.jpg "Batman Beyond #1 (of 6)")
And so after the Superman/Batman Annual, and a cameo in Batman # 700, it appears Terry McGinnis is ready for his close up, Mr. DeMil…errr Beechen! And so the 6 issue Batman Beyond mini-series, written by Adam Beechen and drawn by Ryan Benjamin and inked by John Stanisci begins here in a story called “Hush Beyond: Part 1, History Repeats.”
We begin with Neo-Gotham’s Cadmus Labs and Amanda Waller and an assistant are discussing a rampage that has happened. A subject they had been testing has escaped the facility and is on the loose.
Cutting then to Terry McGinnis whom is in a fight with Spellbinder, a villain from the cartoon series, and with Bruce Wayne as the voice from the cave; Batman easily dispatches Spellbinder and as he is catching his breath before going on to a new incident meets up with Micron, the Batman Beyond version of Atom who tries to recruit Batman for the Justice League, Batman again declines as he did at the end of the episode The Call.
Next we see a rather Rorschach-ian, or maybe we should just call him Hush since that’s what they are going for anyway, figure killing some old guy named Philip Cobb as a message to the new Batman.
McGinnis then returns to the cave to discuss the offer to join the Justice League with Wayne, who agrees that not joining was the right move. When word comes in about the Cobb murder and Wayne tells Terry that Cobb was an old member of his rouges (and real old in real time as the guy is primarily a Silver Age character and never was mentioned in the DCAU at all) called The Signalman, who apparently had stayed straight for a while after being caught, and Bruce sends Terry back out to investigate the scene.
In doing so, the way the murder went down causes Bruce to suspect Harvey Dent (who was never seen in Batman Beyond) has resurfaced, despite being as old as Bruce. Batman then gets word of an incident at St. James Hospital and heads over, partially because former Arkham inmates (Arkham was shut down and moved to a more secure facility shortly after The New Adventures of Batman & Robin, according to dialogue in the Return of The Joker movie) reside there, specifically Bruce’s old foe The Mad Hatter.
We do see a glimpse of Mad Hatter, but apparently Signalman’s murderer hadn’t gotten to him yet because Terry finds a nurse scared out of her mind with the killer hovering over her. The killer runs as Batman heads over and the nurse, badly cut up, tells Batman that the killer was looking for Mad Hatter and told her to “hush” and a Hush like bandage is left at the scene and we end it there.
Alright, so this is an interesting start to things. Kind of find the whole Hush angle interesting as Hush was created 2002 and has never appeared in the television medium yet. It must be said though that things are now starting to get a bit jumbled with all these attempts to make Terry McGinnis “fit” into the DCU proper. First we had the Annual in which Paul Levitz just squished current DC continuity and DCAU continuity. Then there is Batman # 700 happened where Damian Wayne was in Bruce’s role on the show guiding McGinnis, as well as Commissioner Barbra Gordon, but still affected by the events of The Killing Joke when in the DCAU Barbra is never crippled and walks quite well in Batman Beyond. And now we have this mini-series, and from the looks of it, it might be only taking place in the DCAU as there really isn’t any evidence to say otherwise, yet.
It’s an enjoyable ride, but still trying to kick the tires about whether or not this is going to be of much substance, or yet another attempt by a company to placate a segment of the audience and not really doing much afterward. Just seems pretty average so far.
Batman Beyond #1:
Reviewed by SteveJRogers
