Virgil Hawkins and Terry McGinnis are not in a good place when Batman/Static: Beyond #3 kicks off. Newly minted metahuman Shutdown has unleashed a massive wave of power that’s affected them both in devastating ways. For Terry, all the tech in his Batman suit is either offline or running on extremely low power. For Virgil, his electromagnetic powers have seemingly shut down, and his hometown of Dakota is in ruin.
There’s a lot of frustration and anger simmering, and it eventually boils over as Terry and Virgil butt heads. Evan Narcisse writes some razor sharp barbs between both characters, especially since they both make very good points. Virgil is furious that Gotham started the Q-Grid ahead of schedule and that Terry came into his city, and he punctuates his sentences with rapid-fire claps. Terry also explodes that the mutagen in the Q-Grid is responsible for creating Shutdown, which is also true. Yet Narcisse also inserts a solid moment where Virgil gives Terry advice, hinting that the two might not be at each other’s throats for long.
I do question some of Terry’s characterization, though. He’s shown as seemingly being adrift without his Batsuit, yet one of the most iconic episodes of Batman Beyond showcases him taking on a rogue program that infected the suit and winning; that’s saying nothing of how he could handle himself in a fight before and after becoming Batman. At the same time, Narcisse gets that Terry is the furthest thing from Bruce Wayne, since the first thing he does is blow off a call from Wayne to check in on his mother, his brother, and his friend Matt.
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The style in Batman/Static Beyond #3 takes a sharp turn as Miguel Mendoca steps in for Nikolas Draper-Ivey. Mendoca takes a page from his predecessor’s book, opening the issue with an extremely tense scene where Static lays on death’s door and Terry comes up with a wild idea to save him. The following pages feature Batman rising into the night sky with Static in his arms, each other panel flashing with a massive bolt of golden lightning. If it weren’t for Terry’s vibrant red bat signal and said lightning – or the rest of the colors Wil Quintana brings to the table – there would be nothing but darkness.
In addition to other action-packed sequences, Mendoca even gets the chance to design some new heroes at the Tomorrow Institute in Dakota City. This is a concept that’s screaming with spinoff potential, especially when you consider Static’s origin. Virgil had to learn about his powers on his own, so it definitely makes sense that he would support a school for other metahumans to get the chance he never did. This also sets up the return of another character from Static’s past, and it’s one fans probably never expected but fits extremely well into this setting.
Batman/Static: Beyond #3 brings its heroes down to Earth, but also reminds readers that Virgil Hawkins and Terry McGinnis are more than their powers. Depowering a hero is always a gamble; doing it right proves why they endure, doing it wrong can have disastrous consequences. Thankfully this comic is doing it right.
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