It has been 12 years since Azrael's defeat, Batman's secret-identity going public and the Joker's death. While Bruce went to prison, his business partner Derek Powers took control of Wayne Enterprises and uses Batman's technology and image to create his own personal military which he uses to subjugate Gotham.
The Bat-family is now separated, and when Bruce learns of all the damage Powers has done using his legacy — both as Bruce Wayne and as Batman — he escapes from prison and finds himself in a more technologically advanced, yet very corrupt Neo-Gotham. Then the last person he ever thought he would see again suddenly appears with the intent of helping him: Jack Napier.
Batman: Beyond the White Knight is the third installment of Batman: White Knight, published in 2022-2023 under DC Black Label. Written and illustrated by Sean Murphy, Beyond the White Knight acts as both a sequel to Batman: Curse of the White Knight and a comic book adaptation of Batman Beyond.
Batman: Beyond the White Knight contains examples of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: Unlike the original series, Bruce and Barbara do not enter into a relationship, with Dick falling out with the Bat-family and Barbara later marrying Sam Young. Here, Dick and Barbara get married and stay as a couple and he doesn't have a serious falling out with Bruce, though he still gets into conflict with both Bruce and Barbara for different reasons than in the original story.
- Adaptational Badass: In Batman Beyond, Bruce Wayne had to retire due to a heart-condition brought about by his old age, hence why he needs Terry McGinnis to take on the role of Batman while he acts as Mission Control. Here, Bruce is still as strong and capable as ever, having kept in shape during his time in prison. The only debilitating condition he has here is extreme anxiety from his repressed trauma manifesting as panic attacks that would overwhelm him a few times.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: In Batman Beyond, Terry appeared some 40 to 50 years after Bruce retired from being Batman. Here, he makes his appearance twelve years after Bruce has hung up the cape where all the original Gotham characters are older but not that much older.
- Adaptational Heroism: The digitized Joker in this story is on the same side as Bruce as an ally, as opposed to the original story where he was the Big Bad possessing Tim Drake.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: The end of the story sees Bruce being recruited by FBI agents Diana Prince and John Stewart too help them deal with Superman who in this continuity seems to be much younger than Batman and also indicates that a version of the Justice League of America will appear in this continuity years after Batman started his activity as vigilante.
- Adaptational Nationality: In this incarnation, Derek Powers is explicitly Israeli, whereas in the original series, he wasn't given any ethnic or cultural background and we simply assume he's just an unethical American businessman.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In this continuity which takes inspiration from Batman Beyond and the DC Animated Universe, Bruce does not end up entering into a romance with Barbara that causes his relationship with Dick to seriously deteriorate and the two aren't estranged from each other. Not that it stops the two from fighting each other in the story...
- All for Nothing: As Bruce discovers to his horror, his Heroic Sacrifice in Curse of the White Knight was rendered meaningless thanks to Derek's meddling. Bruce intended to dissolve Wayne Enterprises into various nonprofit organizations, only for Derek to put a stop to it as its new CEO and used Wayne Charity Funds to fund the GTO as his own personal army.
- Awful Wedded Life: Downplayed in the case of Dick and Barbara. While Barbara became Commissioner of the Gotham PD, Dick became commissioner of the GTO, their differing methods leading to their marriage devolving into an ideological schism. Eventually Dick sees just how corrupt Powers really is and that he was more acting out against his repressed resentment against Bruce and they make-up in the end.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Played for Drama. Everyone knows that Bryce and Jackie Quinzel are the children of The Joker. While Bryce passes off as normal, Jackie suffers from a lot of angst over it, presuming that she's expected to be "more like Joker", a problem only compounded by bullies at school rubbing it in her face. Because of this, she starts dressing like Joker and behaves like a delinquent.
- Digitized Hacker: The Jack Napier AI in Bruce's head can connect wirelessly with anything around him, allowing him to take control of any device.
- Evil Mentor: Derek Powers convinces Terry McGinnis that Bruce orchestrated his father's murder and tries conditioning him into becoming Batman with the Beyond Suit. He tries encouraging him to act more ruthlessly, and later takes remote control of the suit when Terry learns the truth, even trying to goad him into Mercy Killing him after his mutation into Blight.
- Law Enforcement, Inc.: The GTO was created by Derek Powers as a type of "Bat-Army", using Batman-level technology to bolster the already existing Gotham PD. While it's put Gotham's criminal activity to a record low, it would later become its own independent entity and turns Gotham into a Police State.
- Marriage of Convenience: Harley married Bruce during his incarceration so that she would legally be allowed not to testify against him. While they do have feelings for each other, Bruce points out that what they have isn't genuine and is more like two desperate loners in need of companionship.
- Mythology Gag: The idea that the Joker implants a chip into a member of the Bat-Family's brain so that he could live on in AI-form is ripped straight from Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, where the Joker's return is through a chip planted into Tim Drake during his Cold-Blooded Torture. Here though, it's Bruce's brain it was implanted in and it was Jack Napier who did the implanting, making him more of a Virtual Sidekick than a Jekyll & Hyde situation.
- Promoted to Love Interest: This is one of the extremely few times (if not the first and so far, only time) that Batman and Harley Quinn enter into a relationship with each other.
- Race Lift: This version of Terry McGinnis is Japanese on his mother's side, a decision made as a homage to the fact that many fans mistakenly thought he was East Asian in the original cartoon.
- Secret-Keeper: Derek Powers figured out that Bruce Wayne was Batman long before he publicly revealed himself.
- Sequel Hook: After the Bat-Family make-up and undo Derek Power's criminal enterprise, FBI Agents Diana Prince and John Stewart arrive and offers them a job preparing for an alien invasion. Their target? Superman.
- Trauma Button: Having lots of repressed trauma, Bruce starts having panic-attacks as soon as he escapes Blackgate, particularly in regards to his identity as Batman, whom he has rebuked since he had turned himself in.
- Unskilled, but Strong: While Terry knows how to fight, he's really just a punk kid compared to the rest of the Bat-family. With the suit however, he's their biggest heavy-hitter, nearly maiming a group of armed men with the Super-Strength it gives him when he first puts it on.
- Virtual Ghost: Jack Napier manifests through a copy of his mind in a microchip he planted into Bruce's mind while he was alive, manifesting as a hallucination of himself talking to him. When he manages to hack into the Beyond suit, he manages to use its holographic projectors to communicate with everyone else.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The whole reason why Derek Powers created the GTO — with plans of expanding it worldwide — was because he had learned of the existence of superpowered aliens like Superman and was trying to prepare Earth for an invasion.
