Batman Beyond #1

In the wake of Convergence, DC is beginning to restart their “new” universe- and now we are seeing a new version of Batman Beyond. I have watched the Batman Beyond TV series, and read some of the past Beyond comics (like the Hush story arc they did) along with the New 52’s “Batman Beyond Universe”- which was me being 2 months behind all the digital-first readers of Batman Beyond 2.0 and Justice League Beyond 2.0, respectively. I really enjoyed that series, and was hoping to see more of a return to the Batman Beyond I remembered, with Terry in the suit and elderly, curmudgeonly Bruce as his innter-monologue (via futuristic audio technology- aka “Bluetooth”). The thing that really put me over the edge on debating over whether or not to read this book was the appearance of BOTH the Justice League Beyond Superman AND a crazy mohawked O.M.A.C. (or at least, what I imagine him to look like if he wasn’t blue and robotic).

So I jumped in- and right off the bat (pun intended) I was lost amidst all the differences of this title that I was blissfully unaware of up until literally that exact moment. It was strange to see **SPOILERS** Tim Drake as Batman Beyond, but it was a nice and welcome moment for there to be “Jokerz” aka futuristic Gotham City criminals who idolize and are inspired by the “current timeline” version of The Joker. The middle section of the issue with all the talking really ground the pace of things to a halt, and still didn’t really shine any bright lights on exactly what happened to turn Tim into Batman Beyond in the first place. Then things jump into crazy-mega-overdrive, where Batman fights (extremely briefly, almost TOO briefly to be believable) and defeats this world’s **SPOILERS** Superman- who is actually Cyborg Superman, and looks like the villain from Will Smiths’ Wild, Wild West. Then Tim’s suit short circuits while in what we were JUST told is a toxic area, but Tim’s suit can repel the toxins- so why isn’t he writhing in agony like Arnold in the space exposure scene from Total Recall? It was a small moment, but it stuck out to be, because that was the only really clearly stated thing from the whole “conversation” scene that just felt like it went on for a little too long without giving anything else that I thought were actual answers to my questions.

The ending to this issue just raised more questions (more than I already had to begin with) and provided no answers (at least none that I could discern). It really throws into question whether or not this “version” of earth is our real Earth in the future, or if it is yet another wildly different and totally non-canonical future. While the latter seems to be more likely, I would hav enjoyed the reveal at the end being rooted to the character’s history as we know it in the main DC continuity- though this new DC is much less interested in anything continuity, and is all about good story telling. So maybe they should have focused more on telling the story of what happened to Terry, and how Tim became Batman, and why this version of Gotham City has to be hidden from Brother Eye, or whoever it is that the overarching bad guy for this story is.

This book was gorgeous to look at, and it had a lot of interesting parts, especially the questions raised with the revealing of different DC heroes and the teasing of things yet to come- but it just wasn’t what I was expecting from a first issue, especially one that already had an 8-page preview out to sort of root things to the story. It has an accessibility hurdle for new readers that are WAY higher than anything I was expecting for a series based (in name, anyway) on a children’s animated TV series. I was hoping for a bigger “blow your hair back” moment from this issue, and we never really got it. The moment at the end that attempted to be that moment just made me go “wait- what?” more than it could have made me go “oh, man! No way!”.

This was a decent first attempt, but if this series doesn’t pickup fast, then DC’s policy of junking titles after six issues (or less) will be a very likely fate for this title. It was good, but not great- and I was expecting a lot more great things from this series.