WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Future State: Dark Detective #4, by Mariko Tamaki, Dan Mora, Jordie Bellaire, and Aditya Bidikar, on sale now.
In Future State: Dark Detective, Bruce Wayne has been trying hard to stay alive and to find a means of bringing the Magistrate down. Many members of the Resistance have been plotting as well, including Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Nightwing and the Next Batman, but it seems like the fascist regime has stacked the decks too high for these masks.
But in Dark Detective #4, Bruce finally gets the key to saving Gotham, and he needs one of the city's most upstanding, selfless citizens to help.
Bruce has been hiding out as Jeff in the city since the Magistrate and Peacekeeper-01, its most lethal enforcer, tried to kill him. After corrupting Lucius Fox, the Magistrate got a hold of Wayne's vast financial resources and built their own spy system, a modern version of Brother Eye, so the city has no privacy at all. Anyone who thinks or acts on their own is framed or killed, and Bruce frantically tries to burn the urban empire down upon discovering this dark truth,
As fate would have it, the family he's staying with has the key to bringing the Magistrate down. Hannah, a programmer, works in Peacekeeper-01's main tower, and she gives Bruce the perfect weapon after their home gets blown up. The Magistrate tracked Bruce to her home, and she's infuriated that they would target her and her dad, which easily sways her to Bruce's side.
She presents a recording of Peacekeeper-01 talking about the security system and how the dictatorial Magistrate is using it to turn Gotham into a military state through sneaky surveillance and cloaked drones. However, the rest of the intel is on her computer at the tower, which results in Bruce going for it. As he suits up as Batman, he runs into conflict as the Peacekeepers are ready to defend their stead. Thankfully, Hannah, as stubborn as ever, also races to the tower since she knows Bruce needs back-up on this mission that can't fail.
This leads to a fiery finale, as Bruce begins blowing the tower up so he can extract the data. But as the place goes up in flames, he ends up fighting Peacekeeper-01 in one final grudge match, which allows Hannah to slip in and steal all of the data she needs.
As the tower collapses, she finally realizes that Bruce was the Dark Knight all along in what are very likely his final moments alive. But now, Hannah will carry on Bruce's final mission by disseminating this sensitive information through her waiting media contacts.
While the Magistrate perpetrated the lie that Batman and Bruce Wayne were dead to cement its grip over Gotham, Bruce's apparent death is ironically the thing that ultimately enables the likely fall of the Magistrate. And after Gotham turned its back on vigilantes, the bravery of a regular citizen will free Gotham from the Magistrate's iron fist.