By Pepe Moreno, with dialogue by Doug Murray (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-9302-8987-4
It’s hard to credit now but not so long ago computers were a really big deal in comics. Not like today when digital colours, lettering and even drawing enhancement packages are part and parcel of the daily process of production, but simply for being the newest sort of pencil in town. Along with such products as Shatter from First Comics, and Marvel’s Iron Man: Crash (I’ll get to them another day), DC entered the market with a tale from Spanish wunderkind Pepe Moreno and their biggest gun, then riding high on the coattails of the Tim Burton Movie. So from the safe perspective of a few decades distance let’s take a look at Batman: Digital Justice.
Pepe Moreno moved America in 1977, briefly worked for Jim Warren’s Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella titles and gravitated to Heavy Metal where his short, uncompromising post-punk strips (collected in the album Zeppelin) caught the attention of Epic Illustrated editor Archie Goodwin. Generation Zero led to the graphic novels Rebel, Joe’s Air Force and Gene Kong. His growing fascination with technology led him into animation (Tiger Sharks, Thunder Cats and Silver Hawks) and eventually back to comics with this futuristic Bat-thriller.
The mid-21st Century: Gotham City has become Megatropolis, a sprawling, corrupt dystopia. Jim Gordon, honest cop and grandson of the Police Commissioner who worked with The Batman, loves his job but knows that something is very wrong with his city. The graft seems to go all the way to the top and even the ubiquitous flying robotic enforcers get more respect than the flesh and blood Force.
When his partner Lena is murdered he discovers that a computer program/virus based on the Joker’s brain patterns is the de facto ruler of the city. He adopts the identity and tactics of the fabled Caped Crusader but is still outmatched until the long-dormant Bat-Computer awakes and takes him under its digitised wing. Now with a new Robin and Catwoman he is ready for a final confrontation with The Batman’s greatest foe…
By our standards the artwork is pretty clunky, although I recall being quite impressed with it at the time, yet the real problem here is the story. This is a terribly ordinary premise that depended too much on the novelty of delivery rather than strong plot or characters, and doesn’t stand up well to the tests of time. This didn’t stop much of that premise resurfacing in the animated feature Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker though.
© 1990 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.