In the heart of Gotham, far beneath its surface, Terry and Kyle Selina the Catboi find themselves in the Garden. After four issues of teasing a supernatural, botanical entity that has been kidnapping children, we finally see the subterranean entity for what it is. So what has all the build up been for? Would you believe me if I said some mindless monster fights and a nonsensical twist? If that surprises you, then you may be new to the series. Once again this feels like the culmination of all the series' writing flaws, brought to bombastic display.
None of that plant stuff matters. I know; that's been the hook for this entire mini, but just forget any excitement you had about what "The Garden" might be. All you get is a meaningless fight against three plant-based DC characters: Poison Ivy, Black Orchid, and Swamp Thing. Except, they're not actually characters. They're mindless obstacles that Terry and Kyle have to fight. I'm not even sure if it's supposed to actually be them or if it's some sort of illusion. I hope it's the latter, because then the issue's crime is just a clickbait cover that doesn't reflect the content. If it's the former, then it's a huge disservice to these characters (but that gets worse later).
This series is no stranger to mindless spectacle fights. Back in issue #2 I even praised the Killer Croc battle, which could be described the same way. It's true that these fights very rarely have any narrative or emotional weight, but they were at least visually fun. This is just boring on every level. I won't call Max Dunbar's art here bad, it's fine, but it definitely does not salvage the writing. Each of the three plant monsters are entirely monochrome, robbing them of any real visual identity. The fight itself comes across as almost entirely static, with lots of posing and bog standard punch panels. Even the big villain reveal is hampered by a design that almost feels like a less interesting version of the plant Batman from last issue.
With uninteresting art and a trio of villains we have no real reason to care about, it feels like a mercy that what was supposedly the climax is ended quickly. Terrible one liners and cat puns (honest to God, at one point Kyle tells us he's "meowt of gas") make the first ten pages a slog, despite their sparse content. What's left of the story is a twist that is just awful.
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It turns out that this was all orchestrated by an evil John Constantine. Why is Constantine in this? It was bad enough in last month's flashback where we learned that he gave Kyle all his curses to keep on living, but this has evolved into a full blown character assassination. Yeah, he's a bastard; no one's going to refute that. What he isn't is this solipsistic monster who would damn others for his own gain. Even the Constantine that Terry says Bruce "used to talk about" is cruel and wildly out of character, so this isn't some in-universe development that might be explained by a recent heel turn.
Even if you ignore his apparent willingness to ruin someone's life for his own gain or hurt children (and that one feels especially egregious), the whole plan makes no sense. I'm sure we'll get some contrived semi-justification in the final issue about how he felt this was necessary, and we get a bit of that here, but you couldn't pick a worse person to do that with. Constantine's whole thing is rebelling against the authority of the type of people who think they know what's best for others. The villain of this story is not the man who had an entire issue attacking the Thatcher administration.
If you're a fan of the character, this hurts to read. If you're not, then this whole reveal lacks any sort of punch or emotional weight whatsoever.
While Terry and Kyle are fighting the main villain down below, we can't forget about Lumos topside. Well... maybe we should. Both this series and Batman Beyond: Neo-Year seem to love toying with the idea of him being morally ambiguous, but it doesn't work at all. In the last series he was an unbelievably heavy-handed satire of a rich capitalist, cartoonish to the point of undercutting the intended message. Now he's a maniacally laughing real-estate developer driving out the poor from their homes as he gloats and laughs. Par for the course for the kind of character he was from before, but every now and then we're expected to buy into the idea that he might not be all that bad and truly does want what's ultimately best for Gotham.
It's borderline insulting to expect the reader to not immediately dismiss the idea. If it's true that he's "not all bad" then it's completely incompatible with everything shown of him so far. Otherwise it's the most telegraphed and obvious façade imaginable and a waste of everyone's time. We don't buy it and neither do the characters. I'm aware that it can feel obligatory to have the scheming industrialist in a piece of cyberpunk fiction, but they need to be a bit more deftly handled than this. Dr. Eldon Tyrell he is not.
Recommended If…
- Gotham's villains don't matter any more than acting as people to punch
- You could never get enough of poorly executed, heavy handed social commentary
- You never cared about a certain Scouser Sorcerer
Overall
Batman Beyond: Neo-Gothic #5 is a bad comic. What once was a series that relied on spectacle over substance doesn't even have spectacle to rely on anymore. The plot beats are a mix of disposable afterthoughts and bewilderingly bad narrative decisions. Anyone who is a fan of the classic DC characters featured in this issue will walk away either disappointed or angry at their mishandling. The saving grace is knowing that the story is almost over.
Score: 2.5/10
Disclaimer: DC Comics provided Batman-News with a copy of this comic for the purpose of this review.