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Future State: Gotham #8 reveals that one of Batman’s most important and effective crime-fighting partners may be destined to become a criminal.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers from Future State: Gotham #8, on sale now from DC Comics.
During a meeting with his employers in Future State: Gotham #8 (by Dennis Culver, Nikola Cizmesija, and ALW’s Troy Peteri), Hush spoke with “the Terrible Trio,” a triumvirate of criminals from different organizations from Gotham’s past. They had gathered together to overthrow the Magistrate and reinstate what they refer to as “the good old days” when all they had to worry about was Batman. What’s of note though, is how they came together. The Trio hired the Operator, a longtime friend and ally of Oracle, to help connect them in a secure way. This is strange considering that the Operator has typically acted as a hero since she first took on a codename, leading to the question of why she has seemingly now betrayed the Bat-Family.
Operator, aka Francine “Frankie” Charles, debuted in Batgirl #35 (by Cameron Stewart, Brendan Fletcher, and Babs Tarr). She met Barbara Gordon while they were in physiotherapy together and the two later became roommates while Barbara lived in Burnside. Due to her close proximity to a key member of the Bat-Family, Frankie eventually became aware that Barbara was Batgirl. A gifted coder, Frankie decided to use her skills to help Batgirl from behind the scenes as a hacker, choosing the codename Operator, and becoming the new Oracle in all but name.
Since then, the Operator has had very little activity in the DC Universe, especially since Barbara reclaimed her position as Oracle. Yet, she has always been a hero. So it is strange that she would seemingly make a heel-faced turn to help several well-known criminals establish a secret network within Gotham, even if it was for the purposes of destroying the Magistrate. However, there may be a few clues as to why Operator seemingly betrayed her friends and allies.
First, it is important to remember the problems the city is facing. In this dystopian future Gotham is ruled by a private military that oppresses the citizens, trading the previous chaos of the city for absolute order. The Bat-Family is separated and distrustful, Batman is assumed to be dead, and the Magistrate is in complete control. It is conceivable that the Operator no longer believed her allies had the capacity to stop this malevolent force and aligned herself with people who she believed could get the job done, regardless of the moral cost.
While this may make it sound like a case of doing the wrong thing for the right reason, there is also another fact to consider. The Trio paid the Operator to establish their network. This means that she offered her services for a price as opposed to out of the goodness of her heart, implying that in the future she becomes more of a mercenary than she has been before, perhaps out of necessity.
It is also important to note that she seemed to have a stable paying relationship with the Trio until her identity was compromised. This all paints a somewhat negative picture of her, but it is important to note that not everything has been explored about her past as of yet. There may very well be an understandable reason as to why she chose to ally with criminals as opposed to her simply breaking bad.
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