Batman Beyond #9 Review and *SPOILERS*

When Animals Attack!

Written By: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: February 3, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's the future!  Too bad it's one of those dystopian ones that make for great stories, but are terrible to live in........ It's a good thing we're not Tim Drake, huh?  Anyway, Batman has a lot to do now that Brother Eye is pushing up daisies because with that villain's fall came a new problem........ the surviving people are hungry and want Neo Gotham's food!  Yeah, refugees are storming the gates of Neo Gotham, wanting what everyone else has and to add to the drama, young Matt McGinnis has taken the severed arm of the borged-out John Stewart and made his way to Metropolis....... He hasn't been out there too long though because he hasn't started talking to it like Tom Hanks did with Wilson in Cast Away, but who knows, there's always a chance.  I guess it's up to Batman to track down Matt before he gets into trouble, but from what we saw during last issue's cliffhanger, he might just have some animal men on his trail............ animal men that aren't the ones from Kamandi, even though I bitched, moaned and complained about it last issue....... So yeah, that was all for nothing, let's check this issue out and find out what they are........ they're Splicers........ Spoilers.......  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Batman saying fuck all that serious shit with the refugees because he's off to track down Matt McGinnis because that's where the action is......... plus, I'm sure he still feels bad about taking the Batman Beyond suit off Matt's brother's dead body.  So yeah, Barbara Gordon and Luke Fox have to make the tough decisions back in Gotham, with people almost on the verge of a riot because they think they're entitled to whatever Neo Gotham has......... it's funny, I don't really care about all of this refugee stuff, but I think the reason I feel like that is...... it's pretty freaking awkward and tragic to see these characters we know and love turn their backs on these people in need and I don't deal well with those emotions....... or emotions in general.  Hell, I found myself sad and mad at these people in need because of how desperate they actually are......... and even though I'm not that interested in that part of this story........... that's some damn fine writing right there.'

So off in Metropolis, Batman finds himself a shanty town and a shit ton of billboards talking about some Doctor and for whatever reason he believes that Matt has gone to see this Doctor.  I don't exactly get the line of thought there because it seems kind of obvious to me that Matt had a mission in mind when he set off to Metropolis, but to get more info about this Doctor, Tim goes incognito and starts asking this Barter Town about what it knows concerning this person advertised all over the city.  It seems that this Doctor is someone to be feared though with the reaction that the people have when his moniker is dropped and we get a little exposition about how the Doctor has anything that you need for a price and apparently the price is high because whomever goes in for this deal never returns.  While Tim is getting the lowdown on our villain here and finds out that he's hanging out at the old Justice League Watchtower stationed in Metropolis, it seems that Matt is a head of the game and finds the futuristic Hall of Justice himself......... it's just too bad that some animal men find him first..........which turn out to be Splicers.  I don't know if all of you watched the Batman Beyond cartoon, but Splicers were people who mingled their genes with animal ones........ becoming animal men, but even with that these characters just come off as walking talking humanoid animals and don't really feel like the Splicers of old.  

In the end, Batman shows up and fights some Splicers, which is pretty cool, but at the same time a little disappointing because Batman gets his ass beat pretty bad and he's turned over to their master...... the Doctor, who we find out is Dr. Cuvier and if you remember the animated series, you'll remember that he was the mad doctor behind the whole Splicer thing, so all of this makes a lot of sense.......... It's like a Metropolis of Dr. Moreau situation going on.  It's not all bad news though because while Batman was fighting the Splicers, John Stewart's ring flew out of Matt's pocket and he followed the ring into the Watchtower and found a bunch of tubes containing the preserved bodies of the Justice League Beyond.......... which I don't totally get because we saw War Hawk and Barda die and become borg-ed out monsters.  If they're clones I just hope that we get a decent explanation from it because besides for Lex Luthor's Bizarro........ I hate clones....... must be from my time reading Spider-Man in the 90's.

That's it for this issue of Batman Beyond and while it appears again that not much goes on in this issue.......again,  I found myself enjoying it like the last issue nonetheless.  The art is fantastic as always and issue after issue I find myself happy as hell that Bernard Chang and Marcelo Maiolo are a team because they do some wonderful work together.  The biggest problem I have with this series so far is that just like everybody who's working for the weekend, I seem to be just reading this series for the cliffhanger because month after month they're spectacular and really get me hyped leading into the next issue, but the payoff never seems to be worth the buildup........ Just like my weekends actually.  There just doesn't seem to be that much substance going on in this series, it's just Batman going place to place, finding out something about this future and if we're lucky, him punching something, but even with that...... he usually gets his ass beat.  Even with that though, I find myself having fun every time pick this series up because even though it's a world that we've seen before, it's all new and anything can happen and it's that aspect that keeps me interested............ plus there's Batman.

Bits and Pieces:

Our story moves from Neo Gotham to Metropolis in this one and our City of Tomorrow has seen better days.  This series is strange in the fact that not a lot goes down issue to issue, but even with that it's still a decently fun read with an excellent art team that is always working their asses off to give us one hell of a good looking book.  The biggest draw to this issue...... like most of the issues to this series is actually the cliffhanger, that like every other issue keeps me interested to see what's going to happen next.

6.5/10