DC Is Bringing Back Batman Beyond

Batman Beyond is coming back to DC Comics. It’s been a good year for fans of the DC Animated Universe. Batman: The Adventures Continue returned for a second season. Justice League Infinity will pick up where Justice League Unlimited left off. Now we know that Terry McGinnis’s adventures as Batman in the Neo-Gotham City of the future will continue. It occurs as part of the ongoing Batman: Urban Legends anthology series. The story comes from the Star Trek: Year Five writing duo of Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly. They are teeming with artist Max Dunbar, colorist Sebastian Cheng, and letterer Aditya Bidikar. Lanzing teased the story’s on Twitter:

“𝗕𝗔𝗧𝗠𝗔𝗡 𝗜𝗦 𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗗. 𝗟𝗢𝗡𝗚 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗔𝗧𝗠𝗔𝗡. BATMAN BEYOND returns in ‘WAKE’ – a 30-page cyberpunk mystery by @Max_Dunbar @adityab @SebastianArtist. & the Lanzing//Kelly Hivemind. We’re storming Neo-Gotham – and it’ll never be the same.”

Lanzing went on to emphasize how much Terry McGinnis means to him. “Like Nathaniel Richards & Dick Grayson, Terry McGinnis was a character who found me just when I needed him. He’s meant the world to @cpkelly & me. Watching the series together w/ our buddy David was one of our earliest traditions. I can’t wait to take you back to the future.”

He also made it clear that they plan to alter Batman Beyond‘s world in some significant ways. “And just so it’s said: ‘Gotham will never be the same’ isn’t some fly-by-night promise. We love the classic Batman Beyond, but it’s time for Terry to face a new paradigm. We’re smashing the toys and building something new. Something noir. Something beyond.”

Batman Beyond is one of a handful of characters created for animation and later made the jump to comics continuity. In 1999, the team behind Batman: The Animated Series launched Batman Beyond as a spinoff designed to attract younger viewers with its teen lead character and futuristic setting. The series proved popular even with adults who appreciated getting to see an older Bruce Wayne mentoring Terry as the new Batman in a cyberpunk future Gotham.

Like the other DC Animated Universe shows, Batman Beyond had a comic running concurrently and nominally in the television show’s universe. In 2010, DC Comics launched a new Batman Beyond miniseries to bridge the gap between Terry’s DCAU continuity and the main DC Universe. An ongoing series followed that leaned harder into the DCAU side of things and featured the Justice League of the future. Their stories continued in the digital-first series Batman Beyond, Justice League Beyond, Superman Beyond, Batman Beyond 2.0, and Justice League Beyond 2.0. The line ended in 2014.

In 2015, during the New 52 era Futures End event, DC Comics relaunched the Batman Beyond series. Set within the main DC continuity, the series starred Tim Drake as the lead character instead of Terry. In 2016, that series ended, and a new Batman Beyond series for the DC Rebirth era, with Terry back in the lead role, launched in its place. That series ended in December 2020. The new Batman: Urban Legends story will presumably pick up where the latest ongoing series left off.

What do you think of Batman Beyond returning? Let us know in the comments. Batman Beyond returns in Batman: Urban Legends #7, releasing September 7th. If you’re looking to watch the original animated series, it is available on HBO Max or as a complete Blu-ray set.