Warning: This article contains spoilers for Future State: Harley Quinn #1 by Stephanie Nicole Phillips and Simone di Meo.
It’s a truth universally known that once one baddie is gone, another rises to take his place. And seemingly more often than not, that second guy is much worse. In Harley Quinn’s new solo comic, this is more true than ever.
Joker’s war left Batman powerless and the city of Gotham overrun with clowns in all of their violent variations. Out of chaos came a new anti-hero - the violent teenage vigilante Bao Pham, aka Clownhunter. His swift brand of justice came down hard, especially on the clown-themed criminals of Gotham. His clown killing, however, may have opened up a perfect opportunity for other criminals to step into the power vacuum left behind.
Future State: Harley Quinn #1 places the fan favorite character center stage in a story where the ripples of Joker’s war on Gotham are still being felt. Arrested by Gotham’s new magistrate, she agrees to help catch more of Gotham’s big bads in exchange for small personal freedoms. Using her background as a psychologist, she assists in devising traps that help the authorities draw the villains out and arrest them.
It’s Black Mask, however, that seems just out of reach of said authorities. In the absence of the Joker and his army of clowns, the crazed mob boss and brutal leader seems to have grown in power and influence over Gotham’s underworld. Harley Quinn #1 boldly reintroduces the character with a an act of wanton violence. Inside a corner store, a man in a mask is robbing the owner, but he's attacked when he makes his way outside. The thief wakes up to Black Mask looming over him. He warns him that, “the mask...is not a toy for your petty crimes” and tells him that they are not “clowns” before mercilessly shooting the thief.
Left to his own devices, Clownhunter appears to have eradicated the clowns of Gotham - the one kind of criminal that he had a specific vendetta against. The void that likely followed appears to have made room for something (or someone) different. Once a city teeming with wild, chaotic, petty thieves, Clownhunter’s tunnel-visioned extermination of the clowns has allowed a new criminal to grow from the ashes of Joker’s war. The new Gotham criminal, it seems, shuns petty crimes for something bigger. The appearance of Black Mask sprinkles the new crime wave with a touch of the cult vibes that is so specific to the classic Black Mask character.
Whether or not Clownhunter believed that his killing of clowns would make a better Gotham is debatable. The appearance of Black Mask in a greater place of power, however, shows that it certainly created a different, and possibly more dangerous, Gotham.