Cleaning House
Written By: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Doc Shaner, Jordie Bellaire, Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 27, 2019
It's time to go back to the future to see what thirty-five years from now holds for our heroes in the aftermath of the Joker's return and also his death. Can Batman continue being Neo Gotham's Dark Knight knowing that his kid-brother is constantly in danger as the new Robin or is it time for a change? Let's jump into this issue and see what's left of the new Bat Family. Let's check it out.
With the art change, you're immediately thrown off from what you've been getting, but it's not a hindrance in any way as you become immersed quickly into the epilogue story of the Final Joke, where what happens in this issue seems way more important and way more cohesive than anything we got from the previous arc.
Not only do you get real ramifications to not only the Bat Family, but to the villains of Neo Gotham as well. If that wasn't enough to tickle your fancy, you also have Dick Grayson, who decided to stick around a bit, doing more than he has previously...... and really, you just get a more overall feel for Neo Gotham and the characters that inhabit it than anything I can really say that we got before and what seems like the setup for something that may be bigger than what the Joker's Return should have actually been. It's weird though, you have a lot of things in this issue that you could see happening if you read the previous arc, but for some reason it does feel fresh here to actually see something happening.
All in all, the art, while a little off at the beginning really got me invested in the story and for all of those issues of the Joker just replaying things that we've seen him do previously, now that he's dead it really seems like this series can now start and actually become something that feels important than just story after story that feels like it's just going through the motions. Yeah, it's the epilogue to an arc and I hate to judge what's to come based solely off of this, but if we can continue to progress with the feel of this issue, I can see me starting to care about Batman Beyond again.
Bits and Pieces:
While this is just an epilogue to the previous arc, it does more good for this series than anything we've gotten from it in a long time and gives me hope that I can start caring about Batman Beyond again. The art is fantastic and the use of the Bat Family here really upped the ante of the issue.
7.5/10
I was mostly in agreement with you, except for that final page. That's a return to the bad form that's soured me on the comic. Throwing away what the characters were like and what that meant in favor of a TWIST!! Nana Harley reading her granddaughters the riot act for joining the Jokerz was a nice moment. Nana Harley stealing the Joker's body to go "The End... or is it? *wink*" is just a spit in the eye.
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