Batman by John Ridley: The Deluxe Edition

Future State: The Next Batman #1-4

by John Ridley, Laura Braga (Illustrator), Olivier Coipel (Illustrator)

LIGHT THE BAT-SIGNAL! Legendary screenwriter John Ridley takes over Gotham in a new way! Writing the world's most popular superhero, Batman, Ridley brings his expertise to the DC pages!

Whether his story is told in black and white or captured in brilliant colors, Batman's adventures keep everyone guessing...even the World's Greatest Detective. Follow the iconic tales of the Dark Knight in Batman by John Ridley The Deluxe Edition.

Collects Batman Black & White #1, Batman: The Joker War Zone #1, Future State: The Next Batman #1-4, and a previously unpublished story by John Ridley and Dustin Nguyen.

Genres: Batman, Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics

128 pages, Hardcover

First published June 29, 2021

About the author

John Ridley IV (born October 1965)[2] is an American screenwriter, television director, novelist, and showrunner, known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is also the creator and showrunner of the critically acclaimed anthology series American Crime. His most recent work is the documentary film Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992.


Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Reviews

[Chad]

90% of this is also in Future State: The Next Batman. Only the 2 stories Olivier Coipel draws and the Dustin Nguyen 6 page story are new. It's about 20 pages total. The odd thing is this doesn't even collect all of John Ridley's Batman stories. There's also The Next Batman: Second Son which just finished its 4 issue run at the same time this was released.

The Next Batman by John Ridley, Laura Braga, and Nick Derington
Tim Fox (who hasn't been around since the 70's) is the new Batman. The story felt very small and too much time was spent with Fox family drama which never came to fruition.

The Cavalry from Batman: Black and White #1 by John Ridley and Olivier Coipel
Tim Fox's Robin arrives to save The Next Batman from a beating.

Family Ties from The Joker War Zone by John Ridley and Olivier Coipel
Lucius Fox is still dealing with being tortured by the Joker as his family tries to decide what to do with Bruce Wayne's money.

3 Minutes previously unpublished by John Ridley and Dustin Nguyen
A retcon of how long Lucius Fox has known who Batman was, showing him starting out as Batman and Robin's armorer back in the Dick Grayson days.

[Sam Quixote]

Batman By John Ridley: The Deluxe Edition (a redundant label as there aren’t any other editions available!) collects the few Batman comics John Ridley’s written for DC so far (though these are rapidly growing).

DC’s following Marvel’s lead, who hired a successful black writer from other literary mediums, Ta-Nehisi Coates, to write their Black Panther line, by hiring the Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave to write a version of their highest-profile character. And, like Coates’ Black Panther, Ridley’s Batman is also awful!

The bulk of the book is made up of the four-issue Future State: The Next Batman miniseries. Apparently this is the result of Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo’s Death Metal rubbish - alternate timeline, something happened to Bruce Wayne so now there’s a new Batman in town.

Here’s the first stumbling block in Ridley’s Batman: who is this Batman? I thought it was Luke Fox, Lucius’ son, but Ridley introduces another character, Tim Fox, who looks exactly like Luke, except for a bit of scruff on his chin, who seems to be the new Batman. So Luke Fox was Batwing but isn’t anymore and doesn’t seem to be Batman, and Tim Fox is Luke’s brother and seems to be the new Batman. Why have Tim here at all - why not just have Luke be the new Batman?! It’s so unnecessarily complicated and confusing. Oh yeah and Tim is also sometimes called “Jace” for no reason. Brilliant.

Bruce Wayne’s dead, just ‘cos, Tim Fox is now Batman, just ‘cos, Gotham’s a police state, just ‘cos, and is ruled over by a corrupt private police army, just ‘cos. Masks are outlawed, just ‘cos, and Batman’s swooping around battling crimz and cops alike, as he normally does. Nothing says “masterful storytelling” than having piles of contrivance everywhere. This is John Ridley’s great “vision” for the character - just having him do what he normally does, but swap out the dude wearing the outfit?!

When Batman’s not drearily battling nobodies on the streets, we’re treated to even duller discussions on whether any of these bonkers laws Gotham’s arbitrarily enacted are legal or not. It’s such an awful storyline. Boring, pointless, with a garbage cast of characters - no athankyew.

Also included is Ridley’s story from the most recent Batman: Black and White series where Tim/Jace/whatever and Robin (his little sister…? Ridley’s such a bad writer - things are never clear in any of his stories) fight white supremacists. If watching Batman punch a thug is all you’re after in a short comic, this one’s sure to satisfy.

The forgettable short from the Joker War Zone issue where Lucius remains traumatised from his experience with Punchline is also reprinted here. Luke/Tim/Jace puts on a shiny Batman suit, which doesn’t look like the Future State Batman suit, so probably isn’t connected - or is it? Is Luke/Tim/Jace also Batman in this timeline? Ah who cares, I’m done trying to figure out Ridley’s nonsense - it’s all a hot mess!

There’s also an unreleased short by Ridley and Dustin Nguyen called 3 Minutes where Lucius has to push a button or something bad will happen to Batman for reasons. I can see why it was unreleased, and think it should have remained so!

John Ridley may be an award-winning screenwriter but that doesn’t translate into great comics. His Batman comics are a poorly written and uninspired bunch that never once even remotely entertained.

[Subham]

This was surprisingly good.

It starts off with the far future Gotham where Masks are outlawed and Jace is Batman, his family hates masks and he doesn't get well with his bro Luke and operates in secret as Batman and also he has to face off against the sons of Bane, protect two people who murdered someone and their reasons were something and do so while on the run from Peacekeepers and the forces of the Magistrate meanwhile we learn of other people in his vicinity and some other stories showing Jace's sidekick.

Its a fun volume and introduces one to a version of Batman thats different and still learning things but shares the same moral volumes and will do the right thing even at the cost of his own life and I love the family dynamic and getting to know them and seeing Jace battling crazies and imposing some extreme harms on people close to him is weird and intriguing. And also loving the whole dichotomy of who the Robin he chooses is and the villains he faces and there are topics discussed here that are relevant in these times. Is he the greatest batman? No. Will he? Never. But he is Jace and he is trying and giving it all he has got to protect others.

I love the potential story ideas here and the way they hint at big things happening in the past and the art is too good, each page just perfectly detailed and what not.

[Donovan]

Gotham is a dystopian futuristic police state. Batman is dead, replaced by Tim Fox, son of Lucius Fox, whose family is the focus of this story. Tim fights for justice in a city where “masks” are shot on sight. These four issues are dark and entertaining, if too brief and leave me feeling like I’ve missed much of the story. Plus some random issues in the back. Had I know the Future State paperback collected these issues and more, I would’ve opted for that instead.

[Jimmy Leitsch]

I really enjoyed this. I was thinking that this was going to be an origin story instead of dropping right in to Jace starting off as Batman. I'm definitely going to try to read the previous stories. I'm excited to see where Ridley takes these characters.

[Connor]

Absolutely fantastic I loved every second of reading this collection! Completely reinvigorates the franchise in my opinion and I am looking forward to reading more from John Ridley.

[Timothy]

Things I liked:
-The dystopian future Gotham setting
-The colors and most of the character designs
-Some of the dialogue
-There’s a lot crammed into this four-issue story
-Jace is a reasonably entertaining protagonist
-Supporting cast have lots of promise for future stories

Things I disliked:
-This has no reason to be a Batman story; it’s missing so much of the classic Batman elements that it may as well be a generic superhero title
-Jace’s Batman suit is a little goofy and there are a lot of weirdly playful moments that feel really out of place in a Batman book leading to a weird tone
-Jace as a protagonist isn’t unlikable but he’s so much closer to Spider-Man or Daredevil than Batman that it again leaves this hanging question of “Why is this a Batman book?” over the whole thing
-It’s not very good at standing on its own

I don’t regret reading it, but I also don’t think branding this as Batman proper was the right way to go. Compare this to the Dick Grayson tenure as Batman, where there’s a clearly different protagonist but the book still felt very much like Batman. Or even compare this to Batman Beyond: where the title character is - much like in this book - a very different personality from Bruce and in a much different futuristic setting, but there’s some amount of continuity with all the aged-up returning characters. This just feels like a stand-alone title that had the Batman name slapped on.

[Adam Rodgers]

Screenwriter John Ridley takes a stab at writing some Future State/Elseworlds Batman stories.

I can't say Ridley's name was much of a draw for me, as I wasnt familiar with him, so emblazening his name across the book had little impact for me. The main story here features Tim Fox taking over the Bat mantle after Bruce has somehow died, Gotham is a police state and wearing a mask is a capital crime. The rest of the Bat family also seem to have disappeared leaving only Tim to fight the good fight. The new costume conceals Tim's whole face but its not really clear the reason for this is to avoid facial recognition, hide that the new Batman is black, or just a new take. It seems common knowledge that Bruce is dead and this is a new Batman so its a bit confusing with what is happening here. Tim also has limited resources, just the Bat suit, a bike and a lot of burner phones....

The story is okay as far as it goes but doesnt really have much to say. There is a bit of controversy with the rest of the Fox family who seem unaware of Tim's activities, despite Luke being The Signal/Batwing and Lucius making half the tech, which also doesnt make much sense. There are a couple of shorts included, but these are just more mini fight scenes really. There is some lovely artwork by Laura Braga and Oliver Coipel which raises the book somewhat but overall this is weak storytelling from such a supposedly accomplished screenwriter.

[Ross]

If you can get past the 'Future State' connection and just go with the flow of the story, stay at a 4star rating. If you want more detail and want to know where the heck Bruce Wayne went, drop it down to a 3star.

Future State fast forwarded DC forward one year and then spent the following year telling us how things had changed in the year we missed. It will seem confusing. The answers aren't always fully given.

The basics? Bruce Wayne is dead(maybe?)/gone(definitely) and Gotham has fallen into a paranoia so strong that even the police have become more violent and lethal. Joker War left the Wayne billions with Lucius Fox, himself a victim of the Joker toxin and only partially healed. Batwing has retired and the Fox family has come together as the daughter was super sick.

Gotham needs a new protector. This collection gives us a good chunk of John Ridley's story direction. DC cashed in on his name, much like Marvel banked on name recognition with Ta-Nehisi Coates.

It's a grim future. As with all things in DC though, it isn't written in stone.

[Mike Jorgensen]

This was very good but felt like a mere teaser. John Ridley clearly has a complex world with a great cast of characters, four issues was not enough. Luckily he's had a follow-up book or two and will be starting a new Batman title soon as well as Black Panther. Screenwriters sometimes struggle to translate to comics, but John Ridley has taken it to it with ease and I'm excited to see what else emerges from this iteration of Batman.

[David Waweru]

The Next Batman

This is the second book I've read by Ridley. I really appreciate the fact that he not race swapping the character. This is a different Batman. I love the family dynamic that's going on. He's walking the line of too much drama and all out action. Can't wait to see what Ridley going to do next.

[Robert]

A good alternative for a Batman story. But to have to be familiar with the current bat-universe to really get all of it. But a solid story despite that. John Ridley captures the idea of being Batman that is good but unsure of himself.

[Eye-ra]

This was okay. Good enough I may check out more in the future, but didn’t feel like it was great enough to search out the rest of the current run

[Ming]

My first exposure to this particular Batman, and I guess it's... okay

[Ashe Catlin]

I still find it funny that the first issue of this is about who the new Batman is and then it completely drops that and goes it's Jace. No build up nothing, there is a tease but then the next issue just reveals it in a very forgettable way.

That said I do really like this take on a different kind of Batman, he's not overly reliant on tech which is a nice touch. Instead he's more of a survivalist, who leads on his army training when he's in a tough situation.

The story was decent but I didn't really care for the bad guys, not the magistrates but the murders as, there wasn't much to them. I liked the fact it was a very grey area on right and wrong but it was never really explored.

The back up stories were decent the black and white one was really good but the others left me wanting a bit more as it had nothing to do with Jace and more focus on his family, so a little lackluster.

[drown_like_its_1999]

In a future Gotham set after the death of Bruce Wayne, the city seeks to rid itself of masked vigilantism through the use of a militarized, special police force. This organization frequently oversteps their bounds and often causes collateral damage to the citizens of Gotham. A child of Lucius fox decides to pick up the mantle of Batman and protect those Gothamites that have no one to protect them from the state or the remaining super criminals.

The overall structure and plot of this was good and refreshingly small scale though it was thematically quite formulaic for a Batman story. The characters are also interesting, with the Fox family taking center stage and their family dynamics interact with the dystopian plot well though it all feels quite surface level.

The art is also good though, like the story, it is nothing exceptional. I do like the character designs quite a bit though and the action is depicted well.