Terry McGinnis and Virgil Hawkins have a long history together, ever since the classic Batman Beyond/Static Shock crossover episode “Future Shock,” all the way up to their team-up in the Milestone Comics 30th anniversary one-shot a few years ago. Now, the dynamic duo are back with an all-new comic series, with the help of a familiar face to longtime io9 readers.
Today DC Comics officially lifted the lid on Batman/Static Beyond, a new six-issue miniseries coming to its Elseworlds comics imprint. Featuring art from Nikolas Draper-Ivey, who wrote and illustrated Terry and Virgil’s team-up in “Static Beyond” for the aforementioned Milestone 30th Anniversary Special in 2023, the new series will be penned by Evan Narcisse—writer behind Rise of the Black Panther, Waller vs. Wildstorm (alongside Spencer Ackerman), and more, and of course, a comics journalist who previously worked at both Kotaku and io9!
“I loved the dynamic Nik set up between Static and Batman in the Milestone 30th Anniversary Special where these characters first teamed up with each other,” Narcisse said in a press release. “The most exciting part of this new project has been exploring how different Terry and Virgil are from each other.”
Batman/Static Beyond will see Terry and Virgil working together as humanity finds itself on the cusp of huge societal change: planet Earth’s submission into an interstellar coalition of worlds known as the Cooperative, ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity for the world, off the back of Virgil’s technological genius and the invention of the Q-Wave Energy Grid. But when a nefarious villain attempts to foil Earth’s new age with a global blackout, Batman Beyond and Static will have to forgo their technological prowess and work together to save the day in a more grounded manner.
“This story is intended to be a commentary on our overreliance on technology and the imminent dangers of becoming complacent and too comfortable using AI to substitute our own imagination and human ingenuity,” Draper-Ivey added. “We now use our watches to find our phones, we use our phones to connect to everything else. We don’t rely on our own memories. We rely on technology to remember for us. That deeply concerns me. I worry that we are getting to a point where if all these things were to be suddenly taken away from us in an instant—at the rate we’re going now, humanity will be at a huge disadvantage.”
The new series will tackle how Terry and Virgil see each other, inspired by their dynamic in “Static Beyond”—a rough and ready young hero in Terry, still wrestling with inheriting the duties of the Dark Knight, and Virgil, who’s already worked through being a teen hero and grown up to be a key member of the Justice League.
“Static is a former teen hero who grew up to take on even more responsibility for his city and the larger world, while Terry is still figuring out how to do those things in his own way,” Narcisse explained. “Terry’s still a high school student but he’s also got the weight of the Batman mantle and the expectations that come with it as key parts of his life now. As an adult member of the Justice League, Virgil’s at a different part of his journey. But he’s driven by an adolescence where systemic injustice changed what it meant to live in his hometown of Dakota.”
“Their approaches to making the world a safer, more just place are extremely different. That difference energizes the big question they have to deal with,” Narcisse continued. “Can they learn to work together during a critical moment when everything they’ve taken for granted has fallen apart?”
Batman/Static Beyond‘s first issue will hit shelves November 12.
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