Batman Beyond #42 Review

Blight Up My Life

Written By: Dan Jurgens

Art By: Sean Chen, Sean Parsons, Chris Sotomayor, Travis Lanham

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: March 25, 2020

In the future, things aren't looking too good for Terry McGinnis...... Well, they're looking a bit brighter than they have because recently, the man who usually takes up the role of Batman has had amnesia and been out on the streets and if that wasn't enough, he was also a murder suspect.  Don't worry though because picking up his slack was the new Batwoman of Neo Gotham, who probably went over her paygrade when she decided to take on one of Terry's biggest bads, Derek Powers, Blight.  Now that Terry's mind is right and we all know that Batwoman has been Dick Grayson's daughter Elainna all along, we finish up this arc with Blight coming to Wayne Manor and looking for revenge before he burns out forever.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.



Throughout this arc and really, only the second time that Blight's been around since the animated series, we've been told that he hates Bruce Wayne more than anyone and was delighted to have the chance to hurt Bruce by being able to live on by transferring his mind into Bruce's protege, Terry McGinnis.  Well, that all went to shit so now it's time for Blight to take it to Wayne Manor where.......... he just has access to everything in the Batcave.  Yeah, they try to tell us that it's because of some hidden documents that Blight found when he took over Wayne/Powers back in the day, but I don't know how that gives him a remote control to shoot rockets from the Batmobile.

Throughout this story, we're told nonstop that Blight is dangerous to be around because of his radiation, but nowhere in there does that really come across and the big showdown in the Batcave between Batwoman and Batman relies mostly on a wow moment of Terry getting into the original Batman Beyond suit...... I say "wow" because everyone in the book seems to be awestruck, but this suit and the current one that Elainna is wearing come off so similar that I didn't understand why this was supposed to be something cool at first.  Ultimately, this big showdown does little for me because we stop Blight, who couldn't stop telling us that he only had a little bit left to live...... a few minutes from what he said in the previous issue and him going down here didn't get me excited because I'm still not certain how he came back originally........ A hand just came out of water...... who knows how long he had been down there........ I wanted more all around.

All in all, the art here is pretty excellent and everything looks great, but the story just doesn't do anything to make me care about what's going on here.  All the characters have felt off this entire arc because they weren't allowed to figure out who the Batwoman was or they had amnesia, but now that everything is said and done here, hopefully, we can get back to telling some cohesive stories that don't feel forced for the gimmick like this one did.  If you're looking for two people wearing Batman Beyond suits punching Blight, then maybe this issue is for you, but for me, I was kind of left bored and wondering what was going to happen to really make this finale stand out........ the answer was nothing.

Bits and Pieces:

Nothing about this issue or even this arc feels like there's anyone who cares about this title because it relied solely on finding out who the mysterious new Batwoman was and because of that, everyone had to act like idiots, while also trying to rely on the hype of bringing Blight back, even though that just kind of happened...... like the new Batwoman.  Nothing really felt like it mattered here and by the end, this entire arc just felt like one big gimmick that never really came together or felt like it made sense.  Thankfully, the art in this issue was great though so at least you have that to look forward to.

5/10