Batman Who Laughs Introduces a Surprising New Batman Beyond

In the latest (and penultimate) issue of The Batman Who Laughs, Commissioner James Gordon and his son James Jr. are forced to take some pretty extreme measures to try and prevent Batman from transforming into our Earth’s version of The Batman Who Laughs. Spoilers follow for The Batman Who Laughs #6, on sale now. Along the way, the Gordons raid the Dark Knight’s armory. There is quite a haul in there, of course, but the thing most likely to get fans excited are the pair of Batman Beyond costumes that the Gordons don to duke it out with Batman and The Batman Who Laughs.

This is not the first time that the Batman Beyond continuity has been explicitly tied to recent events in the DC Universe, and it won’t be the last. A few years back, when Gordon was wearing a suit of GCPD-sanctioned armor and operating as Batman, an issue of Batman Beyond showed that armor being used in the future, as an emergency costume when Terry McGinnis’s suit wouldn’t work. And in the coming months, Brian Michael Bendis told me recently, the story of Batman Beyond will intersect with Legion of Super-Heroes: Millennium, a story about a woman who finds herself suddenly immortal and journeys through all of DC’s alternate futures.

Powers Technology, the company behind some of the tech built into the Batman costume worn by Terry McGinnis (Powers was bought out by Wayne Enterprises), was the same company that designed Gordon’s Batsuit, so it should be no real surprise that some beta version of the Batman Beyond costume exists — but what is arguably a bit more shocking is that the suits seem to work for the Gordons.

Could we see one or both of them hang on to one of the suits when all is said and done? Probably not, since there is already a Batman Beyond comic on the stands — but it’s worth toying with the idea, since a key element of Scott Snyder’s time with Batman has been his willingness to throw unexpected curveballs into the mythology from time to time, not unlike his predecessor Grant Morrison.

You can get The Batman Who Laughs #6 at your local comic shop or online through ComiXology, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.