Warning! Spoilers ahead for Batman: Beyond The White Knight #2
In the latest issue of DC Comics' Batman: Beyond the White Knight, Sean Murphy's alternate Gotham continues with Iron Man. Having broken out of prison to stop the new Batman that has emerged, Bruce Wayne ends up adopting two key traits that can be seen in the MCU's Iron Man 3, featuring a Tony Stark who's similarly grappling with a new status quo. Gaining an upgrade he never asked for, Bruce Wayne is now uniquely equipped in this new issue to track down Terry McGinnis who's become the new Batman.
Remixing the original Batman Beyond story, Terry McGinnis has no prior connection to Bruce Wayne in the alternate DC "Murphy-verse," having been hired by Derek Powers to steal an experimental Batsuit from the Batcave that was so dangerous Bruce Wayne refused to wear it. Becoming a dark Batman for hire, an imprisoned Bruce Wayne decided that only he can stop Terry and his new suit, escaping jail and taking to the rooftops once more. However, the first issue ended with Jack Napier (the former Joker) standing in front of Bruce, despite having died in the previous Curse of the White Knight storyline.
Now, Beyond the White Knight #2 sees Napier revealing that he's a hologram being projected from inside Bruce's own head as an artificial AI. Apparently, the real Napier stole a microchip from the Mad Hatter and inserted it into Bruce's head when he rendered the original Dark Knight unconscious in the past, ensuring that Batman would never be without the Joker. As such, Bruce justifiably starts suffering from a major panic attack in this new issue (bearing a unique resemblance to Iron Man).
Seeing as how Batman has a panic attack while gaining his own virtual Joker AI, it's not hard to see the similarities to Tony Stark in Iron Man 3. The MCU likewise saw Tony Stark being overwhelmed following the Battle of New York. In both cases, it's a great reminder that heroes are often still human, especially non-powered ones such as Tony and Bruce who rely on their own intellect and resources to save the day. Furthermore, the Napier hologram AI is basically a Joker-ized version of Jarvis who genuinely wants to help Bruce, monitoring his vitals and being able to hack into different systems just like Tony Stark's digital butler could (before he was transformed and became the Vision).
While Iron Man and Batman are often compared to each other, the shared panic attacks are certainly a new commonality between the two heroes. Usually, it's their wealth, tech, and minds that get compared across universes. At any rate, the new stress and Jack becoming an AI for Batman are certainly new dynamics being introduced to Murphy's take on the Dark Knight. As such, it's going to be interesting to see how Batman handles his new status quo as Beyond the White Knight continues from DC Comics.
