DC's New Batman Battles in Iconic Dark Knight Returns Batsuit

The "battle with Superman armor" look from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns made an appearance in DC's main publishing line this week, when Future State Batman Jace Fox donned the iconic costume in the latest issue of his title, Future State: Gotham #11 (from the creative team of Dennis Culver and Geoffo). In the reimagined DC timeline, Batman finds himself dealing with a threat that seems too big for him to handle: a new Joker, served by an android army. Jace is introduced to the Batsuit variant by Jason Todd, who has his own fancy, transforming suit of armor in Future State: Gotham #11, giving the whole thing a mechs-vs-drones feel.

In the world of Future State, Bruce Wayne is presumed dead, a dictator known as The Magistrate has taken control of Gotham City, and Nightwing has wrangled the remaining members of the Bat-family into a makeshift rebellion. Jason has been working as Peacekeeper-Red, operating inside of The Magistrate's law enforcement arm as an inside man for the Bats. Seeing him suit up alongside Batman might throw some of that into jeopardy, but there's a point where, as Jason Todd, you just get sick and tired of Jokers.

The Dark Knight Returns armor -- or one that looks distinctly like it, anyway -- was stored in one of a number of storage areas and additional Batcaves stored around the city.

The Future State comics have introduced a younger, more diverse take on the DC Universe that's likely calculated to attract attention from Warner Bros. as they develop future TV and film projects. Some of the titles seem to have already told their stories and moved on, but DC's philosophy is that there can never be enough Batman.

So far, Jace has been featured in a number of stories, all of which are building to a likely confrontation with The Magistrate and the equally likely revelation that Bruce Wayne really isn't dead after all. But that could be a while.