WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Future State: Dark Detective #1 by Mariko Tamaki, Dan Mora, Jordie Bellaire and Aditya Bidikar, on sale now.
DC's Future State is a two-month-long, line-wide event that takes place in an alternate, futuristic timeline of the DC Universe. In this version of reality, things are much different -- and extremely bleak. Indeed, the Gotham City of Future State is now a dangerous place that has outlawed masked superheroes. The city is now policed by the Magistrate, a militarized organization that patrols the streets to eliminate masked threats, whether they are villains or heroes.
In Future State: Dark Detective #1, the event finally shows us what Bruce Wayne has been up to in this dark future. With Batman hunted down by the Magistrate, Bruce is uncertain of his place in a Gotham City that is incredibly different from the one readers are familiar with. As a matter of fact, this futuristic version of Batman's city looks like it comes right out of the Blade Runner movies.
Future State: Dark Detective #1 drops us right in the heart of the new Gotham City. Its skyline and infrastructure are exactly what you'd expect from a futuristic city: the buildings are tall and luminous, and they are sleek and streamlined. Gone is the gothic architecture, and the shadowy and murky streets of the past, replaced by bright, multi-colored neon lights and silver buildings that completely alter Batman's home.
And that's just for starters. The issue takes us deep into the city to show that the neon lights glimpsed from afar give the city a whole new, colorful aesthetic. Entire rooms are bathed in the red and purple lights coming from outside, and digital screens add an extra layer of luminescence in a metropolis that was once defined by its darkness.
The city's downtown square is a glowing, advertisement-filled place that would put Times Square to shame, and the rooftop buildings themselves are home to giant, gleaming holographic ads. These digital ads, as well as the colorful signs and flying drones, make the city comparable to what fans have seen in the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner and its 2017 sequel, Blade Runner: 2049.
It's not an exact comparison, but Future State's Gotham City does seem to borrow design elements from the films. The changes are primarily aesthetic, but it transforms the city into something that is completely alien to Batman. It's not just that the Magistrate is after him, it's also that the city is no longer a place where he can properly hide. It's like Gotham itself is on the Magistrate's side. But that doesn't mean Batman isn't ready to fight back -- even if it means he must now become a Dark Detective.