Batman, Static Team Up In “Beyond” Crossover Comic

DC just announced a team-up comic where Batman, the “Beyond” version, meets and teams up with superhero Static. If this particular pairing interests you, you are clearly of a specific age.

Batman Beyond, and the character of Terry McGinnis, were introduced in Bruce Timm’s 1999 series on Kids WB, a sequel to the landmark Batman: The Animated Series. One year later, the same network adapted Dwayne McDuffie’s Static character for television in a series called Static Shock. Both shows took place in the same universe, but in different time periods — not that this was a problem when you’ve got superhero logic to play with. A crossover episode titled “Future Shock” allowed Static to travel to Terry’s time and team up with him there.

But that’s the animated continuity. Static and Terry have never met in the comics, where Terry was introduced after becoming popular on TV. Batman/Static: Beyond will be written by Evan Narcisse (Rise of the Black Panther) and drawn by Nikolas Draper-Ivey (Static: Shadows of Dakota). Unlike the TV crossover, there’s no time travel here: it’s an older Static who’s alive and still doing the hero thing in Terry’s time.

Neither have revealed exactly why these two need to team up, but they say “the world is struck by a global technological blackout [and] Static and Batman Beyond align to save it.” Draper-Ivey adds, “This story is intended to be a commentary on our overreliance on technology and the imminent dangers becoming complacent and too comfortable using AI to substitute our own imagination and human ingenuity.”

Batman/Static: Beyond will be a six-issue miniseries. Look out for the first of these issues in the near future, November 12.