Batman Beyond #5 And A Movie

Why is this a Gods and Monsters Batman cover?

Glancing through my Netflix recently watched scrollbar, I see I've watched quite a few movies since my last Batman Beyond Critique (is "critique" better than "review"? Because I don't really review the comic books I read and saying "reviews" always makes me feel like a slimy bastard). Let me comment briefly on all of them.

Would You Rather: This probably would have been more enjoyable with a more diverse set of Would You Rather Games instead of the whole "Would you rather hurt X with Y, or Z with I Messed Up Because There Is No Letter After Z But If There Were I Would Place It Here?" Maybe I would have liked it better if I wasn't distracted by screaming, "It's Crab Man!" and "That's Bob from Walking Dead!" and "It's The Penguin as a Douchebro!" and "Oh! Who is that guy? I fucking know that guy! He kind of looks like the weasel faced Upright Citizen's Brigade guy but it's not him! Oh! Oh! WHO THE FUCK IS THAT? It's right on the...OH! It's Peggy's journalist boyfriend from Mad Men!" Also I guessed the super twisty surprise ending somewhere around the time The Penguin was trying to rape the Pitch Perfect girl.

V/H/S: Viral: The least scary and interesting of the V/H/S movies so far. Although it did feature an alternate dimension where people had carnivorous genitals.

The Nightmare: A testimonial of sorts featuring people with sleep paralysis. Only one of the sufferers seems to view it in scientific terms while the others are wrapped up in the paranormal or religious mystery of their Sleep Paralysis Waking Dreams. It's interesting to compare them to schizophrenics in that they seem to (or feel the desire to?) believe that they're experiencing real phenomena that opens up the world to a more mysterious reality. But really they're just people who develop a kind of momentary schizophrenia while falling asleep or waking. The stories are fascinating. The need for meaning is not.

Monster Squad: I guess I saw this a long time ago when it first came out but I didn't remember it until watching the movie. It suffers from the fat kid trope where the fat kid is constantly eating. Plus everybody just calls him "fat kid." At one point, he staves off Dracula because he has a piece of garlic pizza stuffed inside his jacket in the way that all fat people always have a slice of pizza crammed into one of their pockets. I think characters say "fag" and "gay" a lot. At one point, Frankenstein takes a picture of the neighbor girl disrobing. One of the kids flashes the picture to her in order to blackmail her to tell them if she is a virgin or not (surprise twist ending: she isn't). I paused the Netflix to see the picture and it's a picture of her standing in front of a house fully clothed. Stupid PG movie.

Mad Ron's Prevues From Hell: This is a cheesy VHS movie from the late eighties that just strings together a bunch of sixties and seventies horror movie trailers. One trailer was for a movie called Africa: Blood and Guts. After all the fake, cheesy violence, it was disturbing that they'd throw in a trailer showing actual footage of wild animals and people being shot, as well as clips of real severed body parts and corpses. The tag line was "Every scene looks you straight in the eye...and spits!" It really wrecked my boner from the preview that was for a 3-D porn film.

Anyway. Batman Beyond, kids!

The entire future is a shit sundae not worth saving but Tim Drake is going to save it in a dusty suit of Honey Bunny Batman Armor anyway!

As Tim climbs into the Honey Bunny Batman Armor so that he can pretend he cares about saving this godawful future, he has a short conversation about Dick Grayson with Barbara Gordon. Most of it amounts to Dick and Babs liked each other but never got together (as far as Drake knows!). And some of it is actually nice dialogue by Dan Jurgens. I guess he's not too old to write something interesting or relevant on occasion.

Just imagine how Bruce felt when he realized Dick was also the perfect Batman.

Tim's plan is to take the fight out of Gotham and to the moon. If I were Tim, my plan would be to get bit by a vampire already, survive until the end of time gathering knowledge, take a time bubble back to the past, start an organization called NOWHERE which will gather up the best young super heroes in the world, and train them to defeat Brother Eye when he comes around. It should work out perfectly as long as his own young self and his team of teen misfits don't stop him!

But first Tim has to save Gotham and destroy Superman so that Superman doesn't grab his ankle to keep Tim from flying to the moon.

In the past, the Honey Bunny Bat Armor couldn't battle anybody without being shut down in five seconds or having its knee joints shot out. But now in the future, it's practically undefeatable against impossible to beat odds! I guess Batman made some improvements which the Powers Company didn't think of. During the battle, Matt McGinniss steals John Stewart's power ring.

Tim lures out Cyborg Superman (not that one) to distract him from the Moon Plan. But he also winds up attracting Cyborg Wonder Woman's attention as well. But then she attracts Micron's attention because he's a man, isn't he? I think he is. I don't know. Whatever. Cyborg Wonder Woman is so hot that everybody wants a piece of her.

Oh yeah, Micron! Wreck her!

Micron makes himself as large as possible and Wonder Woman's head blows off. He probably should have taken out Superman this way but maybe he felt awkward entering Superman through the only orifice Superman wouldn't have noticed.

Tim pops out of the Honey Bunny Bat Armor while Cyborg Superman is distracted, hops on Superman's back, and shoves Bruce's faithful kryptonite ring down Superman's throat. The only person able to dislodge it from Superman's throat via the Super Heimlich Maneuver is Superman! And now he's not so super because he has a kryptonite ring stuck in his throat! That's like ironic or a catch-22 or something. Maybe it's just a notably interesting conundrum?

Micron smashes Superman and it's over. With Cyborgs Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern taken out, there really aren't any DC super heroes left who can challenge Batman (even if it is only Tim Drake Batman in Jim Gordon's armor). Time to take the battle to the moon! But first they have to stop at an old Court of Owls property bought up by Bruce sometime in the last thirty years. Because hidden inside is the secret Macguffin that will help them destroy Brother Eye next issue! What is it?! I don't know! It's a secret until you pay another three dollars next month!

Where are all the magic using super heroes? They haven't all succumbed to cyborgism, have they? Did they all flee to hell in the House of Secrets and/or Mystery?

Batman Beyond #5 Rating: No change. Lately (and by "lately" I might mean since The New 52), a lot of DC's future or elseworld stories have been all idea and no story. I get the idea of coming up with the story about how Brother Eye takes over the future and how everybody reacts to it and battles against it in a pitch meeting, and how a lot of people would be excited for it. But without an interesting story to develop the idea, it's just a big letdown. Futures End was mostly that. It didn't even provide the satisfaction of having the heroes save the world! They failed. So now this comic book is about how the world deals with their failure. Great. Remember when superheroes were meant to be a shining beacon of what was possible? They represented humanity's optimism and never-say-die attitude? Remember how your life sucked but you could read a comic book and you realized you could also find the power within yourself to battle your problems and succeed? Well forget them! All the heroes eventually fail and die just like us! The future is a great big pit of suck and the only thing we all have to be thankful for is that we'll be too dead to experience it! Thanks for the uplifting message, DC Comics! Yeehaw.