Batman Beyond #31 Review

Early Release

Written By: Dan Jurgens

Art By: Rick Leonardi, Ande Parks, Chris Sotomayor, Travis Lanham

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: April 24, 2019

It's back to the future for us as we head off to Neo-Gotham to see what the ramifications of Matt McGinnis having the Robin title taken away from him by his brother are........ I bet a lot of whining.  Besides that though, there really isn't much catch-up here as we're starting a new arc with this issue.  So let's quit the chitter-chatter and get into this issue of Batman Beyond.  Let's check it out.

This is a strange issue in that there's a mystery going on in the story, but nothing ever really comes of it.  I mean, I hate to do any spoilers, but let's just say that Bruce Wayne isn't who he's supposed to be and this issue is almost setup like you're not supposed to know that......... but then there's tell-tale signs of something being wrong and even when you expect something to happen because of this........ nothing does.  So yeah, a whole subplot or main plot to the story that we never really deal with and are left just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never does.  It's an odd feeling and I hope that we move more into what's going on with that in the next issue because I don't want to have to feel like this again.

Besides that though, we have Batman investigating a string of thefts in the city that are connected to the Wayne/Powers merger, giving us that little nod to the animated series, which is nice, but besides for that and seeing a new villain named Splitt in this issue it's back to basics for Terry McGinnis, where he just gets his ass kicked over and over again as this series progresses.  I was hoping that we were beyond that point or at least wish we could have seen a little more competent Terry now that he's taken out all of the Jokerz in the city, but sadly....... it's same old, same old.

All in all, I really enjoy the art in this issue and hope that we have this creative team stay on for awhile, but as for the story it felt like it didn't know what it wanted to do the whole issue as it strung us along while we waited for something bad to happen only to find that nothing did.  I enjoyed seeing Arkham Asylum and hope we get more out of it in the future, not to mention that I'm kind of digging this new villain, but besides that this isn't that great of an issue, even though there might be something interesting about the mystery is sets up..... it's just too bad it doesn't do anything here.

Bits and Pieces:

This is an odd issue that felt like it kept wanting to get started or that it wanted to do something exciting, but it wasn't until halfway through when the story became about something else where I started having a little fun.  There's something going on in this story, it just sadly doesn't do much this issue..... but hey, we had some awesome art so that's something.

6/10