Batman Beyond #40

By Dan Jurgens, Sean Chen, Sean Parsons, Chris Sotomayor, Wes Abbott, and Lee Weeks

Batman Beyond #40 is here and the identity of Batwoman Beyond is finally revealed! Before we get to that, there is still the ongoing story of the return of Blight and Terry attempting to get his memories back. For this issue, Constance leads Terry to a meeting with Blight and tricks him into thinking that Blight will help him gain his memories back. The real plan though is to use Terry’s body as a new host for Derek Powers’ consciousness due to the radiation decay that made Derek Powers into Blight. The issue concludes with an attack that hits close to home for Bruce Wayne, a surprise guest, and of course, the reveal of the identity of Batwoman Beyond. 

Batman Beyond has been keeping a steady pace of quality issues since beginning back in 2017 and there is always something to look forward to in the story. Dan Jurgens has been amping up the Batwoman Beyond mystery for the past few issues and we are finally seeing the pay off in this issue. This month’s issue gave us a reveal for Batwoman Beyond’s identity and thankfully it was a surprise. Because of the build up and interest in the Batwoman Beyond story, it does tend to overshadow what is happening to Terry. There is nothing wrong with the events Terry is going through, but one can’t help but look forward to the parts with Batwoman Beyond more. It does feel a little odd that it feels like Terry is not as big of a focus in his own comic series. Now that Batwoman beyond has been revealed, it will be interesting to see how her part in the Batman Beyond story will play out. Will she become a regularly occurring character? If so, will she be overshadowing Terry as a lead character or could she generate enough buzz to get her own spin-off series?  

The art, by Sean Chen, Sean Parsons, and Chris Sotomayor, has been staying consistent, much like the writing. The biggest draw is still the character designs of Batwoman Beyond and Blight but the action scenes always have a sense of flow to them. There are multiple instances in the issue where Batwoman Beyond uses her gliding ability to set up the panel with her wings or the direction in which she is moving. The colors in this issue do well to set the tone for what characters are appearing in it. When we are with Blight, there is an abundance of greens, blues, and other cooler colors. As with the Batwoman Beyond scenes, there are a lot more reds, contrasting blacks and white, all along with a warmer color palette. 

Batman Beyond #40 keeps the series moving in a good direction all while making the reader think about how the series will continue from here. Predictability in the story is not something anyone would accuse of this series and the future of the characters could go in any number of different directions.