The Blight at the End of the Tunnel
The Good: It's going to get spoiled anyways, and if the involvement of Paxton Powers, the covers of the next 2 issues, or general Batman Beyond lore didn't make it obvious, BLIGHT RETURNS! One of Batman Beyond's most famous villains. Terry McGinnis' arc nemesis. I was so sad to see him die in the show, and now he's finally back.
Plus, although it bothered me at first, the more I looked at it, I'm kind of digging his new design. I hope it doesn't stick, but after his 'death' it makes sense.
I love the way Adam Beechen writes this comic with a pacing halfway between the show and a regular comic. It seems like it's mostly going to be these 3 issue arcs, which just about match the length of an episode, with the showcase of the next issue's title reminding me greatly of the way the episode titles were shown. Yet he also weaves subplots into the series, which couldn't be done as smoothly in an animated series like the show was.
Something's different about Ryan Benjamin's art this time around. The characters seem slightly more defined and I like it.
The action is smooth, crisp, and awesome.
The Bad: Dana breaks up with Terry. I always felt like even though they had their issues, they made such a great weirdly functioning couple. I dunno, maybe this is just personal feelings.
Batman Inc. I REALLY don't like injecting that into Batman Beyond continuity. If you think about it, it completely screws up the first episode. If Batman Inc. happened the way it did in the show's continuity, the entire first episode would be RIDICULOUSLY different. It's just a big continuity mess. Plus I just don't like the way it's shoehorned into the plot. Like nobody thought of it until Nightwing brought it up and then it's as if suddenly the whole world remembered all at once. And thus I didn't like the way it worked into the plot here with everyone accusing Batman of being Bruce Wayne's lapdog. Because, well, he kind of is. And it's all just rather off.
In Conclusion: 4/5
I am just LOVING this new story arc, and really the flow of arc in general. First we had Hush (2 part episode) and then The Justice League, and now The Return of Blight. I'm probably caught up in Blight hype, but overall this issue flowed very well, and so has the series as a whole. The Batman Inc. thing is REALLY bothering me, and I hope they start to downplay it or completely omit it as the series goes on, but overall I'm really excited about this arc.
