Fans of Batman Beyond and Static Shock, get ready — the two heroes will come together once again in the DC Elseworlds miniseries Batman/Static: Beyond by Evan Narcisse and Nikolas Draper-Ivey.
The duo previously teamed up on the Static Shock animated series when Static went forward in time and ended up helping Terry McGinnis, the future Batman, save Static’s future self. They also appeared together most recently in the pages of the Milestone 30th Anniversary Special.
This story will take place in the future, showing us more of the adult version of Static, as well as Justice League Beyond.
“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 said. “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: can they learn to work together during a critical moment when everything they’ve taken for granted has fallen apart? The whole creative team is going to try and answer that question in Batman/Static: Beyond with a story where deep emotions collide against the backdrop of an uncertain future.”
Here’s what to expect from the story:
In the debut issue, Terry McGinnis patrols the neon-lit streets of Neo-Gotham while Virgil Hawkins pioneers a technological revolution with the launch of the Q-Wave Energy Grid. As Earth prepares to join a powerful interplanetary alliance called the Cooperative, the Justice League Beyond stands ready to usher in a new era of peace. But when a mysterious villain triggers a global blackout, the planet’s future hangs in the balance. With technology crippled and chaos rising, Static and Batman Beyond must forge an unlikely alliance and take a grounded approach to saving the world before it’s too late.
“This story is intended to be a commentary on our over-reliance on technology and the imminent dangers becoming complacent and too comfortable using AI to substitute our own imagination and human ingenuity,” said Draper-Ivey. “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 first issue will have variant covers by Dustin Nguyen, Rahzzah, and Denys Cowan and Ho Che Anderson:
The six-issue series kicks off Nov. 12.