The last Batman wanna-be I’ll be doing for the year is the
future boy himself: Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond. I talked about the show
a couple of years ago. It was a good one. His story feels a little similar to
Bruce’s. Terry got pulled into a retired Bruce Wayne’s life when his father was
brutally murdered. Terry accidentally stumbles upon the Batcave and steals the
last experimental suit Bruce made. After Terry uses the suit to get justice for
his father, Bruce thinks that Terry could be a suitable replacement. After Terry accepts Bruce’s job, he officially becomes Batman.
He is far from that of Bruce’s Batman. He’s much younger,
sarcastic, has a past as a troublemaker, and has a family. He’s essentially another Robin but he’s doing
all of the heavy lifting since Bruce is in his twilight years. They even share
a connection which is something I won’t talk about here (hint: "Epilogue" from
Justice League Unlimited). Unlike Jean-Paul, Dick, and even Comm. Gordon, Terry actually gets to interact and get help from Bruce on things. Heck, he’s only
a high school kid, so he’s going to need a lot of help. The suit he and Bruce
(Bruce wore it before he retired) wear on the show is pretty cool and has all sorts of tricks
and gadgets.
DC Comics have done a few series on the character and this
futuristic world. Today’s issue comes from the second volume that was coming
out at the same time the show was on. Batman Beyond #10 was written by the late
Hilary J. Bader. Not only did she write for the show, she also wrote for
other shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Superman: The Animated Series,
and The New Batman Adventures. The
pencils were provided by Craig Rousseau and the inks were done by Rob Leigh.
Batman Beyond: #10
Writer: Hilary J. Bader
Pencils: Craig Rousseau
Inks: Rob Leigh
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Letters: Tim Harkins
Assistant Editor: Frank Berrios
Action Figure (Eh?): Joseph Illidge
“Toy Wonder”
Our issue starts with Terry and his family having Sam
Bifford and his young son, Morgan, over at the house. Morgan is… autistic? The issue
never says what his condition is. Anyway, he can’t talk nor do much physically,
so Sam has built Morgan a robot that he can control with a headgear set. Morgan
uses the robot to play with Terry’s brother, Matt. We find out that Sam is an ex-con
who wants to do well for his son since he’s a single father. The two then head
home after their time with the McGinnises. Before Sam can get in the house, the
police come to arrest him because the parts he found for the robot were
apparently stolen. A scuffle happens and the robot is damaged which causes
Morgan a little pain. What the cops and Sam don’t know is that the robot starts
moving for itself.
It's 2039 and the justice system still sucks? Figures.
Later, Terry gets Bruce Wayne to bail Sam out of jail. He
claims the stuff he found was junk and nothing else. Terry looks into Sam’s
story to see if everything checks out by going to the place where he found the parts.
It turns out that some of the parts Sam found were actually supposed to be
destroyed instead of thrown into the junkyard. Suddenly, Batman gets attacked
by the robot. It’s gotten bigger by adding different parts to it and Batman has
a tough time taking it down. It gets worse when it finds a crystal and uses it
to get stronger. It then knocks out Batman with a blast.
When Batman wakes up, he realizes that the illegal parts
were actually a part of the Golem from the episode, “Golem.” He thinks Willie Watt (the
teenager who used the machine to go on a rampage) is behind its control. Terry gets
out of costume and heads to the juvenile hall where Willie is now located. It
turns out that Willie isn’t behind its control because of a headset that stops
his powers of controlling stuff.
We then switch scenes to the foster home where Morgan is
being held. Sam tries to see him, but the cops won’t let him get near him. The Golem
then shows up and starts to attack. Luckily, Terry is there in costume and
takes on the machine. He realizes that Morgan is the one controlling the Golem
because he can’t be with his father, so he takes the kid to Sam and the Golem
calms down. Morgan even uses it to say “papa” to Sam. The cops destroy the
Golem and Morgan is still unable to speak. The issue ends as it begins with Sam
and Morgan at the McGinnis household. Sam has made Morgan a new robot and it looks like Morgan could one day be able to really connect with
Sam.
……………………………………………………………
I thought this was an okay issue. It wasn’t that good but it
was far from horrible. I did like the father/son scenes between Sam and Morgan.
I really felt for them in this situation. I also liked that this tied back to
villains and concepts that were introduced on the show. I liked most of the
dialogue between Bruce and Terry. The artwork emulated the look and feel of the
show well. It wasn’t spectacular, but it did get the job done.
I did have a couple of problems with the issue. I thought
the ending was really rushed especially after that first battle. The end battle
and epilogue definitely felt rushed. I also wondered why we never found out
what condition Morgan had. I thought it might have been autism but I may be
wrong. That’s more of a nitpick since it doesn’t matter, but it would have been
good to get some explanation on that. Lastly, there was some dialogue I wasn’t
digging.
Overall, this was okay. I may not have liked it much
since this series seems if it was geared towards the younger fans of the show. Still,
I did like a lot about it. After Batman Beyond went off the air, this comic
series also ended. The character did still come back in comic book form. DC has released
series and some of them were even made for digital markets. DC added the
character into the regular DC universe through the series called Future’s End. A
new Batman Beyond series was released a few months ago that spun out of that
series, but Terry isn’t the Batman in that suit. After I heard that, I was
uninterested in it. I might check out some of the earlier series of the
character. Well, I have one post left. Peace, God Bless, and watch out for
giant robots.
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