Terry McGinnis just lost everything in Batman: Urban Legends #7, and now the future Dark Knight must forge a new path in the Batman Beyond universe.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers from “Batman Beyond: Wake” in Batman: Urban Legends #7, on sale now from DC Comics.
Terry McGinnis was always set up as the future inheritor of the title of Batman. And for a while, that seemed to imply that he would pick up where the Dark Knight left off, just with futuristic technology and his own brand of colorful rogues. But in Batman: Urban Legends #7 (by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Max Dunbar, Sebastian Cheng, and Aditya Bidikar), Terry’s world was turned upside down when Bruce Wayne was murdered. In the ensuing investigation, Terry was forced to shut down the Batcave and all of its assets, leaving himself without a mentor or resources to fall back on. But even more pressing was Bruce’s final request: that Terry find a way to make the concept of Batman evolve beyond vengeance. All of this sets Terry up to go beyond the legacy of Bruce Wayne.
Terry found Bruce dying in the Batcave, his pacemaker having been hacked. Going on a investigation throughout the city, Terry eventually traced the killer back to the Batcave, where it was revealed that Bruce was killed by a collection of networks that eventually gained consciousness. Terry attempted to shut down the Batcomputer, thus destroying it, but Living Gotham fought back and tried to subdue Terry with a mechanical Batman, forcing him to shut down the entire cave, rendering it nonfunctional to him and a prison for the Living Gotham.
But the aftermath of this final battle placed Terry on a bold new path. The closest thing he had to a father was gone, as was any lingering help his mentor might have been able to bequeath to him from beyond the grave. This leaves the future Batman in an appropriately similar situation to the Batman of the present day, left without the resources that he is accustomed to and forced to adapt to a city that is rapidly descending into chaos.
But anyone who wears the cape and cowl knows that being Batman is about more than just using fancy gadgets. It’s about being a symbol to the residents of Gotham, and protecting them from the darkest corners of the city. But this time around, Terry has to not only reinvent the way he fights crime, but the way he presents himself as Batman.
Bruce’s last request to Terry was that he change what the Batman meant to people. As Bruce explained it, the only thing Batman meant to anyone now was vengeance, which wasn’t the intended goal of the alter ego. Bruce wanted Batman to mean more than the vengeance of a young boy who lost his world in an alleyway. He wanted it to be a comfort to those who were afraid to step out onto the streets of Gotham at night. Batman was meant to be a guardian angel, not an avenging demon.
But it was too late for Bruce to change that by the time he died. His time had long since passed. He could only hope that Terry would do better with the mantle that was entrusted to him. He trusted that McGinnis could still be the Batman that Gotham City really needs.
In Terry he saw someone who looked at being Batman as a path to redemption and becoming a better version of himself. Terry views the title as a means to uplift himself and by extension others, not merely an outlet for all the pain he feels. And that pure intention for wearing the suit gave Bruce the hope that Terry would create a better legacy for the Bat.
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