Originally published on Patreon
Some comics really stick the landing in their final issue, and others stumble upon hitting the ground, rush forwards as they try to stay up, and crash through a window and fall dozens of floors into a bin outside the building. Future State: Gotham was never an amazing series, but it was at least enjoyable, but this concluding issue really does leave the series feeling weirdly thought out, kind of shoddy, and ultimately disappointing.
Last issue, the story left off with the very baffling revelation that Damian hadn't come out of hell alone, and that an evil entity had hitched a ride, possessing the young man. That evil spirit was revealed to be Joe Chill, the man who murdered Bruce's parents, and that he was here to destroy Batman. I mean, it makes 0 sense, but sure.
This issue shows us the fight with the evil spirit within Damian that's easily able to beat all of the assembled heroes, because I guess random street thug learned some tricks in hell whilst he was there. The fight seems to be going against our heroes until Dick Grayson arrives and convinces Joe's ghost to possess him instead of Damian after the ghost was chasing him around in the sky for a bit.
Thanks to the special drug that's in Dick's system, he's able to contain the demonic ghost for long enough to say goodbye to his friends, give Barbara a kiss, and explain that he was beating up all the other Batmen because his vision of the future showed that Batman would die by Joe Chill's hands, and he needed it to be him. He then flies up into the air and explodes (presumably killing the demon ghost?) and the explosion is that powerful it brings colour into the comic.
The survivors then capture Hush, and Jason gets the praise for his arrest, becoming the top cop in the city. With Bruce recovering from his injuries, and putting aside time to help his now adult son who spent years in hell, he hands the Batman mantle over to Jace, who gets a snazzy new suit. Gotham is then let in the protection of the new Batman, Red Hood, and Hunter Panic.
So, as it might be clear already, this story did absolutely nothing for me. The sudden inclusion of the demon ghost of Joe Chill felt completely out of nowhere, and completely silly. I don't know why this choice was made. It didn't add much to the story, other than to make things feel ridiculous. Dick flying around as a big, Ghostbusters-like ghost chased him was perhaps the lowest of low points.
Another thing that really didn't help this final chapter was the sudden change in artist. The series has had it's own sense of style, with manga inspired black and white art, and whilst this issue does fall into that category, it looks very obviously different to what we've had before. Previous issues have had more angular and sharp illustrations, with characters that have loads of detail and defined tone to them. Here, the art is very chunk, I think the best way to describe it. Everything is rounder, less defined, and as the book goes on these changes seem to get more obvious, almost like the artist was getting closer to deadline and started rushing.
The change into colour at the end of the book doesn't help the art either, and it almost seems to make this style even worse. The book looks less like the earlier issues, and more like an odd smaller press title with a less serious tone. I know it sounds odd describing super heroes as serious, but this art style looks like it would be more at home in a comedy comic, rather than a Batman story.
The only real good point of the issue is the back-up feature, that gives us a story about Dick in his early days fighting crime; I guess making up for the fact that the book just killed him. (It also says a lot about how disconnected I got from this book when them killing one of my favourite characters got no reaction from me other than 'huh?'). It's a decent little story about a young Dick feeling like he has to prove himself, plus we get Clayface, who I don't think really gets used as much as some of the rest of the Bat villains.
I enjoyed this series as a whole over the last 18 issues, some parts were better than others, but as a weird, manga-like, futuristic what if type story it was fun; but this ending has left my final impression of the series being a bad one, and as such I'd probably struggle to ever give it a second read, or recommend it to others.
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