This story completes the arc of The Heart of the Matter (ha see what they did there. Hilarious). This final piece essentially wraps up the storyline after we saw Terry’s family get transfigured into a metal alloy. It also sees Terry finally join the Justice League but on his terms prompting praise from Bruce over the terms. We also see hints at a future storyline involving Dana and references back to the Hush Storyline again suggesting more trouble down the line.
I have been a fan of Terry since the TV series and when they announced they would set up an ongoing series making him cannon, that was even better news. And I don’t think this has disappointed getting it off to a solid start. There is more detail about Terry’s relationship with Dana and also with his family that make Terry a more three dimensional character and completely different to Bruce. This to me makes him more realistic though his dealings with the Justice League are classic Bruce.
The writing is very good for Terry, Bruce and Dana and avoids the pitfalls of writing teenagers as stereotypes. And as with any final episode it puts all the action at the end and it feels natural and flows well. As there can be a tendency in some comics for fight scenes to feel disjointed and rushed. Yet this seemed to pace it consistently and in way that made it seem fast and frantic without losing all sense of time and space.
The art is fantastic with the outlines not too thick and the definitions and detail is well considered and in good proportion but there is not a mass of detail either which could lead it to feel swamped. The characters to me seemed well proportioned and there is no Jim Lee over-the-top stylings. It also shows off the action really well and made the fight seem dynamic and fast paced, as I have said before, without losing all sense of direction and space.
There are a few problems with it. The main one is the coloring which while is great in some places can be really odd in others there is one scene where rather than look like shadow it makes Warhawk look like his secret identity is the editor from the newspaper Spiderman works for.
Also I have a problem with the way that the Justice League acts. It is almost as if Frank Miller has created them. Warhawk and Barda are just always looking for a fight and Aquagirl seems to be just way to meek. She apologizes if her attack hurts Matter Master and that for me is not what a superhero does. Green Lantern is just way too indecisive and he doesn’t even attack spending ages on creating some thing. It looks like an oil rig so I’m guessing he was going to mine him or something like that. But that again is stupid as to me Green Lantern doesn’t worry about how it looks rather does it do what I want it to do.
I think this is a strong start to the series and really it can only go on up.
Batman Beyond #3:
