Batman Beyond becoming an Ongoing, apparently.

[espanolbot]

News here,
http://blog.newsarama.com/2010/08/28/going-beyond-temporary/

Huh, well so far the series has been pretty good, I just hope that they get a different artist on the new one is all.

For legality, a page from Batman 700


The DeeDees living up to their name there.

Note to the new artist, NeoGotham should look like that ^, or like the scenery from Akira, not the odd neon environment from the current series.

Comments

[whitecometrx7]

hmm...i've always found the concept of batman beyond a little depressing, cause that means bruce and all the members of the batfamily straight up failed on their war against crime in the end.

[jcbaggee]

Not really all that depressing though. Bruce himself has often said that he knows crime is going to outlive him and he's just doing the best any man could hope to.

[crinos]

Yeah, I mean its not like anyone expects Batman to wipe out crime.

Its like expecting Punisher to win his war on crime. No matter how many criminals you shoot, they'll always be more.


Doesn't make what Batman's doing meaningless though, by any means.

[espanolbot]

To fight as much as he can for as long as he can, is better than not doing anything though, right?

[neev]

I really can't imagine a scenario where Batman and the rest of the Batfamily would actually win. They're one man and a rotating cast of emotionally fucked up obsessives fighting against impossible odds - any ending where they can be seen as having a "win" would be so hideously saccharine as to be meaningless. The point isn't winning - there's no way TO win - the point is fighting in the face of that. That's what makes him a hero - he is doomed to fail by the nature of his quest and he keeps doing it anyway because it's still the right thing to do.

[q99]

Yea. And one impression I got was crime, or at least super-crime, is picking up in recent years calling for the return of Batman, but was probably on the low-side after the years of Bat work.

[yaseen101]

True. At the same time though, we've seen the Bat-Family having an impact on people and causing them to change.

If nothing else, they keep the city from teetering over the edge.

The concept of Legacy fits into the Bat-Family the most imo.

[jlbarnett]

I think for it to be anything but a waste there would have to be a noticable reduction in crime, though

[neev]

That doesn't really negate my point though. It could very well achieve nothing and be a waste but that's not WHY he does it. The point is doing it because it needs to be done, whether or not he actually truly makes an impact doesn't matter on a meta level. I mean, as it stands, taking up the mantle of a bat and trying to strike fear into the hearts of criminals is a goddamn inefficient and wasteful way of trying to reduce crime anyway. It shouldn't actually have much effect because he's just ONE GUY (and aforementioned rotating cast of slightly crazy hangers on) and Gotham city is huge. Not to mention he spends half his time with the Justice League. But that doesn't matter - we accept that those things happen and that it's still okay for him to be Batman because the point of a hero is struggle against impossible odds. It is, as they say, not the destination but the journey that matters.

[yaseen101]

As others have said, you can't stop crime but you can make sure there is someone around to always fight it (and not just beating up criminals of course!).

[espanolbot]

That's the thing though, Batman on his own is good at keeping crime lower than it would otherwise have been, factor in his assistants like Oracle, Robin, Nightwing etc. and the crime levels go down even more so.

So upcoming comics like Batman Inc. are actually kind of a good idea, in story, as Batman franchising himself out and making something of a JLA of international crime fighters who are dedicated and passionate as he is will enable him to carry further than just his one city.

[icon_uk]

Except that OYL explicitly stated that Gotham's crime rate was actually REDUCED the year Batman was away.

[espanolbot]

I thought that was more due to Intergang muscling out the regular criminals during 52, and with them gone through the efforts of Renee and Kathy. Afterwards and during Batman-trained Harvey Dent did some crime fighting, which also kept the street level crime fighting down.

Plus Cass was apparently in Gotham as well, if you take into account Alfred apparently paying for her speech therapy, ASL and literacy courses, so she must have helped as well. And Nightwing hung around Gotham after about six months with Bruce too.

So it's, argueably, a prelude to him franchising. He doesn't have to be there if someone trained/associated with the Bat Clan is there to pick up the slack.

[fungo_squiggly]

Well, there actually would have been a giant increase in crime levels during the year Bruce was away from Gotham.

But when Batman was sent back into the distant past by Darkseid's Omega Sanction, he used the opportunity to go around strategically punching the criminals of that era so hard that their descendants would be terrorized into not committing any crimes during that specific period of the future.

[nezchan]

Prep time? I'll show you prep time!

[yaseen101]

Batman, Batman & Robin, Detective Comics, Batman Inc., Red Robin, Outsiders, Bat-Girl, Oracle, Street of Gotham, Batwoman, Batman Beyond, Gotham Sirens, Knight & Squire and [insert another title I may have forgotton].

Yes, it is a good idea but it is a bit too much imo.

Also, I can't believe it's only now that I realize this; why didn't Dick Grayson come up with this idea when Bruce was dead?

[espanolbot]

Actually Cass did in the RIP-crossover with Batman and the Outsiders.

Dick just hijacked it, and ran it into the ground during Battle of the Cowl, which is a shame as CASS was the one who thought of the idea and brought everyone together to found the Network in the first place.

[yaseen101]

Yeah, but I still think the 'Batman Inc' idea fits Dick like a glove and would have been a unique spin on the whole Legacy hero' thing. Especially considering that he was always the more sociable of heroes and I can't really see him as Batman. Plus, it would probably have given characters like Renee and Batwoman some wider exposure since they were still (and still are) trying to find their footing.

[sarno001]

Yeah, the idea of Bruce asking other people for help still seems a little out of character to me.

[swatkat]

Wait, there's an Oracle title coming up?

[yaseen101]

I meant to say 'Birds of Prey'. D'oh!

[long_silence]

What depressed me was what happened to all of the other members of the Batfamily. I mean Barbara was just so bitter, you never really find out what happened to Dick, and the less said about what happened to Tim the better.

[yaseen101]

There is a reason why so few people can fight the good fight. The personal outcome isn't always welcomed.

[big_daddy_d]

Actually what I found depressing was the fact that Bruce ended up alone and the Batfamily was broken up.

[sistermagpie]

Me too. They could have wiped out crime completely and it was still be a universe defined by failure and unhappiness to me. Not to mention unbelievable.