Batman Beyond #13 Review and *SPOILERS*

Then and Now...... Together Forever and Never to Part

Written by: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo, Dave Sharpe
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: June 1, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

With Rebirth out and about kicking ass and taking names, it's really hard to jump back into this book..... and really any book that isn't rocking the Rebirth moniker right now.  It doesn't make it any better either that this title has just been struggling to go anywhere since Brother Eye was defeated, but maybe in the final issues of this title before Rebirth finally makes it's way over to Neo Gotham, we'll get a nugget of awesome out of this series yet....... Yeah, I won't hold my breath or anything like that, but it doesn't hurt to hope.  In the previous issue of Batman Beyond we saw Tim Drake taking on Rewire and like every other fight Tim's been a part of in this series.......... he got his ass kicked. The only difference this time around is it didn't seem to be his fault.  That's right boys and girls, right in the middle of the fight with Rewire, Tim's Batman Beyond suit just stopped working and we left our hero with him getting tossed into the drink and being left for dead.  Let's jump into this issue and see what all the hubbub was about and how our hero plans on taking Rewire down.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with a little recap to catch anyone up who might jump onto this book out of the blue, but it might not be the recap new readers want because for one thing...... it has references to Futures End, which is always a no-no in my book, but this recap is also going on while Tim very easily decides that death would be easier than what he's been dealing with lately.  Our boy Batman is on the verge of drowning because his Bat-Suit decided that it didn't like the wearer out of nowhere and it's only because Barbara back at the Bat-Cave sent an electrical surge through the suit letting our hero know that his time isn't over yet that our boy Tim survived his little swim.  Once we get Tim back to the Bat-Cave we start our duel story about Tim going after Rewire and when Terry first went looking for the missing Tim a few months after he first became Batman.  

This is where the story gets a little odd for me........ not in how it's written per say, but in how it's presented here.  We've got two stories going on at once with Tim Drake going after Rewire in an abandoned funeral home and Terry McGinnis making sure that the Joker is actually dead in the same funeral home and since both our heroes are rocking the Batman Beyond suit in this, it confused me at times about which story I was actually looking at.  It doesn't really hurt anything in the long run of the book, but I constantly found myself going back to make sure I was understanding what I was reading.  So yeah, after getting a few leads about Tim, which lead him to the Joker's final resting place, Terry is ambushed by a group of Jokerz, which makes him question his deducing powers in the future....... kind of like on the job experience.  As for finding Tim though....... well, as we all know from reading this series, no one found Tim and him just disappearing is still a mystery...... Now remember that the Tim from this timeline would be different than the one running around in the Batman suit....... time travel, it's crazy man.  

In the end, Tim catches back up with Rewire and yet again he gets his ass kicked, but like last time it was totally unexpected because Rewire somehow sent a telepathic command to overload the suit, like in the previous issue he apparently sent out a command to shut it down.  While Tim and Barbara try to figure how this could be, we end this issue with Rewire telling his mysterious partner that the Rewire suit is keeping him alive as long as he can keep getting the special batteries it needs........ kind of like Tony Stark with his arc reactor.  The entire reason to read this issue though...... like most of the issues in this series is for the cliffhanger, where we see that Rewire is actually Terry McGinnis and his mysterious partner, who I guess is pulling Terry's strings is Spellbinder.  

That's it for this issue of Batman Beyond and like the rest of these issues after Brother Eye's defeat, it seems that I'm only reading these books for the cliffhangers because that's the only time we get something that isn't just fluff.  I mean, we really didn't do anything here except for see a failed attempt from Terry to find Tim and Tim getting his ass kicked the same way he did in the previous issue...... which just leads us to finding out that Terry is alive and well and rocking the Rewire suit, with what seems like no memories of his previous life.  That's it though.  Maybe you'll be happy by simply seeing Terry doing some Batman work in the flashback stuff...... which I'll admit did get me happy as hell in the previous issue, but I need more than that now and this issue really didn't provide much more at all.  Luckily though, we do get an issue full of amazing art and colors.  For many who began having an issue with Chang and Maiolo's red and yellow panels that seemed to be coming more and more often as the series progressed..... well, it's done at an absolute minimum here and the book really shines because of it.  That's about all we got going on here though, cliffhanger and art.

Bits and Pieces:

Batman Beyond continues to struggle........ especially now that Rebirth has started and because this title doesn't have a lot going on for it more than the art and the cliffhangers that impress every time.  That's about it though and that's no reason to read a book because we've got the majority of this issue just doing nothing but looking good....... and I've tried that, looking good just isn't enough....... you've got to work it too.  

5/10