Duke Thomas: The Signal Appreciation 2020

[lemonpeace]

while I'm fully expecting to be wrong, i think Duke being Signal as a public identity could be another clue that he's the far future Future State Batman, who's been shown with a more exposed mask a couple times; Public identity Batman perhaps?

[lemonpeace]

(alleged) SPOILER IMAGE OF DUKE AS THE FINAL KNIGHT IN TALES FROM THE DARK MULTIVERSE: METAL

[Restingvoice]

Is that... a battle axe electric guitar

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

while I'm fully expecting to be wrong, i think Duke being Signal as a public identity could be another clue that he's the far future Future State Batman, who's been shown with a more exposed mask a couple times; Public identity Batman perhaps?

He could always take over as Batman.

[Korath]

(alleged) SPOILER IMAGE OF DUKE AS THE FINAL KNIGHT IN TALES FROM THE DARK MULTIVERSE: METAL

From where is it ? I seem to have missed an issue or two, I think !

[lemonpeace]

Is that... a battle axe electric guitar

hmm, it would appear so.

From where is it ? I seem to have missed an issue or two, I think !

don't worry you didn't miss anything. it's apparently from the upcoming Tales from the Dark Multiverse, this issue is a based on Metal and stars Duke as The Last Monitor assembling a Final Justice League to save a post-apocalyptic DC universe. I came across this image on Twitter and they called him The Final Knight, so I'm guessing (obviously, since it's Tales) the Final League plan fails and Duke goes from The Last Monitor to The Final Knight by the end. mind you, we don't know if it's really from the issue or not, so that's just my speculation, assuming it's real. however, the weird thing is, once I pointed out the issue isn't out until next week, the guy deleted the tweet (luckily I saved the image as soon as I'd seen it); leading me to lean toward it being real and he musta gotten a hold of an advance copy. We know the advance copies have been sent out because i remember seeing the artist for the book posted about receiving his. it very well could be a fake tho.

[lemonpeace]

hype for Duke Thomas on Future State: Outsiders from Brandon Thomas. given his enthusiasm, maybe Duke will show up in his Urban Legends story.

[DragonPiece]

hype for Duke Thomas on Future State: Outsiders from Brandon Thomas. given his enthusiasm, maybe Duke will show up in his Urban Legends story.

that's exciting, thanks for posting that. It's nice to hear we'll get more spotlight on Duke!

[lemonpeace]

for my We are Robin readers, does anyone remember a character named Darcy? according to bleedingcool's gossip, there is a character from We are Robin named Darcy who's working for the Magistrate but I don't remember who that is. I hope there will be others from We are Robin popping up, I miss Izzy, Riko, Dre, and Dax

[lemonpeace]

previews from Tales from the Dark Multiverse: METAL and we get our clearest look yet at Duke as The Last Monitor.

also, I dig the yellow and purple color scheme. I wouldn't hate it if they incorporated purple into his next look (I have chosen to believe his Signal suit will be redone one day).

[J. D. Guy]

for my We are Robin readers, does anyone remember a character named Darcy? according to bleedingcool's gossip, there is a character from We are Robin named Darcy who's working for the Magistrate but I don't remember who that is. I hope there will be others from We are Robin popping up, I miss Izzy, Riko, Dre, and Dax

Don't recall any Darcy at this point, but it might have been one of the Robins. There was one who kinda acted as a low-key "Oracle"-ish one.

[J. D. Guy]

previews from Tales from the Dark Multiverse: METAL and we get our clearest look yet at Duke as The Last Monitor.

also, I dig the yellow and purple color scheme. I wouldn't hate it if they incorporated purple into his next look (I have chosen to believe his Signal suit will be redone one day).

I wonder if Duke's armor's visual similarities to Gnomon's armor is intentional?

[lemonpeace]

I wonder if Duke's armor's visual similarities to Gnomon's armor is intentional?

the color scheme is also reminiscent of The Constant



I sure hope it's all intentional. they made it sound like they wanted to lean heavy into Duke's mythology and make an iconic Duke story.

[J. D. Guy]

the color scheme is also reminiscent of The Constant



I sure hope it's all intentional. they made it sound like they wanted to lean heavy into Duke's mythology and make an iconic Duke story.

Indeed, and that would just golden!

[lemonpeace]

last little bit of Duke hype before his story on Tuesday

Excerpt from Newarama Interview with Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing on Tales from the Dark Multiverse

Nrama: What was your favorite part about working within the Metal mythos? Any particular plot points you enjoyed from Scott and Greg’s run?
Lanzing: I’ll start by talking about Duke, and then I’ll give literally everything else to Collin. Duke to me was the key to this story, coming from the original Batman run, which I’m just an enormous fan of. Obviously, we worked in the margins of it in Batman & Robin Eternal.
We revisited Metal before we started pitching at each other, talking about what this book might look like. There’s a prelude issue - one of the early Metal lead-in books [Dark Days: The Casting] where Duke Thomas and Hal Jordan are in the Batcave, and they discover that Bruce has been keeping secrets there. Among other things, they discover the sort of Batman machine that Bruce had.

It all gets deep into Scott’s mythos, but the real discovery of that issue is that Duke realizes that he has meta powers that Batman has been aware of and is sensibly the reason that Batman has been raising him differently than Robin. That he’d been prepping him to become the Signal, which he has this power. The power is sort of an interesting and seemingly kind of passive power, which is that Duke can see things as they were. He can see into the past and see these light constructs that show if a machine used to be somewhere and then it had been disassembled, he could see what the machine looked like. So, if a person changed, the city changed, or if a world change - if a city became a horrible monument to Barbatos or Nightwing became a desert wanderer with very little hope left. He would still see the city of Gotham or Dick Grayson. That is a really wonderful power to have in a world where the heroes have lost.
We immediately glommed onto this idea of if we’re going to use Duke Thomas at the center of this thing then it really needs to be about what it means to remember the world as it was, and try desperately to get it back there even when you know you can’t. That just felt like such a great bit of the mythos that hadn’t been fully explored and had never really gotten its time in the sun.
That became the first thing that we glommed onto - this is really going to be something we can talk about. This is a place that we can set a flag and make Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Metal and actual iconic Duke Thomas story. If you were a Duke fan, you’re going to get something new out of this book that you’ve never seen before. Several times over actually