Batman Beyond #10

Written by Dan Jurgens

Art by Bernard Chang

Colours by Marcelo Maiolo

Lettering by Travis Lanham

This issue starts out strong but the story overcomplicates itself, introducing a whole new threat when the one we had was interesting enough and could have been made more compelling. It seemed like the issue was repeating itself over and over, in that Bruce would ask something of Damian and he would simply tell him he was born for this. It was very repetitive.

Not only does the story become overcomplicated, but it also ends up being overexplained. Take the Joker for example. I found the backstory of him in the series' first arc seemed fine to me, but here Damian's motivations and his history with Bruce is so overanalysed to the point of annoyance. It ends up being so invasive that I completely forgot about Terry.

The big saving grace here is Bernard Chang's art. Chang pulls off a lot of awesome panel work. Just like the last issue, the fight scenes are well choreographed and are fun to look at. As for the exposition-heavy scenes in this issue, it's obvious Chang does as much as he can to make them interesting.

I was having fun with this arc but it seems to be two issues too long. I guess the next issue is going to be the arc's final issue, but it needed a severe cut down for the sake of pacing. Bernard Chang's art continues to stun, but the story was severely lacking.