WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Next Batman: Second Son #11 by John Ridley, Travel Foreman, Norm Rapmund, Rex Lokus, and Deron Bennett, now available.
Tim Fox secretly operates as the Next Batman in the world of DC's Future State, but that's not the only new identity he's adopted in recent months. Since returning to Gotham and his family after many years away, the oft-forgotten younger son of Lucius Fox has insisted on being called Jace, although abiding by this has proven difficult for some of his family members. The latest issue of The Next Batman: Second Son finally cements the tragic reason why he feels he needs to leave his birth name and adopt an entirely new identity.
The Next Batman: Second Son is a digital-first miniseries depicting the start of Jace's crimefighting career, as Gotham continues to move toward the totalitarian, vigilante-hating city it is by the time of Future State. Despite this, various aspects of Jace's character, such as why he changed his name and how he became so estranged from his family, especially his brother Luke, have remained mysterious, until recently. Starting in Issue #7, Jace was deposed as part of a lawsuit a family named the Acevedos was filing against the Fox family and his statement began to illustrate the major turning point in his life.
As the son of an extremely wealthy family, whose father was often busy at work, Tim Fox grew up under a veil of spoiled entitlement. After getting upset when a girl turned down his romantic advances at his lavish 17th birthday party, he was driving to see a different girl, Kayln, and talking to her on a video call, when a man walked in front of his car and Tim hit him. As the man, who was later revealed to be Enrique Acevedo, lay dying, he pleaded for Tim's help, but Tim ran away. He told his father what had happened and Lucius had his employees begin a smear campaign revealing Enrique's most severe character defects so that consequences to Tim and the rest of the family could be minimized. Tim was extremely uncomfortable with this both at the time and years later in the series' main timeline. Unable to help their son with his guilt Lucius and his wife Tanya sent Tim to military school.
In The Next Batman: Second Son #11, the adult Jace gets in over his head battling a group of criminals and is aided by superhero Tatsu Yamashiro/Katana, who is shown to have been a past mentor of his. After the fight Jace tells Tatsu "The person I am now regrets the person I was. But I'm so thankful for the person I've become." Jace resents his younger self for his selfish, immoral behavior and changing his name is a way to demonstrate how thoroughly he's changed. However, Tatsu also believes it might signal that Jace is carrying an unhealthy amount of guilt.
Regardless of whether it's totally healthy or not, Jace's family hasn't respected his decision on the whole, and the fact that some of them don't shows that they must also bear blame for their estrangement from their son and brother. Jace's parents generally use his new name but still often call him Tim. His brother Luke generally refuses to use the new name and resents being asked to. Luke was barely featured in the flashback story line but it's possible his anger at his brother developed because of his own long service as a crime fighter.
Luke Fox has been operating as the second Batwing, a respected member of the Bat-Family, for years so it's likely that he resents his family for obstructing justice by minimizing Jace's crime and the consequences that should have come from it. Luke won't accept that his brother has genuinely changed for the better and if that doesn't change soon, it could tear the Fox family apart.