Batman: Beyond the White Knight #1 Review

Batman: Beyond the White Knight is the third main entry in Sean Murphy's White Knight universe, and is a sequel to Batman: Curse of the White Knight. Written and illustrated by Muprhy with colorings from Dave Stewart and lettered by Andworld Design, the comic is a spin on the Batman Beyond mythos and was published under DC's Black Label imprint. Also a warning, SPOILERS will be mentioned in this review.

Batman: Beyond the White Knight picks up 10 years after Curse of the White Knight and sees Bruce Wayne imprisoned. With Terry McGinnis breaking into the Batcave for Derek Powers, he stumbles upon a high-tech Batsuit and dons it, becoming the new Dark Knight.

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Batman: Beyond the White Knight offers a different and a mixed spin on the classic character's mythos.

With there being a time jump here, Bruce is old now and he is in jail. We see Derek Powers has complete command over Wayne Enterprises and he sends Terry McGinnis to steal the high-tech costume. Powers is also funding the GTO now and has created his own army of Batmen with Dick Grayson leading it. It embraces its dystopian theme and runs with it fairly well.

Now, while we do get a lot of Terry McGinnis action in the first few pages, he takes a backseat. He isn't really that present in the storyline, rather the first issue is more concerned with Bruce Wayne and how he feels about everything. We also see him share quite a few panels with Jason Todd, who also has a different spin on him.

It is revealed here that Jason Todd was the first Robin instead of Dick Grayson, and that is an interesting take on him. I am not exactly sure yet how to feel about that, but in the context of Murphy's story it works.

Muphy is known to take a lot of liberties with the characters. For example, he brought huge ramifications to the Wayne family and changed its history entirely. The theme continues on here. Bruce and Todd's relationship in particular shows shades of it.

While in the comics Todd is killed by the Joker, over here he just lets him go. That dynamic is then further explored when Todd doesn't hold any animosity towards Bruce. Rather, Bruce and Todd share a brother-like relationship. Their dynamic is also explored here very well as Todd is a police officer now, and I think the moments there were the most endearing parts of the book.

While that central relationship does end up working, I did not like how less of a Batman Beyond book it actually was. I wanted to see Terry in action here and explore more, I did not really get that a lot of that. It continues on the theme of the previous books, but I just wish those were kept for the upcoming issues.

There is a twist in the end too, which sees the return of Jack Napier/Joker, and I audibly groaned at it. Harley killed him and that was a bold step, I don't need to see the Joker again, but here he is back. I hope he adds some weight to the plot, rather than just being there for the sake of it.

But the one thing that will leave many people absolutely happy is the art style. Murphy continues to give us wonderful spreads, and the coloring this time around from Dave Stewart really pops up and brings out that Neo-Cyberpunk Gotham look.

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Final Verdict

The first issue of Batman: Beyond the White Knight does a good job of bringing us into this new world, but it does that at the expense of not exploring Terry's character at all. Those who will go in looking for some Batman Beyond action will have to wait for a few issues, but overall this is a neat start to the new Batman series.