Tough to ask this without spoilers, but does anybody believe it?
So, reminder, we are no longer in the Earth-12 (if I recall correctly) universe that was the home of the Batman Beyond animated series and its epic "Return of the Joker" movie. This Terry McGinnis has not faced the Joker before, and this Joker does not have the knowledge that the character from Earth-12 had.
If you follow the way I'm drifting.
So this issue wraps up the Joker's first major appearance in this version of Batman Beyond (he was a subsidiary character in an earlier arc). Does anybody believe the ending? Frankly, I really really really hope it is true. All the other Bat Books, no matter how often the writers may like to say that they are "shaking things up," still have to ultimately preserve the status quo. Bruce dies? Yeah, wait a few months and he'll be back. Babs is crippled? Wait a few years and she will be back. Dick has a bullet in the brain? Wait: he'll get better. The current day Bat Books have to preserve the status quo of the Bat Universe. Oh, they can add family members--no doubt about that. But the essential grouping (Bruce, Dick, Barbara, Jim Gordon, Alfred) all have to persist, relatively unchanged in the long run.
But Batman Beyond is under no such restrictions. Set in the future, it is free from the confines of the present-day books. It can make permanent, final changes to the group. It is the only Bat Book that can. It does not have to preserve the status quo. Nothing that happens here has any effect on the rest of the Bat Books. In #29, it appears to have done a major change. I hope it sticks, because that would make Batman Beyond a truly special addition to the Bat Books--the one book where permanent change is possible. A book worth reading to see the final end to several stories of characters in the current-day books.
But does anybody believe it?