DC Comics has announced a new series of Batman comics, starring a Black successor to the Dark Knight's cape and cowl.
Oscar-winning writer John Ridley is at the helm for Future State: The Next Batman, a four-issue series which is due to hit shelves next year, and he recently spoke about how he wanted to take the character in another direction.
The series is set in a future Gotham, where Bruce Wayne's Batman is dead and citizens are under the rule of an evil cabal called the Magistrate, which has outlawed masked vigilantes and taken a vice-like grip of the city.
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The only person who stands between good and evil is Timothy Fox, the estranged son of Wayne's former colleague Lucius Fox, who inherited the Wayne fortune after his death, and the brother of former Batwing Luke Fox.
Speaking to The LA Times about the new series, Ridley said he was excited to take the character to places he hadn't been before, and to explore other avenues that perhaps weren't possible with Wayne.
He told the publication: "What I'm talking about is a person's background, a person's status, a person that may have been given everything in life. Sometimes people who are given a lot of things don't understand struggle.
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"So, it's one thing to be Black - that doesn't mean all of the struggles of our daily lives are exactly the same."
He continued: "What is this person going through? What have they been gifted in life? What do they have to discover?
"What are the things they are fighting for or against - before they even put on that costume? And how does that inform the Batman that they are? How that is so very different from Bruce Wayne."
Ridley recently revealed that, as opposed to previous incarnations of the Caped Crusader, this series will be less reliant on technology in order to overcome evil.
In order to combat the Magistrate's leader, Peacekeeper One, Fox will have to rely much more on his natural abilities.
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Ridley said: "It's really difficult to avoid technology and facial recognition. You have a Batman who has to operate in a space where the only advantage he can have is to be analogue.
"When you start removing those digital tools, you're like a caveman fighting computers."
He added: "It really is rolling Batman back to being an individual who is so much about his wit, his guile and his physical acumen.
"You definitely have to have a different strategy. You're outmanned, you're outgunned and the only thing you can really do is go back to the original Batman - the shadows are your friend. Night is your ally.
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"The city is your battleground."
Fox will appear in the new crossover series DC Future States, which will run through January and February next year ahead of a number of other new comics being launched in March.
Nick Derrington is providing the artwork for The Next Batman.
Topics: Entertainment, US News, US Entertainment, Oscars, Batman