Batman’s Squad in Fortnite is No Longer Safe

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point #4!

While Batman may have finally broken out of Fortnite’s mind-bending time loop, his troubles are far from over. After linking up with a new squad of characters who have escaped from the loop, including Catwoman, the Dark Knight quickly realizes that he is safety is in even greater danger than before.

Batman and Catwoman have been trapped in Fortnite’s time loop and fighting with other contestants to be the last survivor and escape the loop. While there certainly has been a lot of danger involved given the nature of battle royale games, Batman and Catwoman quickly piece together that while they can “die” in a round, they will return in the next, albeit with their memories wiped. These twenty-two-minute setbacks are problematic, but given that there is no threat of permanent death, Batman and Catwoman spend time trying several rash escape attempts, including driving straight into the storm. All these times they die, it is in the cartoony, restrained fashion the Fortnite video game uses to present player character deaths, with bright lights, flashing colors, and disappearing bodies. The death of player Fishstick, however, is afforded no such niceties. Scarred by battle, and wheezing for breath, Fishstick looks more like a casualty from a more mature, gory game. Lastly, Fishstick’s body remains after he takes his final breath, something that would not happen in a regular game of Fortnite, or in instances of death in the comic.

In Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point #4 by writer Christos Gage and artist Reilly Brown, Batman has finally managed to escape from Fortnite’s time loop, and after meeting up with Catwoman and Deathstroke, he has regained the ability to speak and his memories from previous loops. Being able to communicate with a rag-tag band of winners, Batman and his squad set to methodically searching the island to find an escape point. Before long, Batman’s analyzer opens Fornite’s mysterious hatches, and grants the rest of the squad entry into a secret zone seemingly beneath the island. Once inside, they encounter strange technologies, magical seeming runes, and deadly security systems. Batman begins backtracking, and stumbles into fellow escapee Fishstick, who is mortally wounded and has some chilling news for the Caped Crusader: one of their fellow party members is an impostor and working at the behest of the games’ mysterious controllers.

By far the most dangerous aspect of having escaped the loop is the fact that one of the escapees is a traitor. Batman and Catwoman have established some rapport with Deathstroke’s motley crew, and at first it appears that all members can be trusted, given they have escaped and presumably are finding ways to stand up to the game’s controllers. Previously, anything humanoid Batman and Catwoman see has been safely assumed to be an enemy to be dealt with or avoided. As that is no longer the case, as the pair find themselves in a much more precarious position because anyone is a suspect. Aside from the single connection that all of them seemingly have escaped the game’s main loop, none of these people in the group really have any reason to trust each other, other than Batman and Catwoman. The fallout of Fishstick’s death could be catastrophic to the group’s cohesion.

Batman and Catwoman may have broken Fortnite’s loop, but the pair is hardly safe from the myriad of dangers that wait on the island. Between permanent, real death, and the danger of a traitor in the midst of the pair’s crew, it seems that they have managed to get out of the frying pan and into the fire.