Review: Batman: Beyond The White Knight #3
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Sean Murphy
Artist: Sean Murphy
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: AndWorld Design
Reviewed by: Carl Bryan
Summary
“She gets to call you Bats but I don’t?” – Jack Napier
‘She’s different!” – Bruce Wayne
“Spousal privilege?” – Jack Napier
Batman: Beyond the White Knight #3 – The future of Gotham is coming to destroy its past! Batman…murderer?
After discovering Bruce Wayne facilitated the murder of his father, Terry goes on the hunt, ready to unleash as Batman Beyond.
The clock is ticking for Bruce in more ways than one after Harley Quinn’s daughter goes missing. And if she takes after her father, the fate of the city is in her hands! Can the former Batman find and stop her before the police do?
In this thrilling sequel to the blockbuster comic book hits Batman: White Knight and Batman: Curse of the White Knight, writer/artist Sean Murphy invites the audience to go beyond the Gotham they know to discover an engrossing new take on the city and its heroes. Welcome to Neo-Gotham and the world of Beyond the White Knight!
Positives
Sean Murphy continues to pepper the elements of all Batman canon and movie lore into his writing as well as his art, His use of shadows to subtly let you know that Bruce is Batman or that Jack is Joker is brilliant. It’s akin to the half spider sense face that we saw on Peter Parker in the 1970s. It doesn’t insult the reader, but simply brings a great smile.
Again, what type of purgatory is it for Bruce to have Jack/Joker implanted in your head at all times? Subsequently, what type of torture is it for Jack to acknowledge that Bruce is married to Harley? ” Holy Where is Selina?”
That’s just it, Murphy breaks the pieces into a different puzzle. If you have been keeping score, he keeps the original ingredients, but he turns the dial just enough to make this new lore…new canon..a new universe!
Sean Murphy also mixes in Batman Beyond with a new motive. We actually get a bit of tutelage on the suit and subsequently, we see Bruce adorned in a version that is arguably better than his old cape and cowl. This leads to Murphy’s art!
Positives 2.0
Art…Murphy pulls off the hardest double in comics. Albeit there have been some epic fails in terms of writing and drawing together, there have been some successes. Currently, Todd McFarlane’s doing his best work in writing on Gunslinger Spawn, but we miss his renderings as he is one of the best in the business, but take a look at the graphic below.
Not only is Bruce shadowed with his cowl, but look at the imprint on Harley’s skirt. Subtle work by a wordsmith and artist that Bruce is her husband. However, look as she ascends the stairs…. we see her silhouette and see her old Harley costume as the shadow. Is she turning back to her old ways by abandoning Bruce?
This is what an artist and writer can do when it’s flowing from one pen!
Negatives
Not one little syllable. Sean Murphy continues to deliver with such panache and style in both his art and writing. Easter Eggs abound and those silhouettes depicting their alter egos… how nice of him to shadow/foreshadow for the readers.
Verdict
Sean Murphy makes you feel like you’ve just picked up the very first issue of Detective Comics where Batman was introduced.
