Review: Batman Beyond #28 - Mobile Edition

DC Comics
Review: Batman Beyond #28
By Philip Schweier
January 30, 2019 - 05:16

DC Comics
Writer(s): Dan Jurgens
Penciller(s): Brett Booth
Inker(s): Norm Rapmund
Colourist(s): Andrew Dalhouse
Letterer(s): Travis Lanham
Cover Artist(s): Pasqual Ferry, Dave McCaig; Chris Stevens, Sunny Cho

Once in a while, and entire issue of a comic book is devoted to an all-out battle royale between the good guy and the bad guy. For some, that’s enough. For others, $3.99 is too much to pay for a story sequence that lasts mere minutes. But I suppose it all depends on how well that battle is written. In this case, not so much.

Batman (Beyond) is battling Joker (Beyond), a cybernetic avatar of the original Joker, who has captured Robin (Beyond) and is preparing to give him a taste of Mr. Crowbar. Fortunately, Terry has Bruce AND Dick feeding him intel from the Bat-cave. Unfortunately, the Joker overhears Terry call Bruce by name.

First of all, in a world of secret identities, I find this security oversight more than a little careless. At a later point in the battle, Dick Grayson arrives in the Batmobile (Beyond) to rescue Terry, and Terry calls him by name.

Meanwhile, the Joker wonders who the mysterious “Bruce” is. And if he heard “Bruce” he probably heard “Grayson” so is the answer so terribly far out of reach of a homicidal genius? And that’s assuming that after all these years, the Joker hasn’t figured out the Bruce Wayne/Batman connection.

So, it appears Matt McGinnis will get that crowbar to the head like I hoped for last issue. Can’t say I’m proud of that bit of foresight, but if there’s one thing we know about comics, it’s that nobody stays dead forever.

Rating: 4/10