Warning: this article contains spoilers for Future State: Dark Detective #3!
Future State has turned Gotham City into a war zone, and with the Magistrate Suicide Squad movie.
As arguably more trouble than ever in Future State.
Issues #1 and #3 of Future State: Dark Detective feature back-pages stories starring Grifter, who is enlisted by Luke Fox to help him try and escape Gotham, a difficult task considering the city is currently on lockdown thanks to Future State’s evil army, the Magistrate. Fortunately, Grifter knows someone who can help. He leads Luke to the Huntress, a Birds of Prey character and wanted vigilante in Gotham. Unfortunately, the Magistrate is close behind, forcing Luke, Grifter, and Huntress to make a daring escape. As they’re being chased, Grifter uses a high-tech eyepiece in his mask to target some explosives and blow up their pursuers. It’s a pretty awesome moment, but it does beg the question - where did Grifter get his gear?
While it’s never explicitly mentioned in the issue, a solid theory is that Grifter’s eyepiece once belonged to Deadshot, a mercenary and member of DC’s Suicide Squad. In the Suicide Squad movie, Deadshot uses a very similar device to identify his targets and calculate distances, ricochet points, and more to ensure he always makes the perfect shot. With Deadshot officially killed in DC Comics, it seems likely that Grifter could have obtained his eyepiece on the black market. Considering the rate at which the Magistrate is hunting down masks, it makes sense that some of the vigilantes’ equipment would wind up being sold on the street, where Grifter could easily get his hands on it.
At the end of the day, this is no more than conjecture. It’s equally possible that Grifter’s eyepiece has no connection to Deadshot whatsoever, but it’s definitely fun to imagine, especially considering the visual similarities.
