Batman Beyond #36 Review

Speed Kills

Written By: Dan Jurgens

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

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: September 25, 2019

It's the conclusion to our False Face/The Splitt story and at this point, even though I've had some fun with this arc overall, there really needs to be something big and over the top, not to mention a satisfying end to these characters for me to feel like this arc was something important because really....... fun can only take you so far.  Let's jump thirty-five years into the future and find out the fates of our villains and what has become of our hero.  Let's check it out.

While I'm a sucker for False Face, even a False Face Beyond, his character arc hasn't really gone and done anything that would make me think that he'll be a standout to the rogues of Terry McGinnis and for how he ends up here...... Well, those feelings haven't changed.  Sadly too, The Splitt this issue is just kind of used as a prop, along with Barry Allen showing up to take them on because the idea that they're still only young boys who are being aged prematurely is just kind of thrown out here to just get them to the end of the tale, where their fates are left open.  

Ultimately, what we get here, besides for Ten stepping up to the plate and becoming a hero that Neo Gotham can depend on is a mess of a finale to this arc because it really feels like Jurgens forgot that this was his final issue to the arc and just had to throw it all together at the end and it comes off just feeling sloppy and like he wanted to do more, but somehow ran out of time.  There's just too much going on here and nothing feels like it was resolved with anything that feels close to satisfying.  Hell, even the art that I usually think works for this title left me feeling confused by the end for how the characters were portrayed for the epilogue of this issue concerning our hero and the hero that will come to play in the next issue.  I just sat here looking at it and wondering who I was actually looking at.

All in all, this wasn't the stand out False Face story that I was hoping to get and The Splitt came off feeling like a strange after thought just to accommodate False Face's motives further down the story, while they themselves didn't feel completely fleshed out.  The art this issue like I said was a bit confusing at times, but it wasn't horrible overall, I just wish I could look at those last couple of pages and know exactly what I was looking at.  So yeah, this series is still kind of a hodgepodge mess and while there is some fun to be had at times, I'm still wondering how this series is continuing for what we've been getting out of it.

Bits and Pieces:

Everything comes to a screeching halt with this issue and it doesn't feel natural at all.  Yeah, this is the finale, but it feels like there was a lot of story left behind because everything here feels like it was thrown together last minute and nothing about it came off as satisfying.  The art even took a bit of a dip in my mind and overall, there just wasn't much about this issue that I found myself enjoying, which is strange for all the things that were shoved into it.

4.5/10