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Batman: Elseworlds #Digital Justice
Batman: Digital Justice
100 years into the future, a computer virus calling itself "the Joker" is menacing the world's banking and business systems. In this "Batman" adventure, the latest advances in high-definition computer technology have been brought to the comic-book medium.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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144 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
November 5, 2024
I've owned this forever and couldn't remember if I'd actually read it.
Okay, it's not terrible. James Gordon's descendent, also named James Gordon, winds up taking up the mantle of Batman in a techno-dystopian setting. There are parts of I liked. The computer created art is painfully dated, though.
Okay, it's not terrible. James Gordon's descendent, also named James Gordon, winds up taking up the mantle of Batman in a techno-dystopian setting. There are parts of I liked. The computer created art is painfully dated, though.
May 4, 2022
Under-rated… I was thinking this was going to be real cheesy however after reading this book I was pleasantly surprised. The Dystopia This book created is not so different than the future we are about to see. 😧
December 13, 2017
Have you ever wanted to read a Batman comic with 1980s video game art? Well if so than this is the book for you. Digital Justice is a blatant ripoff of Tron and Blade Runner with Jim Gordon literally being Deckard. And Joker and Batman being reimagined as computer programs. It’s a neat concept, but executed so poorly in this graphic novel. The art is 3D and obviously looks dated but it’s still cool in a retro sort of way. The one big problem I have with this graphic novel is the text. There is way to much needless and boring dialogue and this really brings it down to me. Which is sad because if it had just been a little less wordy in the beginning it might have actually been something interesting but there is to much dialogue in excessive world building. Elseworlds stories are good when they are fun and simple not over-explained.
The story does start to get a little bit better when Batman FINALLY shows up later on and so does a raver version of Catwoman and a skateboarding Robin. But the pacing in the first half was extremely sluggish and it took way to long to get to these characters. And just when you think it’s going to stay good it doesnt. Robin and Catwoman are thrown in literally just to be there and their presence detracts from the book. The ending is ok, but overall this was a really sloppy story that could have been something special had they just focused more on the characters and not the setting. Perhaps this idea would have been better suited for a video game. Grant Morrison did a similar (and better) type of story with the last few issues of the first Batman Incorporated series he did so give that a try if you want something similar.
The story does start to get a little bit better when Batman FINALLY shows up later on and so does a raver version of Catwoman and a skateboarding Robin. But the pacing in the first half was extremely sluggish and it took way to long to get to these characters. And just when you think it’s going to stay good it doesnt. Robin and Catwoman are thrown in literally just to be there and their presence detracts from the book. The ending is ok, but overall this was a really sloppy story that could have been something special had they just focused more on the characters and not the setting. Perhaps this idea would have been better suited for a video game. Grant Morrison did a similar (and better) type of story with the last few issues of the first Batman Incorporated series he did so give that a try if you want something similar.
January 3, 2018
Very Weird one! So I'm spending some time at my dads place, meanwhile he's busy reading through his entire comic collection which he started doing several years ago; finally he got to this one which I can now read. Going in I had never heard of this one, all I knew it was futuristic and Digital (So the title says, its not justice, its Digital Justice!). Basically this was released in the 80s and this is a representation of what people thought the future would be (Allow me to go back in time and laugh at them!). So the story is set in the distant future, Batman is long dead and Gotham (Not called Gotham, its now future city or something like that), The police force still exists but they are pushed aside by these hovercraft robot things called Servos, with heavy duty guns and they shoot to kill, no matter who you are; Jim Gordon's grandson by the same name is the one good cop who wants to help people in a corrupt city controlled rogue A.I. and sci stuff; Basically its ROBOCOP, Blade Runner and Tron all in one book, does that make it good? Not really. I mean the story isn't terrible, its a competent book, but its not ground breaking or really something you have to read as a Batman fan. It definitely made me grin at things, again back what they thought would be the future; there was one scene where the new Batman gets his high tech suit, and one point he is told his suit has 10GBs of storage space, more then any other technology...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
As for the artwork, its all digital stuff from the 80s, which I can imagine at the time must have been revolutionary, but now it looks really weird and dated. The A.I. designs looked like half made, pixelated faces you would make in a CAD program. Also there is a lack of any cool action scenes; there is action, but they always cut to after and you never really see anything.
But overall this was an okay read, whether you skip it or not, it wont really affect your Batman reading.
As for the artwork, its all digital stuff from the 80s, which I can imagine at the time must have been revolutionary, but now it looks really weird and dated. The A.I. designs looked like half made, pixelated faces you would make in a CAD program. Also there is a lack of any cool action scenes; there is action, but they always cut to after and you never really see anything.
But overall this was an okay read, whether you skip it or not, it wont really affect your Batman reading.
Want to read
January 22, 2013Cuando era chico me moría por leer esta historieta. Ahora que soy adulto, no. Pero como lo vi a un precio bastante bueno y en un estado más que zafable, decidí darle un gusto a ese niño (que tampoco es que lo tenga muy escondido, la verdad), y me mandé de cabeza. Ahora, esperemos que la historia sea buena, porque el "dibujo"... Bueno, era lo mejor que se podía hacer con una compu en su momento.
March 2, 2013
The story is OK, but the art is really dated. It may have been ground-breaking in 1990, but now it looks really poor. You won't miss much if you skip this Batman story.
February 21, 2016
Average Batman story. The computer drawn art was a neat idea but didn't translate well. Maybe with the better computers of today it would have been better. Recommended
January 29, 2026
A tough read after years of modern digital art, but it has its moments. Some of the story beats feel almost prophetic as well.
January 24, 2018
Parece ser que en los años 90 a algún "brillante" ejecutivo de DC se le ocurrió la novedosa idea de hacer un cómic de Batman usando o aplicándole los gráficos que tenía cualquier videojuego para computadora de la época. El problema fue que se buscaron a un tipo que no era guionista ni dibujante, y mucho menos experto en informática...
June 9, 2022
Para apreciarlo hay que situarse en el contexto histórico, en la fecha en la que salió. Lo leí hace muchísimos años, recuerdo que me pareció interesante, pero bien es cierto que su lectura no aporta nada especial. Simplemente es un cómic anecdótico. Batman tiene mejores elseworlds.
April 15, 2019
Edición española en tapa dura. Tal como anuncia la portada, se trata de un comic Realizado por ordenador, algo bastante novedoso para la época.
March 28, 2021
Batman: Digital Justice is an Elseworlds graphic novel published by DC Comics in 1990, written and penciled by Pepe Moreno.
Set at the end of the next century (presumably the 21st), Gotham City is dominated by high technology, particularly computer networks and their human controllers, long after the original Batman has died. The story revolves around James Gordon, Gotham City Police Department detective and grandson of Commissioner James Gordon, who takes on the identity of the Batman to free the city from a sentient computer virus crafted by the Joker, also now long dead, and to avenge the death of his partner Lena Schwartz.
Pepe Moreno penned the entire trade paperback. For the most part, it is written moderately well. Moreno has created the typical cyberpunk world, which humanity is controlled mostly by the advent of computers. With the typical attempt to use the return of the hero trope, the narrative seems a tad derivative, but written somewhat well nevertheless.
Moreno does double duty as the penciler of the trade paperback. Since he was the only penciler, the artistic flow of the trade paperback flowed exceptionally well. For the most part, Moreno's penciling is mediocre at best – it could boast to being one of the first, if not the first, comic to be rendered in digital art over traditional media – and it shows as the art is typical of the computer graphics of the early 1990s when digital art was at its infancy.
All in all, Batman: Digital Justice is an interesting experiment of making a comic book entirely of digital art, but the story and outcome is mediocre at best and much to be desired.
Set at the end of the next century (presumably the 21st), Gotham City is dominated by high technology, particularly computer networks and their human controllers, long after the original Batman has died. The story revolves around James Gordon, Gotham City Police Department detective and grandson of Commissioner James Gordon, who takes on the identity of the Batman to free the city from a sentient computer virus crafted by the Joker, also now long dead, and to avenge the death of his partner Lena Schwartz.
Pepe Moreno penned the entire trade paperback. For the most part, it is written moderately well. Moreno has created the typical cyberpunk world, which humanity is controlled mostly by the advent of computers. With the typical attempt to use the return of the hero trope, the narrative seems a tad derivative, but written somewhat well nevertheless.
Moreno does double duty as the penciler of the trade paperback. Since he was the only penciler, the artistic flow of the trade paperback flowed exceptionally well. For the most part, Moreno's penciling is mediocre at best – it could boast to being one of the first, if not the first, comic to be rendered in digital art over traditional media – and it shows as the art is typical of the computer graphics of the early 1990s when digital art was at its infancy.
All in all, Batman: Digital Justice is an interesting experiment of making a comic book entirely of digital art, but the story and outcome is mediocre at best and much to be desired.
August 22, 2020
This is very awful, but I am glad I read it.
There are ideas here from 1990 that would be recycled in Batman's pre Infinite Crisis and New 52 continuity. Overall it is a decrepit, mutant hellspawn of Frank Miller's Dark Knight future gleanings + Batman Beyond twinkles and the TV series ReBoot that would come out 4 years later.
The graphics are very dated and copy pasted in places to pad out a script that is already needlessly padded. The introduction tells you a bit of information about the world and about 35 pages later, Pepe spends too many pages of talking heads reiterating that explanation in a more drawn out way that adds nothing to the plot except speed bumps. And those 35 pages in between are mostly Blade Runner mood-apeing drivel to try to get us interested in this world and its characters, but instead just add annoyance because of the future speak jargon that has no context.
You owe it to yourself to at least check out the Max Headroom inspired (from 1985) renditions of Joker and Batman.
The back cover said this took one whole year to produce with cutting edge technology that was often in Beta stages at the time of use. I would estimate only one day out of those 365 was spent on the story.
There are ideas here from 1990 that would be recycled in Batman's pre Infinite Crisis and New 52 continuity. Overall it is a decrepit, mutant hellspawn of Frank Miller's Dark Knight future gleanings + Batman Beyond twinkles and the TV series ReBoot that would come out 4 years later.
The graphics are very dated and copy pasted in places to pad out a script that is already needlessly padded. The introduction tells you a bit of information about the world and about 35 pages later, Pepe spends too many pages of talking heads reiterating that explanation in a more drawn out way that adds nothing to the plot except speed bumps. And those 35 pages in between are mostly Blade Runner mood-apeing drivel to try to get us interested in this world and its characters, but instead just add annoyance because of the future speak jargon that has no context.
You owe it to yourself to at least check out the Max Headroom inspired (from 1985) renditions of Joker and Batman.
The back cover said this took one whole year to produce with cutting edge technology that was often in Beta stages at the time of use. I would estimate only one day out of those 365 was spent on the story.
June 5, 2020
I first heard of this book when I was in college, with dreams of using these newfangled "computer graphics" to be an illustrator for a newspaper or magazine. As a result, this graphic novel, possibly the first mainstream comic graphic novel featuring entirely computer-generated art, was pretty much the most awesome-sounding thing ever. But with a price tag of $24.95 – which was a lot of money in those days, particularly for a college student – all I ever did was hear about it and see the cover. Three decades after its release, though, I was able to pick up a copy without breaking the bank, so I finally did.
And, man, it's SO 1990. The computer graphics are very computer graphicy, and it's so proud of that fact. It might have blown me away back then. It didn't now. But it was entertaining, in no small part for its earnest of-the-momentness.
And, man, it's SO 1990. The computer graphics are very computer graphicy, and it's so proud of that fact. It might have blown me away back then. It didn't now. But it was entertaining, in no small part for its earnest of-the-momentness.
October 26, 2023
C’est de loin la pire histoire de Batman que j’ai lu à présent.
Écrit dans les années 90’s, l’équipe derrière la BD semble très fière de préciser sur la couverture que la BD a été créé entièrement à l’ordinateur.
On part de loin.
J’ai vu la BD dans un librairie de livres usagés; je savais que visuellement parlant, ça serait un retour aux années 90’s! Et on est pas déçu!
Par contre, l’histoire et les dialogues. En fait, la prémisse, même si déjà vu, est ok. Mais on se demande à quoi tout ça rime.. et Batman n’apparaît vraiment que dans le dernier!
On a vraiment un goût de « tout est long », mais « tout est précipité »!
(Enfin, les dialogues m’ont fait abandonner la BD au moins 3-4 fois dans les derniers mois.)
Bref! Vraiment exclusivement pour les collectionneurs hardcores qui veulent avoir une copie de Batman avec une touche Megabots!
Écrit dans les années 90’s, l’équipe derrière la BD semble très fière de préciser sur la couverture que la BD a été créé entièrement à l’ordinateur.
On part de loin.
J’ai vu la BD dans un librairie de livres usagés; je savais que visuellement parlant, ça serait un retour aux années 90’s! Et on est pas déçu!
Par contre, l’histoire et les dialogues. En fait, la prémisse, même si déjà vu, est ok. Mais on se demande à quoi tout ça rime.. et Batman n’apparaît vraiment que dans le dernier!
On a vraiment un goût de « tout est long », mais « tout est précipité »!
(Enfin, les dialogues m’ont fait abandonner la BD au moins 3-4 fois dans les derniers mois.)
Bref! Vraiment exclusivement pour les collectionneurs hardcores qui veulent avoir une copie de Batman avec une touche Megabots!
November 4, 2019
A charming relic of an early digital age. Low-polygonal models mixed with digitized photos and pixel art, it fails mostly because there's no overall consistency. You can see the edges of the polygons and see how the pixellated characters were put on backgrounds rendered in different resolutions. Probably since the tools were such a pain back in the day (I'd imagine also very slow), the backgrounds are often non-existent or have very low details, just like in manga. Storywise it's pretty simple - a dystopian future is controlled by the Joker Virus and the digital copy of Batman is restored from backups to help free the people.
September 24, 2020
This was much better than the "hype" led me to believe.
I really liked the fact that Batman's reveal was delayed until halfway through. It gave the writers time to develop this new version of Gotham City. Other Elseworlds comics might have been better, if they'd done this.
The dialogue is very stiff, but that's my only criticism. It may be a ripoff of Blade Runner and Tron, but its fun, so who cares?
I really liked the fact that Batman's reveal was delayed until halfway through. It gave the writers time to develop this new version of Gotham City. Other Elseworlds comics might have been better, if they'd done this.
The dialogue is very stiff, but that's my only criticism. It may be a ripoff of Blade Runner and Tron, but its fun, so who cares?
June 24, 2023
Story-wise this is so fucking bland. Takes the most by-the-numbers route through what a cyber-punk Batman story would be. There is something compelling about the art, even if it has that gimmicky computer-generated aspect, and there's a scene where the digital Joker waxes poetic that features the only attempt to scratch at something deeper. Scenes like that don't save this book, though. Could've have been better, maybe even revolutionary. Just read The Dark Knight Strikes Again instead.
February 21, 2019
This was a pretty big deal in the early 1990's, but it has aged very poorly. The computer-generated art is stiff, although occasional panels are kind of cool. The story is ill-defined, and almost reads like a parody of the cyber-punk books that were popular at the time. The plot is clunky, and it's not nearly as clever or deep as it wants to be.
March 8, 2019
I still have to process this weird little gem a bit more. It's crazy and weird and groundbreaking but it has definitely not aged too gracefully both in terms of writing and art. The story is a bit confusing, with elements popping up out of nowhere (such as the kiss scene), the constant talk of Big Brother, and the art may give you a headache. Despite that I still... Recommend this?
October 1, 2023
In the far future, Gotham is a technological megatropolis controlled by a cabal of AI programs manipulating society through the criminal justice system and media. Jim Gordon, grandson of Commissioner Gordon, is a hardboiled police detective looking to expose Gotham's deep corruption who dons the cape and cowl inspired by the legend of the Batman. More importantly, the art is all computer generated using early 1990s rendering software.
I came into this expecting fun schlock like some outdated visuals, cheesy dialogue, and overwrought technobabble (and boy did I get it!) but I was surprisingly charmed by the overall package. While the story nor the writing is exceptional I found it far more compelling than the presentation led me to believe it would be. Digital Justice put far more effort into developing Gotham into a dystopic techno-state than I expected and what results is genuinely more intriguing than the majority of Bat titles I've read.
However, the real draw of this book is the art and it is fucking *glorious*. A combination of Doom-like sprite imagery (often badly aliased), Tron inspired low-poly 3D models, and "90s jazz cup" / vaporwave aesthetics were so deeply nostalgic for me I couldn't help but wear a huge grin reading this. It's certainly not for everyone but if you're someone who fondly remembers those aspects of early 90s visual styling then this is an absolute blast. Otherwise, you will hate this book with a passion.
I came into this expecting fun schlock like some outdated visuals, cheesy dialogue, and overwrought technobabble (and boy did I get it!) but I was surprisingly charmed by the overall package. While the story nor the writing is exceptional I found it far more compelling than the presentation led me to believe it would be. Digital Justice put far more effort into developing Gotham into a dystopic techno-state than I expected and what results is genuinely more intriguing than the majority of Bat titles I've read.
However, the real draw of this book is the art and it is fucking *glorious*. A combination of Doom-like sprite imagery (often badly aliased), Tron inspired low-poly 3D models, and "90s jazz cup" / vaporwave aesthetics were so deeply nostalgic for me I couldn't help but wear a huge grin reading this. It's certainly not for everyone but if you're someone who fondly remembers those aspects of early 90s visual styling then this is an absolute blast. Otherwise, you will hate this book with a passion.
May 14, 2021
More of a 2.5.
I don’t know what the other reviewers are talking about, this Mac art is beautiful!
It’s the story that’s just bland. It’s nothing special. Just a filler issue of Batman given a thematic look.
I don’t know what the other reviewers are talking about, this Mac art is beautiful!
It’s the story that’s just bland. It’s nothing special. Just a filler issue of Batman given a thematic look.
January 17, 2025
Just a stretch the entire way through. The story is a clear copy and paste of a few other movies from the 80s to now, and the computer generated art style is awful. The storyline was basic and VERY stretched. Don’t waste your time with this one.
September 25, 2017
not as good as it could be today but i like it !!!!
January 4, 2019
I feel weird about this one. If it wasn't for the cyberpunk setting, I'd give it two stars.
October 13, 2020
Not a great story. It was important just because, if my memory serves me well, it was the 1st comics with full digital colouring process...
August 1, 2022
No thanks
November 18, 2022
worth reading for the novelty of the digital art, but the writing is pretty awful and the plot is hard to follow.
May 7, 2023
The art was fantastic. The story highly entertaining too. I beleive this was a graphic novel 1st done with computer generated images.
February 13, 2024
This is not the Batman you are expecting, but instead an interpretation of the Dark Knight that could only exist against the backdrop of the Internet circa 1990s.
It's a snapshot of technology both in the art of the book and the plot. These days almost all comics are drawn on computers, but here it was a novelty and a selling point.
It's a snapshot of technology both in the art of the book and the plot. These days almost all comics are drawn on computers, but here it was a novelty and a selling point.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews