduces Tanya Spears and Neron.
    • Superman: Worlds of War features the return of Midnighter.
    • Suicide Squad brings back the relatively obscure Wonder Woman and Aquaman villains Hypnotic Woman and Fisherman, who are impersonating their enemies as members of Amanda Waller's "Justice Squad" on Earth 3.
  • Canon Immigrant: Red X, a one-time identity of Robin and a mysterious foe in Teen Titans (2003), shows up in the Teen Titans book. As a Mythology Gag, the new Red X mentions that Dick had previously donned the mantle at some undisclosed point in the past.
  • The Commissioner Gordon: After defeating Warmonger and reversing the effect of his brainwashing tech over the city, Jason Todd comes to the conclusion that as much as he would like to reunite with the rest of the Bat-Family, his new position as a full-fledged Magistrate Peacekeeper is just too valuable to squander. So Jason instead vows to become Jace Fox's Friend on the Force from within the Magistrate just like James Gordon was to Bruce Wayne within the GCPD. He even creates a new Bat Signal in the form of a deployable holographic projector capable of blanketing the sky with the famed insignia to make it official.
    Jason: When Bruce first became Batman, he faced a city just as corrupt [as the Magistrate]. But with the help of the only good cop in Gotham, he was able to make a difference. I believe that if we work together we could make a difference, too. Take down the Magistrate for good. As partners.
    Jace: Naw, man... as friends!
  • Demonic Possession: Wally West is possessed by the Horseman of Famine.
  • Do Not Fear The Reaper: Charon, Thanatos, Hades and Persephone, a quartet cthunic death gods, are shown to be far better than our "hero" Yara Flor in Future State: Wonder Woman. Yara's would be superior Caipora also has some dominion over death and despite her constant failures is at least trying to keep the new Wonder Woman in line.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: So the new Batman is a black man (though it'd be hard to tell considering his suit covers his entire body), and his primary opponents are cops who will happily kill civilians on the slightest provocation under the guise of maintaining the peace. Considering that the comic ran less than a year after the George Floyd murder and the subsequent public outrage, this may have been intentional.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul":
    • Shazam no longer likes being called Billy. Because he's not ever since he and Billy were split by Neron.
    • Timothy Fox hates being called by his birth name and prefers to go by Jace. This might be DC's attempt to ensure that he doesn't get mistaken for Tim Drake.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: How does supervillain Black Manta die? He drops dead as a result of the process the Suicide Squad used to cross over into Earth 3, never getting his revenge on Arthur or Jackson.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Everyone uses the Flash’s preferred pronouns, including the villains who are trying to kill them.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: The Legion of Doom thought they could use the Hyperclan to discredit and destroy the Justice League. Well they did, but first they killed the Legion of Doom for trying to use them.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: The Last Lanterns book shows John Stewart, previously known for his short military haircut, now sporting cornrows and a beard.
  • Faceless Mooks: The enforcers of the Magistrate wear face-covering helmets.
  • Face–Heel Turn:
    • Shazam murdered the Creeper, Jakeem and Johnny Thunder, and seemingly Tim Drake in an attempt to cover up the fact that he's not Billy Batson anymore. Vixen also finds out he's responsible for the murder of Slade Wilson and Martian Manhunter.
    • Longtime Bat-ally Lucius Fox is now a staunch supporter of the Magistrate and has been using Wayne Enterprises to manufacture and sell militarized weapon and surveillance systems directly to the Magistrate's Peacekeepers to support their crackdown on costumed vigilantes and villains alike. His wife Tanya is also one of the many lawyers under Mayor Nakano working around the clock to find a way to legally defend the Magistrate's "shoot on sight" mandate.
    • One of the major twists in the Grifters short story is that Luke Fox a.k.a. Batwing was a Magistrate mole who made a deal with the Peacekeepers to sell out the Huntress in exchange for his own freedom.
    • After being possessed by all four spirits of the Horsemen of Apocalypse and stealing the powers of Shazam, Raven yet again pulls one of these after Neron assists with breaking her out of the Rock of Eternity so she can raise hell on Earth.
  • Faking the Dead: Bruce Wayne faked his death in order to hide from the Magistrate, the totalitarian organization running Gotham City.
  • Forbidden Friendship: Aquawoman and the Flash (Jess Chambers) are BFFs despite League rules explicitly banning members from forming personal relationships. Superman (Jon Kent) and Wonder Woman (Yara Flor) are also close confidants despite both acknowledging that their heart-to-heart talks are against the rules. Wonder Woman agrees with the rules, but can't help herself because she's gotten used to giving Superman what she believes to be necessary Tough Love long before becoming a league member.
  • Fugitive Arc: This is a shared theme with the stories set within Gotham City after all costumed vigilantes had been outlawed under the Magistrate's regime. The most prominent example being the new Batman (Timothy "Jace" Fox), who is the #1 name on the Magistrate's kill list with their drones and armed patrols constantly surveilling the streets of Gotham for any sign of his presence. This gets even worse for Jace in Future State: Gotham where he gets wrongfully implicated as the terrorist responsible for the destruction of the Narrows, putting him in the crosshairs of the Peacekeepers, Jason Todd, and the entire Bat Family as a whole.
  • Future Badass: As most of the main characters are children or teens in the prime timeline this is pretty much inevitable. The ultimate example would probably be Aquawoman, who is a superhero and member of the Justice League in the future and a literal baby in the present of the DCU.
  • Handicapped Badass:
    • The Flash seen in the Suicide Squad miniseries has two prosthetic legs from the knee down.
    • Aquawoman's leg is amputated below the knee.
  • Green Thumb: Caipora admits that she once reversed the position of every plant in the entire Amazon rainforest in an effort to keep Yara Flor under control. It didn't work.
  • Heroic Lineage: Aquawoman is Andy Curry, daughter of Arthur Curry and Mera. The new Superman is Jonathan Samuel Kent, son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
  • Hold the Line: John Stewart, Salaak, G'nort, and others do this against an army of Khunds to defend a defenseless alien population.
  • Hypocrite: When Tanya Fox is subdued by the new Batman, the Peacekeepers accuse him of not caring about civilian casualties because he gave Tanya a pretty hefty fleshwound in the process. Not only was Tanya pulling a gun on him and the civilian behind him, but the peacekeepers are authoritarian bullies who happily kill civilians at the slightest provocation. Tanya also later uses Batman's self-defense as an example of why he needs to die, nevermind that she was clearly the aggressor in the situation.
  • I Just Want to Be You: Hypnotic Woman of the Justice Squad is implied to be disguising herself as Wonder Woman because she truly wants to be Wonder Woman.
  • Implied Love Interest
    • Aquawoman is extremely protective of the Flash, when the two are alone they are shown to be casually physically intimate, the Flash has a private Affectionate Nickname for Aquawoman and reveals that they know she talks in her sleep. It’s not made clear if they are involved or if it’s just a very close platonic friendship.
    • DC Pride later confirms that they are a couple.
  • Knight Templar: The Peacekeepers, the cybernetically enhanced Super Soldiers who command the Magistrate, are ultra-authoritarian goons who are totally unflinching in their pursuit of eliminating every costumed vigilante in Gotham while maintaining their chokehold on the power structures of the city. They have committed everything from Police Brutality, assassinations of corporate and political figureheads, false-flag operations, and forcing media outlets to flood public perception with propaganda. All to achieve the singular goal of making Gotham into their vision of a better place. Then there are particularly more vile examples within their ranks like Peacekeeper-06 who murdered a little girl Jace Fox rescued from human traffickers, simply so she wouldn't grow up to be a potential Batman supporter out of gratitude.
  • La Résistance:
    • The Arkham Knights are a group of Batman rogues led by the Arkham Knight, who fight against the Police State the Magistrate has turned Gotham into.
    • The remaining members of the Bat-Family are also shown to be fighting tooth and nail against the Magistrate's rule to varying levels of success.
  • Legacy Character: The event shows new legacy versions of a few characters.
  • Lesser of Two Evils: While Yara Flor understandably wants to punish Kuat after his showboating nearly kills a dozen people, one of those people was a thieving politician those otherwise innocent bystanders going down with him were sick of. When the comic goes on to pit Kuat against Solaris, who has destroyed hundreds of star systems and is threatening to torch the surface of the Earth all because of his grudge born from one man making him look bad, the reader can be forgiven for forgetting Kuat has done anything wrong at all, even though he opposes Solaris out of jealousy rather than righteousness or altruism.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Per for the norm for Amanda Waller, but it's implied she spent years emotionally abusing Conner Kent in order to build him up as the Superman she wanted him to be. Even when it turns out she didn't mean a Superman who kills, Conner only reaches this state in defiance of how she treated him since she first got her hands on him.
  • Manly Gay: The jacked up, bearded, tattooed Barbarian Hero looking adult version of Jackson Hyde.
  • Master-Apprentice Chain: Arthur Curry was Jackson Hyde's mentor, who is himself the mentor of Andy Curry.
  • Mirror Universe: The Suicide Squad series takes place on Earth 3.
  • The Mole: Jason Todd worked as a bounty hunter, a later a Peacekeeper, for the Magistrate. But it's revealed that he only did so under orders of Bruce Wayne to gather information on the Magistrate in order to eventually destroy it.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Bolt is horrified when she kills Lor-Zod, because Waller told her the device she used would "neutralize" him. In Waller's words, if he's dead then he's neutralized.
  • Myth Arc: Most of the stories are self-contained, but there is an overarching plot running through some of them about The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Which looks set to continue into the main line of comics, as the Future State version of Black Adam is transported back in time to 2021 to kill Raven before she is possessed by them and becomes the Unkindness.
  • Not as You Know Them: Some keep their established personalities, more or less, but the book introduces a lot of new design conceps for established characters and teases the reader to pick up the comic books to see how they got there.
  • Private Military Contractors: The Magistrate appears to be made up of this, being brought to Gotham by Major Christopher Nakano to rid Gotham of all the 'masks'.
  • Psycho Prototype: Warmonger, the terrorist truly behind the bombing of the Gotham City Narrows, was originally an early candidate for what would ultimately become the Magistrate's Peacekeeper Program. While he possesses all the traits of a well-trained Super-Soldier, Warmonger is also a homicidal maniac who ironically despised the very idea of peace and was instead obsessed with waging war. Astrid Arkham rescued Warmonger from a secret Magistrate cold storage facility not knowing who he really was, resulting in him repaying her kindness by slaughtering her civilian support network before hijacking the Mad Hatter technology she uses to help keep her Arkham Knights mentally stable to enact a grand plot to plunge Gotham City into a Forever War.
  • The Quisling:
    • Harley Quinn shows The Scarecrow voluntarily serving the Magistrate in exchange for helping them hunt other rogues.
    • Backup stories in Dark Detective show that Red Hood and Ravager work as freelancers who hunt down active vigilantes.
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: The newest member of the Gotham City Sirens is a Robot Girl named Dee-Dee, who loves Sex and the City and joined them so she could experience a 'Girls' Night Out'.
  • Sadly Mythtaken: Tupã as the equivalent to Zeus kind of works, but he's usually considered to be the servant, aspect or splinter of a larger god rather king of his pantheon. The headless mules are usually portrayed as actually being headless, for one, and while they are indeed figures from Brazilian folklore they do not have much to do with Iae and Kuat, who more so religious figures that are more strongly associated with birds than equines.
  • Take That!: Superman: Worlds of War has some pretty spiteful jabs towards the overall perception of Superman's character as a Messianic Archetype whose superpowers are his only definable traits.
    Sadie: Superman didn't save me. Clark Kent did.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The fugitive Jace Fox and the newly made Peacekeeper Jason Todd are forced into this position after the two are suddenly caught smack dead in the middle of a Prison Riot at Blackgate Penitentiary.
  • Token Good Teammate: The new Suicide Squad (normally villains or anti-heroes) is led by Conner Kent (normally a hero). Aside from him, this role is shared by the Flash (Bolt) who is the only one to openly question Amanda Waller's actions while being genuinely disgusted by them.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Ringless G'nort is far more fearsome and capable than his regular counterpart. He even attacks by biting his enemies.
  • Two Girls to a Team: Subverted, the Justice League has two men, three women, and one non-binary.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: The new Legion of Doom is seen discussing their next plan to destroy the Justice League, and the next page they've all been killed by the Hyperclan.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jon Kent, in an attempt to protect Metropolis, decided to bottle it. This did not go down very well with Kara.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    Tiffany: Really? Both of you are okay with private cops who can shoot on sight? After everything you've told us, everything you taught us.
    Tanya: This...This is different.
    Tiffany: It's never "different". It's just different for us.
  • Your Head Asplode: William Cobb, the Justice Squad's Batman (formerly Talon), gets his head blown off at the beginning of Suicide Squad.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top