Warning! Spoilers for DC's Infinite Frontier #0 and Joker #1 below!
DC Comics' return to the present after Future State sees Avengers experienced in their recent video game. Both events saw major losses and failure on the part of their respective heroes, though it seems doubtful that Batman will be able to bounce back from the destruction of Arkham Asylum the same way Earth's Mightiest Heroes have. The status quo change in Gotham and consequences for Batman might be too insurmountable for the Dark Knight to overcome to get back to the way things were
In Marvel's Avengers' story mode for the game from Crystal Dynamics, the Avengers were celebrating the grand unveiling of a new headquarters and helicarrier in San Francisco, powered by terrigen crystals. However, a malfunction during a terrorist attack resulted in the helicarrier exploding from its experimental energy source, leading to massive amounts of devastation and a wave of terrigen mist giving several citizens unwanted and potentially unstable powers. Captain America was also believed to have been killed and the Avengers disbanded as a result, leading to the rise of AIM to take their place. As such, the terrible event was known across the world as 'A-Day'.
In contrast, Batman and Gotham just got their own 'A-Day' in the comics, seen in the pages of DC's Infinite Frontier #0. Seemingly attacked by the Joker (or at least made to look like it), Arkham Asylum was hit by a massive gas attack that claimed hundreds of lives in the resulting explosion, and Batman failed to get to Arkham before it was too late. In Joker #1 from writer James Tynion IV with art by Guillem March, former commissioner Jim Gordon details the events of 'A-Day', as well as the dark pun behind the name.
The fact that Batman's city sees this attack on Arkham as "a day" in Gotham is horrible and immensely tragic. It also communicates the city's desire to change and prevent similar events like The Joker War, City of Bane, War of Joker and Riddles, Zero Year, and countless other threats from being so commonplace. Unfortunately, Gotham has turned its fears and anger onto Batman and his family of vigilantes, and many citizens see them as part of the problem, wanting them banned from committing further hero work they see as making things worse.
Batman's 'A-Day' may very well be the straw that broke the camel's back, and it's possible Gotham's mayor is going make his stance against Batman even stronger than ever before. While the efforts of Ms. Marvel's Kamala Khan resulted in Earth's Mightiest Heroes reassembling to fight back against the villainous AIM in the Avengers game, the Dark Knight not be able to get back to a sense of normalcy as they did. It seems as though things have irrevocably changed for Batman, and he'll have no choice but to face the new depths of darkness Gotham is sinking into in future issues from DC Comics.
