Who Is The Batman Of Tomorrow In 'Detective Comics?'

Recent solicitation text for December's issues of Superman, Super-Sons, and Teen Titans featured a character identified as "The Batman of Tomorrow," with no explanation as to who the character is, or where he came from. Today's issue of Detective Comics, however, may have given both answers -- and they're pretty surprising.

After Tim Drake manages to figure out a way to get a signal out of Mr. Oz's cosmic prison, his distress beacon is answered by "Batman," saying that he, too, is trapped in the jail and needs to be released.

When Tim opens up all of the cells in one wing of Oz's prison to free the Batman, he meets up with the elder superhero, and immediately realizes two things: one, he should not have opened all of the cells, and two, this Batman is actually not Bruce Wayne but a future version of Tim Drake himself.

Tim, of course, has never wanted to inherit the mantle of the Batman, something that he reinforced during this issue while talking with Mr. Oz (better known as Superman's father, Jor-El). He talked about his origins, which saw him trying to bring Batman back from the brink after the death of Jason Todd and taking on the role of Robin, thinking it would be a one-time thing at first.

Mr. Oz remained mostly silent, and then made his escape, saying that he, too, had been a prisoner all this time. That's when Tim reached out for help, found the Batman of Tomorrow, and -- in a scene that leaves some serious questions about how they'll survive -- ended up face to face with another newly freed prisoner of Oz's prison: Doomsday.

This is not the first time fans have seen an alternate Tim Drake, of course; during Geoff Johns' acclaimed run on Teen Titans, a version of Tim from a dark future was an evil Batman. More recently, Tim was Batman Beyond for a while. One possible future even saw him as The Joker (in Batman in Bethlehem). Future Tims are slowing down a bit mostly because with the introduction of a fourth Robin -- this one Batman's biological son -- it is easy to give Tim either a death or a happily-ever-after in stories that feature future versions of Damian Wayne.

All of that said, it is possible, though unlikely, that there is another Batman from the future set to come back in time in the next few months, unrelated to this particular Batman from the future.

Time travel hurts our brains.

You can get Detective Comics #965 at your local comic shop now, or pick up a digital copy here.