WARNING: The following contains spoilers from Detective Comics #1034, by Mariko Tamaki, Dan Mora, Jordie Bellaire and Aditya Bidikar, on sale now.
After DC's Future State showed a Gotham City future controlled by the Magistrate, Infinite Frontier returns to the present for a fresh start that shows how the villainous military-like force got a foothold in the city. Infinite Frontier #0 revealed how the rich and powerful Simon Saint brought the Magistrate Program to Gotham City, and now Detective Comics #1034 continues to move that story forward.
As Mayor Nakano starts his crusade to make Gotham City a safer place than it has ever been before, his latest fundraising event gets crashed by members of a new Joker gang appropriately known as the Party Crashers.
The Party Crashers live up to their name when they smash through the glass ceiling of Mayor Nakano's black-tie event. While this marks their first appearance, Bruce Wayne is already well aware of them, and he even reveals their name through his narration. The Party Crashers are yet another gang of the Joker's followers, and this is immediately communicated thanks to the giant grins painted on their masks.
However, what sets the Party Crashers apart from the Joker's usual followers is that they are extremely well-equipped. Indeed, they attack the Mayor's event while wearing hi-tech armors that include full helmets with glowing eyes. And this isn't just any type of advanced weaponry; it comes from Wayne Enterprises.
When the Clown Prince of Crime attacked Gotham City in 2020's Joker War, he did so by giving Batman's entire arsenal of weapons, gadgets, armors and vehicles to anyone willing to follow him. While many of the Joker's followers have been captured, killed or returned to their own lives, the Party Crashers kept those weapons and took some initiative.
Given that they are armed with his old technology, this new Joker gang poses a greater threat than the thugs Batman usually goes up against, even if their goal is perhaps unexpected. The villains are thieves, first and foremost, which comes as a surprise to Batman. While they appear to be organized, Bruce concludes that they are probably not the ones who came up with the idea to hit the Mayor's event, which was primarily held to sell the Mayor's rich friends on the Magistrate Program.
The Magistrate Program is meant to take aim at the masked menaces in the city, heroes and villains alike (as we already saw in Future State). The Mayor held this event as part of a fundraiser for his vision of a safe Gotham City. Therefore, it's incredibly apt that the event was actually attacked by masked individuals. While Batman doesn't yet know who hired the Party Crashers, it's certainly possible that their presence was no coincidence, and that they were hired by the Mayor himself to help sell his vision.