DC Future State Reveals How Batman Survived His Supposed Death

DC's Future State: Dark Detective continues this week, taking readers into a world in which Batman -- specifically Bruce Wayne's Batman -- is believed by the public to be dead. However, as readers know, he's very much alive and more determined than ever to take on The Magistrate. While the idea that Batman would somehow survive his own death to continue the fight is itself not much of a surprise -- this is Batman we're talking about -- the details of how he survived his demise might be and this week's Future State: Dark Detective #2 breaks it down.

Warning: spoilers for Future State: Dark Detective #2 below.

In Future State: Dark Detective it's confirmed that Bruce Wayne was killed by a Peacekeeper, Gotham's highest and most brutal level of law enforcement nearly two years prior to the "current" events of the series, but not just any Peacekeeper. Bruce was taken out by Peacekeeper-01, the leader of the force, and from the action on the page, it's revealed that Peacekeeper-01 shot Bruce repeatedly in pursuit of him, knowing somehow that he was Batman. To escape, Bruce jumped into the river but instead of dying, an opportunity to survive presented itself. Also in the river was the body of a John Doe that looked just enough like Bruce to buy him a little time. In that time an electro-grenade in his pocket went off -- it's alluded to that the grenade was placed in the John Doe's pocket, but the actual mechanism isn't clear.

The explosion allowed Bruce to essentially drift away until he rose to the surface and drag himself out of the water where he sat until "the thought of how to stop the bleeding finally became louder than the sound of my heart thudding in my chest." Bruce later reveals that he can still feel one of the bullets put into him that day when he kneels on his left knee.

Now that we know how Bruce survived, the real question is who Peacekeeper-01 is -- which just so happens to also be the mystery that Bruce himself is trying to solve. However, Bruce may have a bit of a lead on that mystery as well. The issue also sees Batman discover that one of the micro-drones the Magistrate uses is WayneTech leading him to realize that they've been watching every corner of Gotham without people realizing it -- meaning that his conspiracy theorist roommate may not be so off base about "them" being everywhere and watching everything after all.

Future State: Dark Detective #2 is on sale now.