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As a big fan of the “Batman Beyond” series from the late nineties, I have to say that this fourth annual for the “Superman\/Batman” comic series was a breath of fresh air and a wonderful re-visiting in to the old series with a more mature approach added. If you didn’t see the show you will have no idea what some of the references here are, but I caught on quickly.<\/p>\n
I loved the fluid continuation from Terry McGinnis’ throwdown with Superman after being controlled by Starro, which has now turned him in to the only hero left. Superman has decided to quit fighting crime after his possession under Starro which has allowed Lex Luthor to conquer Metropolis once and for all.<\/p>\n
Jaded, Superman is now a lone gun, forced to confront his own loneliness still grieving over Lois Lane’s death while Terry and Bruce work to find out why Metropolis’ criminals are migrating to Gotham to deal a new type of Kryptonite laced drug, and why the world’s criminals are disappearing under the wrath of “The Ghost” that seems to be frightening everyone more than Batman is. As always Bruce Wayne watches in the wings guiding Terry along and catches on to what the ghost is long before Terry does, but as is the case with him, Terry will have to figure it out all on his own. The visual style is incredible with splashes and insanely gorgeous action sequences that hearken back to the atmosphere of the original television series while also adding its own distinction with a Batman who is less dependent on Bruce while also relying on the old man for some guidance on the battle field.<\/p>\n
As is always the case with all of the heroes in the DC universe, Terry looks up to Superman, and with a changing world Superman has discovered that his relevance and usefulness has diminished in the face of changing sentiments and a Metropolis that has become even worse than Gotham City under the rule of Lex Luthor who is devising a way to stop Superman and distribute Kryptonite laced narcotics that keep the criminals happy while preventing Superman from properly stopping their activities. Renato Guedes and Jose Wilson turn this in to an incredible piece of self-contained lip service to the series while they maintain Bruce Timm’s animation style with their own hints of Alex Ross inspired character models.<\/p>\n
Paul Levitz has a firm hold on the series continuity while also providing his own completion of the Superman story arc revealing that Starro’s own possession on the man of steel had a long lasting effect that showed he was truly needed and his time under the alien’s control allowed true evil to take hold. Sadly the annual isn’t completely perfected as Metallo’s small cameo seemed very out of place with Levtiz seemingly just wanting to show how skilled Batman has become and nothing else while the ultimate confrontation with Lex felt very rushed and somewhat abrupt. Not to mention when we learned that the ghost is really Superman using his phantom zone projector as a form of jailing these vicious criminals, he seems to get off way too easy after Terry questions him. But then this is Superman. Ultimately though this was an entertaining annual with some fantastic writing and a bittersweet finale for the man of steel who has to continue to face the death of his loved ones with the curse of his immortality. I suggest it for anyone who was a religious “Batman Beyond” viewer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a big fan of the “Batman Beyond” series from the late nineties, I have to say that this fourth annual for the “Superman\/Batman” comic series was a breath of fresh air and a wonderful re-visiting in to the old series with a more mature approach added. If you didn’t see the show you will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[125,223,268,1007],"class_list":["post-2170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rot-your-brain","tag-batman","tag-comic-books","tag-dc-comics","tag-superman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}