DC’s Katana Gets an Epic New Costume in Future State

We’re officially in the midst of the Future State event, and its impact on the DC Comics mythos is only beginning to be felt. The two-month-long event is set to make an impact across a wide array of titles, which are bringing a wide array of characters into their orbit. Fans got to see the beginning of that in this week’s titles, including the highly-anticipated Future State: The Next Batman #1. In addition to a main story featuring Tim Fox as Batman, the issue featured a backup involving The Outsiders — and it gave one of its heroes a major sartorial upgrade. Spoilers for the Outsiders story in Future: State: The Next Batman #1, from Brandon Thomas, Sumit Kumar, Raul Fernandez, Jordie Bellaire, and Steve Wands below! Only look if you want to know!

Right out of the gate, the story opens on Tatsu Yamashiro/Katana, who can be seen trying to intercept agents of the Magistrate who are targeting Duke Thomas/Signal. Katana is clearly sporting a different version of her traditional costume — namely, because it sports a huge jetpack.

Readers can get a better look at Katana’s costume throughout the issue, as she leads an action-packed charge against members of the Magistrate. The costume takes her usual samurai-inspired attire and takes it to a next level, using more mech-inspired pieces in grey, black, and red, as well as a much larger samurai helmet.

The new costume is undoubtedly visually interesting and proves to be pretty handy in the events of the issue itself. It also seems like the costume helps signify Katana’s new status in the Future State event — helping her come across as even more of a formidable foe.

“Well, she is (currently) the lone guardian of ‘the outside,’” Thomas recently told Newsarama. “She’s the woman on the wall, a force of nature that’s made it clear to everyone, even the Magistrate, that her dominion is to be honored and respected at all times. Whether that’s actually the case is something the story deals with directly, but I’d say the thing she’s battling more than anything, in the beginning, is a sense of loneliness and deep isolation. We don’t deal much with how her current status came to be, just the emotional effects it’s having on her mission right now, and again, this is another element that feels very much on a lot of people’s minds. Even someone as naturally solitary as Katana needs some human interaction to function normally, and we’ll have to see if denying that leads to any big problems for her.”

What do you think of Katana’s new costume in DC’s Future State? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!