Future State/The Fearful

The Fearful is a storyline featured in Batman: Urban Legends that's a direct follow-up to Future State: Outsiders and The Caretaker. The story follows The Outsiders receiving a message from Future Duke Thomas to stop the villain known as The Fearful. It is written by Brandon Thomas and illustrated by Cian Tormey, and is featured in Batman: Urban Legends #8 and #9.

Plot
Issue #8

In the year 2055, The Signal rides atop his black panther steed and companion, Teekl, away from a massive army of zombies led by a cloaked villain known as "The Fearful". In this future, Scarecrow’s Fear State has become permanent and Gotham has fallen into ruin. Black Lightning (whose avatar soul is still contained within the Soultaker II) uses his power to suppress the horde as they ride through the city ruins towards Arkham Asylum; in which, a colossal beam of light can be seen emitting from the top of the building. The team enters the tower and approaches the light-beam, which is filled with the lost souls of the zombified citizens of Gotham. Duke hands Teekl the Soultaker II, he and Black Lightning's soul will fend off the waves of oncoming zombies while Duke uses his demon arm to perform a spell that will open a cartographic time portal. Duke narrowly finishes the spell when Teekl is overtaken by The Fearful and his ghouls. Black Lightning's soul returns to the sword and flies into Duke's hand and Duke throws the sword into the time portal. He is overtaken by The Fearful as the time portal closes.

Time recedes as Black Lightning’s spirit travels through time. A portal opens inside a storm over Gotham harbor and the electrified Soultaker II falls from the sky onto the streets of Gotham. Black Lightning's soul emerges from the sword, picks it up, and asks the nearby onlookers what's the latest local catastrophe. They tell him it was The Joker War, which happened not long ago, and Black Lightning realizes he didn't go back far enough. He tells the locals to be safe and begins his search for the Outsiders.

At the center of the Earth, the present-day Outsiders are assisting Frankenstein in an underground fight ring to decide dominance of the surface world against subterranean monsters with thousands of spectators. Frankenstein & The Outsiders prove victorious and the subterraneans return to their caves until their next contest for supremacy. Black Lightning of Future State arrives just as the Outsiders are preparing to leave and he asks for their help. He explains his apocalyptic future and that Duke sent him back in time to stop a man named Jonah Winfield from becoming The Fearful, but he's arrived late. He elaborates that Jonah was once a student of Professor Jonathan Crane at Gotham University, and was exposed to his fear toxin in an experiment conducted on the students. Overtime, Jonah's antibodies produced a unique immunity to the fear toxin which developed into constantly excreting the toxin from his skin upon stress, which becomes aerosolized and airborne. While Future Black Lightning is full of rage and wants to kill Jonah, The Outsiders agree to help find and stop Jonah before he can do any damage.

The team finds Jonah nearby in Gotham who, panicked and afraid, tells the Outsiders to stay away from him. The Outsiders, realizing the danger, keep their distance. Duke takes off his helmet and slowly approaches Jonah, willing himself against the fear toxin, and reassures Jonah that they only want to help. Future Black Lightning's feelings get the best of him, scared of Duke potentially getting hurt, and he makes a move for Jonah. Current day Black Lightning reaches out to tell him to stand down but, once he and his future soul make the slightest contact, they accidentally trigger an electrical pulse wave that severely electrocutes Jonah and causes him to secrete a massive amount of Fear Toxin. All of the Outsiders inhale the toxin and begin turning against one another. Jonah tries to run away during the commotion but he is immediately subdued by Red Robin.

Issue #9

to be update...

Characters
Duke Thomas