Batman Beyond #5 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: October 7, 2015

The Best Defense Is A Good Offense

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Let's travel back to Thirty-Five Years from now to get back to some Batman Beyond action.  As we saw from the previous issue, Brother Eye has found the location of Neo Gotham and after our hero depletes the battery of the Batman Beyond suit from fighting his little heart out in taking down Brother Eye's borg-ed out goons, his and the city's only chance is to recover a weapon from the past and with the help of Barbara Gordon, they get that chance they need.  Yes, it's Jim Gordon's Batman suit and while I don't agree with what the previous issue said about it being the prototype to the Batman Beyond suit..........because I personally believe that Batwing's suit has that title, seeing that suit for the cliffhanger was certainly a way for the creators to smack the readers in the face and tell them to start paying attention because shit is getting real.  Let's jump into this issue and see just how real it gets.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Brother Eye calling in the big guns.  That's right, we've got borg-ed out Justice Leaguers coming to Neo Gotham and just straight up murdering everyone.  After getting the Jim Gordon Bat suit charged up and calibrated to Tim's body type, it's time to get Batman back in action...... Before the action though, there was a point when Tim first got in the suit and Barbara told him that he should be rocking his own Bat symbol that I began wondering what she was talking about.  Was there a symbol that Tim rocked that we didn't see due to the Five Year jump in Futures End that we might see here?.... Well, it turns out that I'm a big idiot and all Barbara was talking about was camouflaging the Jim Gordon Bat suit in the colors and symbol of the Batman Beyond suit....... Oh well, it was still cool, but man did my imagination go wild at the possibilities for a whole five seconds.

Okay, Batman Beyond action!  Tim goes out and makes his presence known by totally killing John Stewart, who had a strange ass Brother Eye Green Lantern Ring and I'm not exactly sure how that would work, but it's the future and technology is all advanced and whatnot, so I'll just go with it.  Even though Tim made short work of John Stewart, he doesn't have as much confidence in himself when both the borg-ed out Superman and Wonder Woman show up so Brother Eye can finally have his vengeance against Tim....... yeah, vengeance.  It turns out that Brother Eye has been holding a grudge against Tim for thirty years because Tim changed the future and somehow Brother Eye knows that the original future was so much more sweeter for him.  As we've seen from this series, Brother Eye is chilling on the moon and has created a body for himself and we find out here that he did this so he could walk through Neo Gotham with Tim's dead body dragging behind him...... that's some seriously dark emotions for a machine to be having.  HAL doesn't have shit on Brother Eye.

In the end, we see that like the original Batman, Tim is prepared for all threats and while Micron takes care of the borg-ed out Wonder Woman, Tim pulls out Bruce's Superman contingency plan, the Kryptonite ring and forces it down Superman's throat.  

Micron finishes the job by crushing Superman's face into the ground and our issue ends with Tim and Barbara meeting up again to get one last weapon before they take the fight to Brother Eye............ the only thing is, they don't actually show the weapon and I'm left cursing that I have to wait anther month to find out, while my brain runs wild about what it could be.  All the clues that we have are that it has something to do with the Court of the Owls and I'm torn between it being the remaining frozen Talons or Mr. Freeze's freeze gun..... It's probably going to be way cooler than that, but that's all I got right now.

That's it for this issue of Batman Beyond and where I originally dismissed this title because of nothing really going on, Dan Jurgens has totally changed my mind by merging not only the Futures End story to the Batman Beyond Universe, but also keeping things relevant to what's going on in the DCU now.  While the majority of this issue is simply Tim Drake getting all Jim Gordon Batman suited up and showing fools that he's not to be fucked with, we also get a decent explanation about why Brother Eye is so obsessed with Tim and why it has created a body for itself, without it feeling forced or too over the top and if that wasn't enough, we also got a kick ass cliffhanger that will keep us guessing until the next issue.  Pretty much, it's exactly what I want from this series.......fun.  The art was also fun, especially with the addition of John Stewart in this book as a nod to Bernard Chang and Marcelo Maiolo's previous book Green Lantern Corps, but I can't help thinking that Marcelo isn't getting the chance to really let loose on his colors on this title do to the darkness of the book.  I'm not suggesting that Batman Beyond should be a bright sun shiny rainbow filled day, but I love Marcelo's colors and I would just love to see him being able to do his thing unrestricted........ or maybe he's not restricted and this is just me making up reasons to want more....... I'm needy like that.

Bits and Pieces:

Batman Beyond continues the fun of last issue, which is really appreciated because I was on the fence with this series in the beginning.  Now though, I can totally see this becoming one of my favorite series if it continues the nods of what's going on in the DCU now, while evolving the Batman Beyond mythos to whatever they may become in this changed timeline.  This issue is seriously fun and the art compliments it perfectly.  

8.5/10