Batman Beyond: Neo Year #1 credits

Written by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing
Art by Max Dunbar and Sebastian Cheng
Lettering by Aditya Bidikar
Published by DC
On sale April 5, 2022

As the first issue of a six-issue series, Batman Beyond: Neo Year’s writers have some expectations that readers have at least a passing familiarity with the story that leads into this one. If you aren’t, you might be a little lost. 

Kelly and Lanzing lean on Terry McGinnis’s internal monologue via a paper diary that he starts writing to deliver exposition but it quickly becomes a somewhat obtuse crutch. Despite Terry’s cachet as a known commodity to fans, he’s most effective with other characters around him, not when he’s essentially talking to himself. He’s not Bruce Wayne. He’s not Dick Grayson. He’s not a Robin. He’s Batman. But he’s a different Batman. He’s been tasked with “going beyond” by Bruce himself and yet, he’s falling back on an old Batman trope. 

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But a scene he has with Barbara Gordon works extremely well. Not just as fan service, but to ground Terry in a way that Bruce usually would. I’m not saying that Terry can’t grow outside of the older characters that act as his mentors but it is nice to see him put back in a familiar dynamic. 

I think Kelly and Lanzing understand that. It’s just hard to get him there when Bruce no longer really exists. And I don’t think they let Terry fully embrace his new status quo – it’s almost done in half measure but maybe that’s on purpose to hedge their bets against readers who might feel like this version of Terry isn’t familiar to them. It’s a tightrope that Kelly and Lanzing are constantly teetering on and that’s definitely felt in their approach to the book.

Meanwhile, the idea of a Batman whose latest villain is the city he is sworn to protect definitely fits into the neo-noir aesthetic that keeps DC’s lights on. But it also feels like it might be taking the old cliché that ‘the city is a character’ a little bit too far. 

Even the idea of Batman against the city he’s sworn to protect is a little bit done to death. We’ve seen versions of it in ‘No Man’s Land (opens in new tab),’ ‘Zero Year (opens in new tab),’ Batman Eternal (opens in new tab), and even to some extent a story like ‘Dark Knight, Dark City (opens in new tab).’ A concept like the Sword of Gotham almost makes me a believer but then it also feels similar to Azrael’s arrival in Gotham. At points in this issue, it doesn’t quite feel like Kelly and Lanzing have anything that’s more than the sum of its parts.

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Max Dunbar has an interesting style. He’s not as dynamic as Sean Gordon Murphy. His younger female characters have a little bit of J. Scott Campbell in them. His work would be a little bit more boring if his linework was cleaner – I’m thinking a Carlo Barberi or someone similar. But he flexes a lot in this issue when the script calls for it.

Despite the fact that this creative team has worked together before, I don’t think the writers are totally in sync with their artist. There’s a penchant for double-page spreads that don’t work as well for Dunbar but his single-page splashes are breathtaking. Dunbar does great work with Terry when he’s in the Batsuit but outside of that, the art relies on the narration to help a reader understand what’s happening. And there are some wasted panels across the book that even the book’s heavy narration can’t help make sense of.

I appreciate that colorist Sebastian Cheng doesn’t remove the contrast from the book with Neo Gotham’s neon lights. I think that Terry’s costume is one of the most iconic things about him and to let that be a void of light rather than let computer-generated lighting takeover is a good move. Contrast is infinitely important especially in a pop culture zeitgeist that seems to favor halftones, grays, and browns (see just about any modern superhero movie). 

Letterer Aditya Bidikar has a few standout sound effects but their panel-to-panel lettering leaves a little bit to be desired. For instance, why does supervillain have a hyphen? Come on.

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Overall, this isn’t a bad book, it just doesn’t feel like everything that the creative team is putting on the page is completely coalescing. The creative team obviously has nostalgia for the property but hasn’t revealed how they intend to move it forward. The result is a book that feels like it needs to tread water at this stage in the narrative to make sure the audience is given everything they need to enjoy what comes next. 

The good news is that the sky’s the limit for a book like this. There is still a lot of space to move the character forward and deliver an all-time story. With a name like ‘Neo Year,’ that’s obviously something that DC is banking on. Otherwise, they wouldn’t trade on the ‘Year One’ naming convention. So is it schway? Well… kinda. It’s definitely not slagged. That’s something, right? 

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Batman Beyond: Neo Year #1 has a real workmanlike quality to it that sees the creative team carefully balancing their story with the expectations of their audience but I’m curious to see them throw a little bit more caution to the wind now that they’ve spent so much time building a foundation.

We’re not sure Gotham City is ever going to make Newsarama’s list of the best Batman villains of all time but hey, you never know!

The post Batman Beyond Neo Year #1 (April 5) advanced review appeared first on Game News.

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With this chapter of the larger The Multiversity event, Morrison seems to be expanding the idea of the Multiverse to include not just places where different version of heroes live but places where actual ideas live. The Earth-4 heroes have an intrinsic connection to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, but Morrison sprinkles in other ideas and themes that we’ve seen in Moore’s work to beguiling effect.

“This world rewards its bastards. Heroes are for movies. The super-hero is dead.”

With those words, Morrison might have boiled down Alan Moore’s feeling about comics in a mere three sentences, and that idea prevails throughout the issue. But Morrison doesn’t forget about his own goals for this series. Once we meet all the major players and see their obvious connections to their counterparts in Watchmen, we also are brought back to the idea of the cursed comic – a thread that Morrison has pulled through every issue of The Multiversity event. Morrison uses every trick in their arsenal to keep up the mystery. 

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Captain Atom’s direct address of the reader is unsettling especially after Morrison flips a famous Moore quote and has a character say “This is not an imaginary story…” Captain Atom is the most intriguing character this time around. He exists in all time and space simultaneously but he does not leave Earth the way Doctor Manhattan does. Instead, he stays around, and his presence is a powerful force. Morrison gives us a great scene with Captain Atom and his dog that gives us an idea of how disconnected he is from our reality. The juxtaposition of a god pondering the meaning of everything over a dog should be enough to give an astute reader a little chuckle, but Atom’s methods are horrific. Themes of life, death, time, reality, purpose and, oddly enough, vivisection have stayed strong throughout.

Frank Quitely is a rare talent. His work eschews description but I’ll try. I know many readers are put off by the textured look of his characters, but it’s scars and pockmarks and wrinkles that, I think, help characterize them even more. The purer a character is, the easier they are to look at. The more unsettling their actions become, Quitely changes their outward appearance in some way to reflect that. He definitely doesn’t hold back with regards to action and violence either. Getting punched in the mouth by a superpowered being is no small moment, so Quitely lets that all out on the page. Teeth shatter. Blood flows. It might be a little much to stomach, but “this is no imaginary story,” and Quitely’s exaggerated realism carries that theme through to its end.

The Multiversity: Pax Americana is a dense book. Every page is packed with panels. Every panel is packed with symbolism and it’s all serving Morrison’s bigger ideas for this series. Readers might be turned off by Morrison’s somewhat haphazard approach to time in this issue, but it’s almost as if he’s letting the characters control their own fates. Atom loses some awareness of where and when he is the same way that the reader might. Time flips between forward and backward on a whim and without warning. 

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Morrison and Quitely challenge the idea that anything you read is ever all that straightforward, and that’s a scary thought. If you could prevent something from happening just by turning back a comic book page, would you?

Get to know the bizarre story behind Peacemaker.

The Verdict

4.5

4.5 out of 5

PeaceMaker

An expert meta take on the DC heroes that inspired the Watchmen

The post Peacemaker – Inside the meta version of Watchmen, DCs Pax Americana appeared first on Game News.

Batman #96

Written by James Tynion IV
Art by Jorge Jimenez and Tomeu Morey
Lettering by Clayton Cowles
Published by DC
‘Rama Rating: 8 out of 10

Tynion works in some nice juxtaposition between Batman’s dream for the city and its grimmer reality, while also showing what a “superior” sort of evolution of Batman might look like. That allows Jimenez to have a little bit more fun with the art, especially as he blends in the influence of recent Batman artists like Jock and Rafael Albuquerque into his work. We’re still solidly on the lift hill of this roller coaster, but the anticipation for the drop is building, and it’s looking better than ever.

We open on a future vision of Gotham that’s awash in an overarching blue, gold, and gray color palette that immediately calls to mind one of Batman’s classic looks. It’s nice work from colorist Tomeu Morey to use the golds and grays to balance out the electric blues of the new Batman suit and Mister Freeze’s frostbitten family. For both Tynion and Jimenez, this sequence is an opportunity to show off — Tynion scripts some tight Batman action that is familiar but has a couple of fun details (Clayface-tech Batarangs?!), and Jimenez is just living in his element, showing the power and speed with which Batman handles crime.

Where Tynion really excels in this issue is in pushing the horror elements of this script, as Batman’s idyllic future gives way to another reminder of his recent failures, as Bruce awakens to a Gotham that isn’t his anymore. Harley Quinn provides all the exposition needed to give Batman and readers a fairly full view of what’s gone on since Bruce was last conscious. Tynion shows us how the city has lost its way but reminds us that Batman is still going to persevere even in a drugged, weakened state. He is a constant.

Jimenez does his part to support Tynion’s ambitions. He does have a habit of building a page around a single figure as a focus, eschewing regular paneling in some cases to do so. But that works to emphasize parts of the script. A panel of Harley shining a flashlight at Batman has Jimenez doing his best Jock impression with his linework, but it works well for the scene. Jimenez’s calling card is probably always going to be his character work, but he delivers on his environments here in this issue, too. Whether it’s something like the establishing shot of the Monarch Theater or keeping the “camera” low in the streets of Gotham to give readers a little view of Batman’s surroundings, Jimenez is hitting all his marks.

Some readers might take issue with the fact that Tynion is a very deliberate writer. There’s a lot going on here, but not a lot happens, if that makes sense. For an arc called ‘Joker War,’ there’s not even really an abundance of the Clown Prince of Crime just yet — but it’s tough to ignore the good work here. Readers already recognize that Joker is a threat, but he’s been foiled so many times before. Tynion and Jimenez have to show how this time is different, and that’s the fun of this part of the ride.

The post Best Shots review – Joker War in Batman #96 “looking better than ever” appeared first on Game News.