DC Future State - TV Tropes

DC Future State was a mini-DC Comics event taking place early 2021.

In the aftermath of Dark Nights: Death Metal, the heroes have triumphed over Perpetua and the Batman Who Laughs. However, their actions causes time-space to warp, showing a glimpse of the future...or a future. A future where new heroes don classic identities and Earth and the universe evolve in new and exciting...or dangerous ways.

Running through January and February 2021, all prior titles were replaced with a set of new books for this event, all giving a glimpse of both a possible future and events happening in the returning titles come March 2021 under the brand new banner DC Infinite Frontier.

Ahead of the event in November 2020, it was confirmed that Yara Flor, the future Wonder Woman, will star in her own Wonder Girl title later in the year, set in the main DC Universe. Similarly, Jace Fox, who is Batman during Future State, began his journey to becoming Batman in the main DC Universe in the pages of The Next Batman: Second Son.

List of Titles 

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Tropes Involved in this Event:

• Affirmative-Action Legacy:
  • The new Superman, Jonathan Kent, is bisexual.
  • The new Wonder Woman, Yara Flor, is Brazilian.
  • The new Batman, Tim Fox, is African-American.
  • The new Aquaman is Jackson Hyde, the former Aqualad, who is African-American and gay.
    • There's also Aquawoman, the daughter of Arthur Curry and Mera.
  • The new Flash, Jess Chambers, is nonbinary.
  • The newest Bolt is an Australian, dark-skinned, blonde girl with both legs amputated. Subverted in that she is a speedster while the previous Bolt was solely an electricity-themed villain.
• Alliterative Title: Last Lanterns.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: The whole event, with every DC title being put on hold for two months while a series of mini-series take their place to tell a story of an Alternate Timeline, is very reminiscent of Marvel's Age of Apocalypse.
  • The new Suicide Squad consisting of a group of villains masquerading as the Justice League has been compared to Dark Avengers.
  • A bird-named psychic super heroine who got her start as a member of a teen superhero team becoming an all-powerful cosmic destroyer. Are we talking about the Dark Phoenix or The Unkindness, aka Raven?
• Alternate Timeline: While some of these titles explored upcoming events, it's quite clear that these are possible futures, not actual. The finale of Future State: Justice League has a character tell another that the events of this timeline are better off averted, although how that happens is not shown in any Future State book, as they follow the timeline through to the very end.
• Anachronic Order: As different series published to different schedules are set at different times but star the same characters, this is inevitable.
• Becoming the Mask: One member of Hyperclan impersonating Superman comes to the conclusion being a benevolent and beloved superhero is great and that taking over the world is rather pointless. This desenter is promptly shot and another member impersonating Superman decides to shed the disguise and revel in his true nature.
• Big Brother Mentor: Jackson Hyde to Andy Curry.
• Birds of a Feather: The two detectives on The Justice League, Green Lantern(Sojourner Mullein) and Batman(Jace Fox), are less abrasive to each other than the rest of the league. Downplayed in that they're still not friends. Green Lantern simply finds Batman to be the most reliable after herself and Batman finds Green Lantern to be the most trust worthy, convinced the other four are far more liable to turn on him.
• Brazilian Folklore: Featured in Yara Flor's titles by way of Caipora and the headless mules. There are some liberties taken, as Iae is seen breeding and ranching the latter, suggesting they are "just" fantastically powerful animals or the moon god is enacting some uncharacteristically cruel punishments.
• Broad Strokes: Although the series was intended to show a "possible future" rather than the canon future of the DCU, some characters and concepts i.e. Yara Flor, Red X, the Magistrate, Gold Beetle, Bolt and Conner Kent joining the Suicide Squad, will be integrated into the main continuity.
• Brought Down to Badass:
  • The Last Lanterns mini-series sees a Badass Normal John Stewart leading a group of other former Green Lanterns on a quest to defend the galaxy after the Central Battery on Oa is destroyed, rendering the entire Corps powerless.
  • The Dark Detective mini-series follows the exploits of a Bruce Wayne who's been stripped of his fortune, tech, and vast support network after being shot and declared dead by the Magistrate's Peacekeepers.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Arkham Knights features the return of Astrid Arkham, Copperhead, and Humpty Dumpty, who all hadn't been seen in quite some time.
  • Superman vs. Imperious Lex reintroduces Lexor, the alien planet rescued by Lex Luthor back in the Silver Age.
  • Justice League reintroduces the Hyperclan, a supervillain team last seen in The '90s.
  • Superman/Wonder Woman brings back Solaris the Sun Tyrant.
  • Shazam reintroduces Tanya Spears and Neron.
  • Superman: Worlds of War features the return of Midnighter.
  • Suicide Squad brings back the relatively obscure Wonder Woman and Aquaman villains Hypnotic Woman and Fisherman, who are impersonating their enemies as members of Amanda Waller's "Justice Squad" on Earth 3.
• Canon Immigrant: Red X, a one-time identity of Robin and a mysterious foe in Teen Titans (2003), shows up in the Teen Titans book. As a Mythology Gag, the new Red X mentions that Dick had previously donned the mantle at some undisclosed point in the past.
• The Commissioner Gordon: After defeating Warmonger and reversing the effect of his brainwashing tech over the city, Jason Todd comes to the conclusion that as much as he would like to reunite with the rest of the Bat-Family, his new position as a full-fledged Magistrate Peacekeeper is just too valuable to squander. So Jason instead vows to become Jace Fox's Friend on the Force from within the Magistrate just like James Gordon was to Bruce Wayne within the GCPD. He even creates a new Bat Signal in the form of a deployable holographic projector capable of blanketing the sky with the famed insignia to make it official.

  Jason: When Bruce first became Batman, he faced a city just as corrupt [as the Magistrate]. But with the help of the only good cop in Gotham, he was able to make a difference. I believe that if we work together we could make a difference, too. Take down the Magistrate for good. As partners.

• Crossover Cosmology: Yara Flor's stories mix Hellenism with Brazilian folklore, some of the Brazilian folklore used are themselves examples of crossover cosmology, Iae and Kuat tending to a herd of headless mules. Nubia's story revolves around a key created by nine goddesses from nine different pantheons.
• Demonic Possession: Wally West is possessed by the Horseman of Famine.
• Do Not Fear The Reaper: Charon, Thanatos, Hades and Persephone, a quartet cthunic death gods, are shown to be far better than our "hero" Yara Flor in Future State: Wonder Woman. Yara's would be superior Caipora also has some dominion over death and despite her constant failures is at least trying to keep the new Wonder Woman in line.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: So the new Batman is a black man (though it'd be hard to tell considering his suit covers his entire body), and his primary opponents are cops who will happily kill civilians on the slightest provocation under the guise of maintaining the peace. Considering that the comic ran less than a year after the George Floyd murder and the subsequent public outrage, this may have been intentional.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul":
  • Shazam no longer likes being called Billy. Because he's not ever since he and Billy were split by Neron.
  • Timothy Fox hates being called by his birth name and prefers to go by Jace. This might be DC's attempt to ensure that he doesn't get mistaken for Tim Drake.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: How does supervillain Black Manta die? He drops dead as a result of the process the Suicide Squad used to cross over into Earth 3, never getting his revenge on Arthur or Jackson.
• Eldritch Abomination: Nubia's story is about nine goddesses from Earth's early years accidentally creating a key that can grant access to a realm full of hostile creatures and trying make sure it is kept out of the wrong hands until they have regained enough power to destroy their creation. Diana's story also involves a group known as "The Undoing" gradually destroying every star in the universe, and pretty much everything else they come across as they go about it. Whether or not these are the same creatures isn't clear, but it's strongly implied Nubia was successful in her mission to safeguard the master key until it could be unmade.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Everyone uses the Flash’s preferred pronouns, including the villains who are trying to kill them.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: The Legion of Doom thought they could use the Hyperclan to discredit and destroy the Justice League. Well they did, but first they killed the Legion of Doom for trying to use them.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: The Last Lanterns book shows John Stewart, previously known for his short military haircut, now sporting cornrows and a beard.
• Faceless Mooks: The enforcers of the Magistrate wear face-covering helmets.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Shazam murdered the Creeper, Jakeem and Johnny Thunder, and seemingly Tim Drake in an attempt to cover up the fact that he's not Billy Batson anymore. Vixen also finds out he's responsible for the murder of Slade Wilson and Martian Manhunter.
  • Longtime Bat-ally Lucius Fox is now a staunch supporter of the Magistrate and has been using Wayne Enterprises to manufacture and sell militarized weapon and surveillance systems directly to the Magistrate's Peacekeepers to support their crackdown on costumed vigilantes and villains alike. His wife Tanya is also one of the many lawyers under Mayor Nakano working around the clock to find a way to legally defend the Magistrate's "shoot on sight" mandate.
  • One of the major twists in the Grifters short story is that Luke Fox a.k.a. Batwing was a Magistrate mole who made a deal with the Peacekeepers to sell out the Huntress in exchange for his own freedom.
  • After being possessed by all four spirits of the Horsemen of Apocalypse and stealing the powers of Shazam, Raven yet again pulls one of these after Neron assists with breaking her out of the Rock of Eternity so she can raise hell on Earth.
• Faking the Dead: Bruce Wayne faked his death in order to hide from the Magistrate, the totalitarian organization running Gotham City.
• Fantastic Ableism: Aunt Nancy is unsympathetic when she accidentally gives Nubia a bout of "farsight sickness", saying Nubia should have outgrown it already
• Fantastic Racism
  • Hades doesn't care for The Esquecida, though it is not until Wonder Girl (Infinite Frontier) that we learn what "Esquecida" even means in the context he uses it in. When we learn it, it becomes clear why his wife Persephone rebukes him.
  • Circe claims Grail's heritage isn't of Circe's concern, but it is clear from Circe's attitude and body language that neither the The New Gods nor amazons from from Themyscira are among those she'd willingly associate with. While Grail is the proud daughter of Darkseid, she is indignant at the suggestion she might be from the same island as Nubia.
• Forbidden Friendship: Aquawoman and the Flash (Jess Chambers) are BFFs despite League rules explicitly banning members from forming personal relationships. Superman (Jon Kent) and Wonder Woman (Yara Flor) are also close confidants despite both acknowledging that their heart-to-heart talks are against the rules. Wonder Woman agrees with the rules, but can't help herself because she's gotten used to giving Superman what she believes to be necessary Tough Love long before becoming a league member.
• Fugitive Arc: This is a shared theme with the stories set within Gotham City after all costumed vigilantes had been outlawed under the Magistrate's regime. The most prominent example being the new Batman (Timothy "Jace" Fox), who is the #1 name on the Magistrate's kill list with their drones and armed patrols constantly surveilling the streets of Gotham for any sign of his presence. This gets even worse for Jace in Future State: Gotham where he gets wrongfully implicated as the terrorist responsible for the destruction of the Narrows, putting him in the crosshairs of the Peacekeepers, Jason Todd, and the entire Bat Family as a whole.
• Future Badass: As most of the main characters are children or teens in the prime timeline this is pretty much inevitable. The ultimate example would probably be Aquawoman, who is a superhero and member of the Justice League in the future and a literal baby in the present of the DCU.
• Future Shadowing: Grail taunts Nubia about the deaths of Hippolyta and Yara Flor, before asking if Diana is doing a better job than they were at piecing the amazons together than they were. She isn't.
• Green Thumb: Caipora admits that she once reversed the position of every plant in the entire Amazon rain forest in an effort to keep Yara Flor under control. It didn't work.
• Good Is Not Nice
  • Yara Flor gradually becomes a better person over the course of Future State, but she remains kind of mean throughout
  • Jace Fox doesn't trust a single member of the Justice League, though he mistrusts Sojourner Mullein the least because she is the easiet for him to read. Nonetheless even Fox thinks Mullein is too hard on her teammates
  • Aunt Nancy doesn't think much of her adopted niece, Nubia, and never has since before Nubia was even born. She nonetheless gives Nubia good advice and mostly avoids criminal activity, so Nubia continues to put up with her.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • The Flash seen in the Suicide Squad miniseries has two prosthetic legs from the knee down.
  • Aquawoman's leg is amputated below the knee.
• Hero Antagonist: The enchanted forest guardian Caipora is antagonistic to Yara Flor. They both want to protect the forest, but Yara cares a lot less about the creatures living in it, and is willing to defy Caipora's law for the sake of Yara's tribe. Caipora's also a prankster ontop of this, and Flor doesn't share her sense of humor.
• Heroic Lineage: Aquawoman is Andy Curry, daughter of Arthur Curry and Mera. The new Superman is Jonathan Samuel Kent, son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
• Hold the Line: John Stewart, Salaak, G'nort, and others do this against an army of Khunds to defend a defenseless alien population.
• Honor Before Reason: After humanity is killed off, The Amazons of Themyscira take the opportunity to colonize the Earth and refuse to let it go, even as "the green" is dying, the sun is dying and there are monsters no one has ever seen before destroying more and more of the other inhabitable planets planets of the universe. Why? Because Darkseid is coming to claim Earth, so leaving it would be cowardice! Fittingly this gets everyone but Diana, the one amazon pointing out how {{stupid|good} this all this, killed, though Diana still loses points for bowing to democracy. Darkseid too, for continuing to fight for the planet after seeing first hand what a lost cause it.
• Humans Are Flawed: While Aunt Nancy firmly believes that Humans Are Bastards, she isn't too hard on humanity, stating no species holds a monopoly on bastard behavior.
• Hypocrite: When Tanya Fox is subdued by the new Batman, the Peacekeepers accuse him of not caring about civilian casualties because he gave Tanya a pretty hefty fleshwound in the process. Not only was Tanya pulling a gun on him and the civilian behind him, but the peacekeepers are authoritarian bullies who happily kill civilians at the slightest provocation. Tanya also later uses Batman's self-defense as an example of why he needs to die, nevermind that she was clearly the aggressor in the situation.
• I Just Want to Be You: Hypnotic Woman of the Justice Squad is implied to be disguising herself as Wonder Woman because she truly wants to be Wonder Woman.
• Implied Love Interest
  • Aquawoman is extremely protective of the Flash, when the two are alone they are shown to be casually physically intimate, the Flash has a private Affectionate Nickname for Aquawoman and reveals that they know she talks in her sleep. It’s not made clear if they are involved or if it’s just a very close platonic friendship.
  • DC Pride later confirms that they are a couple.
• Knight Templar: The Peacekeepers, the cybernetically enhanced Super Soldiers who command the Magistrate, are ultra-authoritarian goons who are totally unflinching in their pursuit of eliminating every costumed vigilante in Gotham while maintaining their choke hold on the power structures of the city. They have committed everything from Police Brutality, assassinations of corporate and political figureheads, false-flag operations, and forcing media outlets to flood public perception with propaganda. All to achieve the singular goal of making Gotham into their vision of a better place. Then there are particularly more vile examples within their ranks like Peacekeeper-06 who murdered a little girl Jace Fox rescued from human traffickers, simply so she wouldn't grow up to be a potential Batman supporter out of gratitude.
• La Résistance:
  • The Arkham Knights are a group of Batman rogues led by the Arkham Knight, who fight against the Police State the Magistrate has turned Gotham into.
  • The remaining members of the Bat-Family are also shown to be fighting tooth and nail against the Magistrate's rule to varying levels of success.
• Legacy Character: The event shows new legacy versions of a few characters.
  • Jonathan Samuel Kent becomes the second Superman. His descendant Rowan becomes the third.
  • The new Batman is Tim Fox.
  • The new Wonder Woman is Yara Flor. Nubia also becomes Wonder Woman at a different point in the timeline.
  • The new Flash is Jess Chambers.
  • The last Blue Lantern is Ronan Kent.
  • The previous iterations of Superwoman were Kristin Wells, villains from an alternate universe and the New 52 versions of Lois Lane and Lana Lang. The one in this event is Kara Zor-El.
  • For the Teen Titans series, Dick Grayson decides to take the mask of Deathstroke.
  • By the time period of Black Adam One Million, the Quintessence mostly consists of legacy characters: the wizard Shazam is still there, but the Spectre seems to have taken the Phantom Stranger's place, Barda is now in Highfather's, Hippolyta in Zeus/Hera's, and Sinestro in Ganthet's.
• Lesser of Two Evils: While Yara Flor understandably wants to punish Kuat after his showboating nearly kills a dozen people, one of those people was a thieving politician those otherwise innocent bystanders going down with him were sick of. When the comic goes on to pit Kuat against Solaris, who has destroyed hundreds of star systems and is threatening to torch the surface of the Earth all because of his grudge born from one man making him look bad, the reader can be forgiven for forgetting Kuat has done anything wrong at all, even though he opposes Solaris out of jealousy rather than righteousness or altruism.
• Manipulative Bastard: Per for the norm for Amanda Waller, but it's implied she spent years emotionally abusing Conner Kent in order to build him up as the Superman she wanted him to be. Even when it turns out she didn't mean a Superman who kills, Conner only reaches this state in defiance of how she treated him since she first got her hands on him.
• Manly Gay: The jacked up, bearded, tattooed Barbarian Hero looking adult version of Jackson Hyde.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Arthur Curry was Jackson Hyde's mentor, who is himself the mentor of Andy Curry.
• Mirror Universe: The Suicide Squad series takes place on Earth 3.
• The Mole
  • Jason Todd worked as a bounty hunter, a later a Peacekeeper, for the Magistrate. But it's revealed that he only did so under orders of Bruce Wayne to gather information on the Magistrate in order to eventually destroy it.
  • There was a mole among the nine goddesses of the master key who sought to turn their innocent enlightenment spell into a way to unleash imprisoned monster that would destroy the known universe while also weakening the casters of the spell for eons. It's hard to out gambit Nansi, who figures out how to clean up the mess quickly enough, but the mole is never caught.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Bolt is horrified when she kills Lor-Zod, because Waller told her the device she used would "neutralize" him. In Waller's words, if he's dead then he's neutralized.
• Myth Arc: Most of the stories are self-contained, but there is an overarching plot running through some of them about The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Which looks set to continue into the main line of comics, as the Future State version of Black Adam is transported back in time to 2021 to kill Raven before she is possessed by them and becomes the Unkindness.
• Not as You Know Them: Some keep their established personalities, more or less, but the book introduces a lot of new design concepts even the for established characters who behave the way one would expect them to and teases the reader to pick up the comic books to see how they got there.
• Not Me This Time: After learning Grail is behind a series of robberies and axe murders, Nubia approaches her Aunt Nancy, knowing Nancy is somehow involved. Nancy admits that she is, but not in the way Nubia thinks, as one of the stolen artifacts used to be Nancy's and she wants it out of Grail's hands almost as much as Nubia does.
• Private Military Contractors: The Magistrate appears to be made up of this, being brought to Gotham by Major Christopher Nakano to rid Gotham of all the 'masks'.
• Psycho Prototype: Warmonger, the terrorist truly behind the bombing of the Gotham City Narrows, was originally an early candidate for what would ultimately become the Magistrate's Peacekeeper Program. While he possesses all the traits of a well-trained Super-Soldier, Warmonger is also a homicidal maniac who ironically despised the very idea of peace and was instead obsessed with waging war. Astrid Arkham rescued Warmonger from a secret Magistrate cold storage facility not knowing who he really was, resulting in him repaying her kindness by slaughtering her civilian support network before hijacking the Mad Hatter technology she uses to help keep her Arkham Knights mentally stable to enact a grand plot to plunge Gotham City into a Forever War.
• The Quisling:
  • Harley Quinn shows The Scarecrow voluntarily serving the Magistrate in exchange for helping them hunt other rogues.
  • Backup stories in Dark Detective show that Red Hood and Ravager work as freelancers who hunt down active vigilantes.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: The newest member of the Gotham City Sirens is a Robot Girl named Dee-Dee, who loves Sex and the City and joined them so she could experience a 'Girls' Night Out'.
• Sadly Mythtaken
  • Tupã as the equivalent to Zeus kind of works, but he's usually considered to be the servant, aspect or splinter of a larger god rather king of his pantheon. The headless mules are usually portrayed as actually being headless, for one, and while they are indeed figures from Brazilian folklore they do not have much to do with Iae and Kuat, who more so religious figures that are more strongly associated with birds than equines.
  • Nansi is a male figure. A male figure with a daughter and an intelligent wife he seeks the advice of when planning his schemes, making the Gender Swap completely unnecessary unless the wife was going to become the husband as well. Thematically unnecessary, narrative wise the gender swap does help keep the reader from guessing Nansi's true identity right away.
• Star Killing: The Undoing are destroying the universe in Immortal Wonder Woman, and their primary method is by destroying stars.
• Take That!: Superman: Worlds of War has some pretty spiteful jabs towards the overall perception of Superman's character as a Messianic Archetype whose superpowers are his only definable traits.

  Sadie: Superman didn't save me. Clark Kent did.

• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The fugitive Jace Fox and the newly made Peacekeeper Jason Todd are forced into this position after the two are suddenly caught smack dead in the middle of a Prison Riot at Blackgate Penitentiary.
• Token Good Teammate: The new Suicide Squad (normally villains or anti-heroes) is led by Conner Kent (normally a hero). Aside from him, this role is shared by the Flash (Bolt) who is the only one to openly question Amanda Waller's actions while being genuinely disgusted by them.
• Took a Level in Badass: Ringless G'nort is far more fearsome and capable than his regular counterpart. He even attacks by biting his enemies.
• Two Girls to a Team: Subverted, the Justice League has two men, three women, and one non-binary.
• Underestimating Badassery: Aunt Nancy severely underestimates Grail. Beat up Nubia, sure, but do anything to Nancy herself? That's such a ridiculous notion Nancy procrastinates about getting her key shard back from Grail. Circe also doesn't think much of the "godling", even after admitting Grail effectively forced Circe to work for her. Luckily for Nubia, Kali and Oshun do take the new demi goddess seriously.
• Violence Discretion Shot: Diana gets a hefty beating from Darkseid, but much of it is not shown on panel. We're also spared the details of Superman and Darkseid's Mutual Kill, assuming they died before the supernova. Nubia also gets handled by Grail in their second encounter, but we're only shown the end result.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: The new Legion of Doom is seen discussing their next plan to destroy the Justice League, and the next page they've all been killed by the Hyperclan.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jon Kent, in an attempt to protect Metropolis, decided to bottle it. This did not go down very well with Kara.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Caipora tries to lecture Yara Flor but gets shut up before she can get going. Yara eventually learns her lesson anyway when observing Kuat, whose return she's partly responsible for, nearly kill dozens of people just to get at one corrupt politician. Yara even admits she's probably not the best person to be dressing him down.
  • Tiffany Fox doesn't mince words when she calls out her own parents on the fact that they, of all people, are willingly supporting a privatized law enforcement organization that employs lethal force against civilians on the slightest provocation.

  Tiffany: Really? Both of you are okay with private cops who can shoot on sight? After everything you've told us, everything you taught us.
  Tanya: This...This is different.
  Tiffany: It's never "different". It's just different for us.

• Your Head Asplode: William Cobb, the Justice Squad's Batman (formerly Talon), gets his head blown off at the beginning of Suicide Squad.

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