Batman Beyond's Joker Return Takes a Page from Nolan's Batman Begins

SPOILER WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman Beyond #25 by Dan Jurgens, Cully Hamner, Marco Santucci, Travis Lanham and Val Staples.

Fans of the Batman Beyond comics have been waiting patiently for the return of Bruce Wayne's biggest arch-nemesis, the Joker. He was thought to be dead in this universe, but after the timeline-altering Futures End, it looks like he's survived to take on this relatively newly-minted Dark Knight.

With Terry McGinnis and the rest of the Bat-family firmly set in his crosshairs, the Joker decides to announce his comeback with the biggest bang possible. Thus, the Clown Prince of Crime brings a wave of devastation like never before to Neo-Gotham, in the process taking a bloody page straight from Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.

Thankful to be alive after a brush with death, Bruce wants to see his parents' legacy through, and turns Crime Alley (where they were killed) into The Wayne Family Center of Tomorrow -- a new technology hub to shape this city as the most advanced in the world. He believes this is the ultimate form of charity, literally building hope and optimism on a landmark that has been surrounded by death. However, as Dick Grayson, mayor of Blüdhaven, and the rest of Gotham attend the ceremony in high praise, Joker hijacks a train with murderous intent.

He kills the driver, sets a remote that pilots it at the highest speed possible and then diverts it off the rails, crashing it into the Center of Tomorrow. Dick, his daughter Elainna and Bruce are rescued by Terry and his brother Matt -- suited up as Batman and Robin -- but they can't find Joker, who's hiding and basking in the chaos. This is Neo Gotham's greatest terrorist act ever, and Joker makes it clear he's just getting started.

If this sounds familiar, well, it should; in Nolan's 2005 reboot starring Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader, the finale saw a similar terrorist plot unfold. Ra's al Ghul hijacked a train in the exact fashion Joker did, and sent it around Gotham with a microwave emitter onboard, vaporizing water lines all over the city and spreading Scarecrow's fear toxin everywhere.

To stop this, Batman had Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) blow the track, which led to the train crashing into Wayne Tower, though there were minimal casualties as the building had already been evacuated by then. In this case, the crash was Batman's plan, and not the villain's, as he had no choice but to find somewhere late at night that was relatively unpopulated. That said, the common denominator when it comes to both Ra's and the Joker Beyond's scheme is, for some reason, they love using the rapid-rail as a means of destruction to make both the Dark Knight and Gotham hurt.

Joker's terror plot does leave us with a few questions, however. In Batman Begins, Ra's trained Bruce and knew he was Batman, and here, it seems that Joker (who hid in the crowd, watching the philanthropist's speech) also knows that the last surviving Wayne moonlights, or used to, as a vigilante. Or it could be he just wanted any spectacle to turn into bloodshed and Bruce's crown jewel was merely coincidence. Only time will tell because as it stands, the Joker's return is one of DC's best-kept mysteries.

We don't even know for sure if he's really the Joker of old, because he does look more middle-aged, a la Dick or Barbara Gordon, as opposed to a truly old-timer a la Bruce. His hate for copycats does indicate he's the real deal though, but still, in the animated Return of the Joker movie, Tim Drake was programmed with nanotech to turn into a carbon copy of the Joker, so we'll just have to wait and see how the madman managed to come back to haunt Bruce.

CBR

Batman Beyond's Joker Return Takes a Bloody Page from Nolan's Batman Begins