Scans_Daily

Issue #2'd revealed their Tomb to Terry McGinnis and Kyle the cat (who knows magic).

Terry was under Gotham searching for children who'd gone missing - Kyle was along because Terry'd enlisted his aid.

Above them, Terry's ally Gestalt called in about the other problems facing them - geographical instabilities and the acquisitions of corporate tech-jerk Donovan Lumos.

( They were worried. )

That story'd killed off old Bruce Wayne and set Terry McGinnis to wage his own battle against the killer, Gotham City - its systems come to life as the AI " Living Gotham " - over a year.

He and allies had won that fight. The sequel's after that - without the temporal element (which was only " progression of time " detail), but with a threat of similar scope.

Neo-Gothic #1 opens teasing it in Gotham's depths, where children paid a cat money to be admitted into a garden green and fruiting.

There was narration - the narrator not on the page and not yet named.

( The narrator was teaching. )

The dark is the Batcave under Wayne Manor, where he took Gotham cop Beam Boonma after issue #4.

The Living Gotham, the super-AI that was that city's systems incarnate, had turned Beam into its Sword to wield against Batman. Terry'd freed her from weaponhood, necessarily injuring her in doing so.

He sought shelter in the remains of the place he'd self-destructed against Gotham - and found Gestalt from #2, also using the cave as shelter from Gotham.

Terry asked them again for help, this time for a single person: " This isn't about me.

" It's about her. "

( They answered. )

It's to mark the retirement she said she'd take in issue #1.

Her attendance was a necessity of PR that she bore. Terry's attendance was the necessity of his fight against the cyber-superintelligence running Gotham for itself - after #2, he wasn't any further along in that than he'd been before.

He was still working alone, and he still needed information - so again, he faked his way into a party where the powerful gathered.

( He wore his suit from the previous occasion. )

The Batman Beyond story in that anthology issue'd set up the premise: " Gotham's systems develop a singular sentience that decides to excise Batman. Bruce Wayne is consequently killed - Terry McGinnis goes forth alone, against the Living Gotham. "

Neo-Year #1 reiterated that in its first couple pages, efficiently getting readers who hadn't read that previous story up to speed. It then just as efficiently went through the first sixty days of Terry vs. Gotham.

The fight was one hero versus a criminal landscape, the latter's dynamics now more directed than emergent.

( Terry gave a good account of himself. )