Batman Beyond: Beyond Hush Paperback – 27 May 2011

In its animated form, Batman Beyond was clever, expertly animated, accessible to any age group, and in general just well-executed. This comic had a lot to live up to, and unfortunately, it just didn't inherit the successes of its predecessor.

The artwork isn't great. When someone has to rely on costuming and context clues to know who is who, there is immediately something off; there is no consistency, and the facial expressions are lacking. Artwork really could have contributed a lot to this story; in particular, the reveal of Hush's identity could have been instantly recognizable as someone we had already met in the story to make a much more emotional impact, but the reviewer had to rely entirely on accompanying monologue to understand who this character was supposed to be.

The artwork could have been forgiven if the story had been better, but it was sadly lacking. Other than Terry McGinnis, the main characters introduced in the series only make brief cameo appearances. The story focuses instead on trying to impress the reader with some classic Batman trivia, involving lots of somewhat obscure characters in an attempt to revive the original Hush storyline, as well as introducing a completely pointless secondary (tertiary?) love interest. I wish this comic had delved deeper into the established world from the series, instead of trying to repeat Bruce Wayne's history. All of the originality was leeched from the series, leaving a dry corpse of a desperate wannabe Batman adventure. I don't know if the creators were trying to attract Batman readers while at the same time counting on Batman Beyond fans to tune in regardless, but the end result is disappointing for both.

I managed to entertain myself with this volume for forty-five minutes, probably because of my loyalty to the series, and almost incidentally because it incorporates my favourite Batman character, Dick Grayson. If you are a fan of the animated series, I recommend it on condition that you are not expecting this in any way to change your life, just as a short distraction from life. If you aren't familiar with the animated series, I honestly find little here for you to enjoy.

"Batman Beyond" originated as a cartoon debuting in 1999. Taking place decades in the future, it featured an elderly Bruce Wayne, long retired from his role as Batman. He takes the young Terry McGinnis under his wing, grooming him to become the new Dark Knight. Although the show has been off the air for years, it still has its fair share of fans, many of whom think back upon it with considerable amounts of nostalgia. DC recently attempted to capitalize on this by reviving the franchise as a comic. However, the result was a rather mixed bag.

"Hush Beyond" begins shortly after the conclusion of the show, when a serial killer begins targeting people from Bruce Wayne's past. The investigation performed by Bruce and Terry soon brings to light that the killer has taken on the identity of Hush, one of Batman's most personal villains, presumed to have been dead for years. Unfortunately, growing tensions in the relationship between Terry and Bruce threaten to bring the manhunt to a halt.

If one were to look at "Hush Beyond" as a stand alone story, with no connection to any previous work, it is actually decent enough. Although it contains shades of previous Batman storylines, such as the original "Hush", it still manages to be entertaining. The story's twist was interesting, if not rather predictable. Nothing it does is groundbreaking, but the overall familiarity of the plot makes it a rather safe and comfortable read for anyone just looking for a quick Batman mystery.

However, its when you start looking at the book as an attempted revival of the show that it begins to fall flat. Despite supposedly being based upon the cartoon, very few elements from it that people would recognize actually appear. The villains it features are entirely new, and the myriad of characters that actually made the show unique are either not present, or mentioned only in passing. While I certainly wouldn't want them to just rehash everything from the cartoon, including so little from it just makes it lose the whole feeling that made "Batman Beyond" different from the original Batman to begin with.

A second major flaw in the story is how the relationship between Terry and Bruce is portrayed. By the time this story takes place, the two have been working together for a good long time, and a real bond had developed between them. To suddenly include a sub-plot where they seem to have no trust for one another, and are at each others throats at times, just seems completely contrived. It almost feels like Beechen included this interpersonal crisis just purely for the sake of having one in his story, with little regard to how much sense it would make.

One last thing I would like to mention is the art. While I wouldn't classify it as completely terrible, as I know many others do, it most certainly isn't GOOD. In addition, it looks absolutely nothing like the art style of the cartoon on which this comic is based. Again, this wouldn't really be a problem if the series hadn't been touted by DC as being the revival of the show. It just strikes me as bizarre that they would create a new series that they expect to be fueled entirely by nostalgia, and then go out of their way to make sure it doesn't resemble its source material in the slightest.

The bottom line, I suppose, can be summarized by saying that "Hush Beyond" is a passable, if not generic, Batman story, but will very likely be at least a little disappointing to people who pick it up due to fond memories of the Batman Beyond animated series.

I'm a big fan of Batman Beyond, owning most of the dvd's, and I loved this futuristic take on the character. This volume collects a new story taking place after the events of the animated series, but prior to the unofficial series finale that took place in the third season of the Justice League animated series.

Fans of the series will enjoy this story, there are numerous nods to continuity from the animated series, the Justice League Unlimited, old Batman allies, and foes, and Terry's friends make appearances. It's a lot of fun, and the story flushes out some more of the backtstory as to what happened to Bruce Wayne in his later years as Batman. We know the fate of Tim Drake in this timeline as it was told in the Return of the Joker animated movie. However, other than a throwaway reference to Nightwing when Barbara Gordon replies in response to Terry's question about all of the heroes ending up bitter, "Look up Nightwing sometime, has he got stories . . . " This story tells us what happened, and it's powerful stuff.

I've seen the mixed reviews here and I have to respectfully disagree. If you were a fan of the animated series, then this is well worth a try, it's a lot of fun, and adds a good amount to the existing Batman Beyond mythos. Enjoy!

DC went all out saying that this is both for fans of the show and new alike but the sad truth is this is mostly for the new fans. Adam Beechen has a habit of getting writing jobs for characters are really fond of and not doing good jobs with them, first being Cassandra Cain and now Terry in this Batman Beyond miniseries.

The plot is thin as the set up is that someone is killing off the villains from when Bruce was under the cowl, at a rapid fire pace we find out it's Hush.Outside of what Paul Dini has been doing over at Streets of Gotham series( Batman: Streets of Gotham Vol. 1: Hush Money ), I've always found Hush to be a terrible villain and Beechen does nothing to make me believe otherwise. What struck me as odd is since this is suppose to take place right after the ending of the show and obviouslty before the single episode in the JLU series Bruce and Terry are back to being at odds with each other like during the first half of season 1. Which is Beechen's m.o.( in that he's given characters he's never read or seen and doesn't bother doing any research thus making well established characters act out of character then blames editorial ).

Hush's identity is revealed in such a confusing way that a big moment like that comes off as a dud, the aftermath of that isn't helped at all by having a tacked on clone subplot suddenly thrown into the mix. The handling of Dick Grayson was a complete letdown, while not in the show in both comics and other shows it's been shown more then once that even after being apart for son long once teamed up again Bruce & Dick act like they never skipped a beat while here in a flashback nope and someone gets hurt because of it. A new Catwoman is introduced for no reason at all other then for Bruce to tell Terry that ever hero needs to chase a bad girl( even though Terry already has a girlfriend he's qdone everything to get back with ) while other characters from the show are barely mentioned in person or by name.

Michael Ryan's art has been great in tha past but for some reason here it's just cluttered and murky, it is a contributer to the mishap that is Hush's reveal( why did the editor not catch this? ) which makes each page a chore to read. The addition of seeing Dustin Nguyen's covers is ok but then you can either just get any of the Bat comics he does the art for or get those covers as jpegs off the net.

This miniseries has spun off into a ongoing series and unless a new creative team takes over I'm pretty much done with this until then

If you liked Batman Hush, get this.
If you like Batman Beyond the tv show or movie, get this.

This is a solid first collection of the McGinnis Batman, and the Hush here is just as gripping as the one in the Batman series (although, for those fans that care about continuity, this is another universe with a similar history, so Hush still attacks Bruce Wayne but the ending of their relationship is different than in the subsequent stories with Bruce in other graphic novels).

I give this 5 stars because the relationship between Bruce and Terry really hit spikes here; it is so much fun to read. You'll also see fun new characters as well as older familiar characters reintroduced. Artwork is pretty great, too. Check it out! (I liked this better than Batman Beyond Industrial Revolution, the other collection before the online-series launched; this first arc with Hush provides a solid experience reminiscent of the show and a great Batman story.)