Comic Review – Is Batman: Beyond the White Knight Worth The Hype?

The White Knight series is generally considered one of the better Batman runs of its time. After reading and loving the original series (and to a lesser extent, Curse of The White Knight), I was excited to sink my teeth into the third part of the saga, Beyond the White Knight. I didn’t know what to expect as there was a massive timeskip, but I was pleasantly surprised by most aspects of the run. In this blog, I hope to give you three main reasons as to why you should read this run for yourself (as well as the other entries in the series if you haven’t already).

REASON ONE: THE ARTWORK

I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I’ve always found myself enamoured by the art of Sean Murphy. Maybe it’s the more “cartoonish” style of his drawings, or his character designs being reminiscent of the original Batman Animated Series. Regardless of what it is, the art in the White Knight series stays incredibly consistent throughout, making it easily recognizable as a series staple. Every panel is colorful and vibrant, with things never feeling uninteresting. The art of White Knight is well-detailed, but streamlined in a way that is straightforward for the average reader.

REASON TWO: THE WRITING

This might be obvious to anyone who’s read any of the White Knight comics, but to those who haven’t, Sean Murphy’s writing is clearly inspired by the Batman cartoons of the ’90s (The Animated Series and Batman Beyond). As I said before, Murphy’s character designs and writing of said characters are very clearly inspired by these shows. Even the overall plots of the comics feel like they could be lost episode ideas. As a fan of both shows, I can appreciate the mixture of old cartoon lore with Murphy’s spin on certain characters like Red Hood and Nightwing. Strictly speaking about Beyond the White Knight, I really enjoyed the character arcs of Nightwing in the GTO (the “Gotham Terrorist Oppression Unit”) and Jason training his own Robin. The dynamic between Batman and Hologram Joker in this run also stands out to me, because of the (often funny) back-and-forths between the two. The original White Knight comic also has some well-thought-out writing, with the general idea of Joker becoming mayor to imprison Batman always staying in my mind.

REASON THREE: THE ENDING

Without going into spoiler territory, Beyond the White Knight is a great ending to the White Knight trilogy while also setting up new territory for the next entry to go in. Honestly, it feels like the next logical step considering what characters it implements. I am also interested in how differently Murphy will write these characters. Beyond also does a good job of wrapping the character arcs of Bruce, Dick, Jason, Joker, and Terry up (for now!)