WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Future State: The Next Batman #1 by John Ridley, Nick Darington, Tamra Bonvillain and Calyton Cowles, on sale now.

Future State’s new Batman comes not only with a healthy dose of family drama, but an intertwined political narrative that has its roots in the Fox family. The Foxes, Bruce Wayne and Batman’s longtime allies, appear affiliated with Gotham’s private occupying military force the Magistrate in Future State: The Next Batman #1. Ridley implies Tamara Fox benefitted from the Magistrate’s strict law and order after her seeming overdose. And Tanya Fox represents the Magistrate's actions as a lawyer, defending them from an ACLU suit. All the while, Jace’s return blends a prodigal son narrative with a renewed effort to bring down Batman.

Tam’s exact situation remains unclear by the end of the first issue, but her family members mention a relapse and that the law continues to support her in some way through her coma. Tanya’s motivation to defend the Magistrate in court stems from Tam’s recovery. When Luke suggests that perhaps the ACLU is justified in criticizing the law and the Magistrate, she retorts that it was there for her when Tam needed it.

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Tanya’s support for the Magistrate brings her stress, though it's not clear if that stress is ideological or simply from a high-stakes court case. Either way, Tanya backs the Magistrate in a big way, and she isn’t alone in the family. When Luke wakes up late in the day and flakes on work, Tanya criticizes him, saying that they don’t need another Bruce Wayne and that Luke needs “to represent.” This line implies that the Foxes remain tied to Bruce’s legacy, likely through control, or at least representation, of Wayne Enterprise. So even if Wayne Enterprise and the Magistrate aren’t linked as business entities, the Foxes’ ties to both bind them.

Lucius Fox’s role in “Joker War” may clue in readers to the Foxes’ new political conflicts. In “Joker War,” when Lucius got a hold of the money Joker stole from Bruce, he wanted to use it to fight back against the Joker himself, not return it to Bruce. He thought that his former employer would back him up. His perspective rubbed Luke the wrong way and after the duo duked it out with Joker thugs, the whole Fox clan got involved. Tanya convinced Lucius that in order to heal the city, they needed to first focus on healing their family; they needed to reach out to their estranged son Tim "Jace" Fox.

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In The Next Batman, it appears Jace didn’t accept the invitation home. At the hospital, Luke accuses Jace of not being there for Tam when she needed him. Instead, he was off “wherever” after attending military academy. His exploits after military training probably prepared him for taking the mantle of Batman, but it left his family in a state of discord. Also of note is that Jace is the name the Fox brother adopted since last seeing his family. Luke doesn’t accept Jace’s new name and the story behind that will likely cause more strife in the family and reveal more about the new Batman’s past. In a strange role reversal from his origin (which saw him critical of Bruce Wayne), Jace is the one that maintains a connection to Bruce and the Batman identity while his family has taken up a new, seemingly privileged position. The Foxes’ reversal comes from the end of “Joker War,” but how Jace came around to Batman, Ridley won’t reveal until later issues.

The Next Batman is rife with family drama and political setup. Jace’s return to Gotham plumbs Batman’s history in the creative fashion one expects of John Ridley but also sets up a fascinating scenario for investigating one of the world’s possible futures.

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