Batman Beyond

Batman Beyond (known as Batman of the Future in Europe, Latin America and Australia/New Zealand) was an American animated television series created by WB Network in collaboration with DC Comics as a continuation of the Batman legacy. The series is part of the DC Animated Universe; kicking off stories of the future time period of Bruce Timm's ongoing universe.

The show began airing in 1999 and ended in 2001. With 52 episodes and one Direct-to-Video movie under its belt, the series was then put on hold for the new Justice League animated series. As of 2006, Batman Beyond remains on hiatus with no plans to revive the series in the near future. However, there was a short-lived spin-off, The Zeta Project, also set in the DC Animated Universe's future. It is worth noting that in The Zeta Project's first season episode "Shadows", there is a crossover with Batman Beyond; in this continuity, the story takes place between the episode "Countdown" and the series finale "Unmasked".

In the third season of Batman Beyond, a two-part story featuring the Justice League entitled "The Call" formed an early basis for Bruce Timm's next series, Justice League, which was in turn succeeded by Justice League Unlimited. The setting and characters of Batman Beyond were also briefly revived in 2004 for an episode of Static Shock in which Static is accidentally transported forty years into the future.

Justice League Unlimited revisited the world of Batman Beyond twice in 2005. The first time featured Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern transported fifty years into the future to stop a time-traveling villain with the help of the future Justice League Unlimited cast - including Terry McGinnis as Batman. The second time occurred during the episode "Epilogue", where the true secret origin of the future Batman is learned in a story meant to be the de facto series finale for this Batman's story.

Story

The story is set approximately fifty years from the conclusion of present day DCAU (as evident by the commentary found on Batman Beyond: Season One). Gotham City is a darker and more futuristic city, equipped with staggering high rises and hovering/flying vehicles. The aged Bruce Wayne is having increasing difficulty handling criminals he once subdued with ease. Hampered by age and heart trouble, he is finally forced to betray a lifelong personal principle by threatening a criminal with a gun and subsequently decides to retire from crimefighting permanently.

One day, he rescues high school student Terry McGinnis from a pack of Jokerz; the exertion aggravates his heart condition, however, and Terry has to help him back to Wayne Manor. While staying at the mansion, Terry discovers the entrance to the Batcave, and "borrows" the Batsuit to avenge the death of his father (who had accidentally become involved in the revelation of a secret biological weapons development). As crime and corruption are beginning once again to rear their ugly heads in Gotham, Bruce gives Terry his permission to assume the Batman alter-ego.

Young McGinnis continues the battle against crime tutored by Bruce, and aided by a new black-and-red, high-tech batsuit that augments his abilities, fires Batarangs from the wrists, flies using jets fired from the feet, allows eavesdropping through a hypersensitive touch microphone, and provides camouflage abilities. He has his own rogues gallery, such as the seductive, shapeshifting Inque, the confusing hypnotist Spellbinder, the bitter, deaf sound expert Shriek, the most deadly of the League of Assassins Curare, and the African hunter Stalker. However, on occasion he is also forced to face his mentor's old foes, such as the atrophying Mr. Freeze, Bane (elderly, wasted, and dying from his consumption of Venom, the substance that gave him his strength), the immortal Ra's al Ghul, and even the Joker.

Terry's greatest initial foe is Derek Powers, a ruthless billionaire who took over WayneCorp and was later accidentally mutated into a radioactive monstrosity who called himself Blight. Powers had Terry's father murdered after Mr. McGinnis discovered Powers was in the process of developing a biological weapons program. The first season ended with a showdown between Batman and Blight aboard an abandoned nuclear submarine, where Powers was in hiding after his identity as Blight was revealed to the world by his ambitious son Paxton, who planned to usurp his father as chairman of Wayne-Powers.

Maxine "Max" Gibson is a 17-year old computer genius who discovers Batman's secret identity. Since she discovered Terry's alter-ego she's been helping him with everything from computer hacking, to babysitting, to coming up with excuses for Terry's girlfriend Dana Tan. Max plays an integral part in Batman's war on crime.

Terry also finds one other ally, though a begrudging one: Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl. Having followed in the footsteps of her father, James Gordon, Barbara is now Police Commissioner of Gotham City, and she is unhappy with the idea of a new Batman, especially a teenager, as she is still haunted by the Joker's torture and mutilation of Tim Drake (Robin) as seen in Return of the Joker. However, knowing from personal experience that she cannot deter Terry anymore than she could have been deterred from being Batgirl, she relents, possibly also out of respect for her mentor, the original Batman. Also, passing lines between Barbara and Bruce suggest that, at the time of Batgirl's retirement, the suit had bulletholes in it that had not yet been repaired. It is implied early on in the series that Barbara and Bruce were in love for a period of time. It is also confirmed during Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker that Dick Grayson (Nightwing) is still alive in this time period.

Series/Legacy guide

Season 1: 1999

Episode Number	Production Code	Title	Airdate
1	1	"Rebirth: Part 1"	January 10, 1999
2	2	"Rebirth: Part 2"	January 10, 1999
3	3	"Black Out"	January 31, 1999
4	4	"Golem"	February 7, 1999
5	7	"Meltdown"	February 14, 1999
6	8	"Heroes"	February 21, 1999
7	10	"Shriek"	March 14, 1999
8	6	"Dead Man's Hand"	March 21, 1999
9	5	"The Winning Edge"	April 11, 1999
10	9	"Spellbound"	May 1, 1999
11	12	"Disappearing Inque"	May 8, 1999
12	11	"A Touch of Curare"	May 15, 1999
13	13	"Ascension"	May 22, 1999

Season 2: 1999–2000

Episode Number	Production Code	Title	Airdate
14	16	"Splicers"	September 18, 1999
15	15	"Earth Mover"	September 25, 1999
16	14	"Joyride"	October 2, 1999
17	17	"Lost Soul"	October 9, 1999
18	19	"Hidden Agenda"	October 18, 1999
19	18	"Bloodsport"	October 23, 1999
20	20	"Once Burned"	November 6, 1999
21	21	"Hooked Up"	November 13, 1999
22	22	"Rats!"	November 20, 1999
23	23	"Mind Games"	December 4, 1999
24	24	"Revenant"	December 11, 1999
25	25	"Babel"	January 8, 2000
26	26	"Terry's Friend Dates a Robot"	January 15, 2000
27	27	"Eyewitness"	January 22, 2000
28	30	"Final Cut"	February 5, 2000
29	29	"The Last Resort"	March 4, 2000
30	31	"Armory"	March 11, 2000
31	32	"Sneak Peek"	March 25, 2000
32	34	"The Eggbaby"	April 1, 2000
33	28	"Zeta"	April 8, 2000
34	33	"Plague"	April 15, 2000
35	35	"April Moon"	April 22, 2000
36	37	"Sentries of the Last Cosmos"	May 6, 2000
37	36	"Payback"	May 13, 2000
38	40	"Where's Terry?"	May 27, 2000
39	41	"Ace in the Hole"	August 19, 2000

Season 3: 2000–2001

Episode Number	Production Code	Title	Airdate
40	42	"King's Ransom"	September 16, 2000
41	39	"Untouchable"	September 23, 2000
42	46	"Inqueling"	September 30, 2000
43	38	"Big Time"	October 7, 2000
44	44	"Out of the Past"	October 21, 2000
45	45	"Speak No Evil"	November 4, 2000
46	50	"The Call: Part 1"	November 11, 2000
47	51	"The Call: Part 2"	November 18, 2000
48	43	"Betrayal"	December 9, 2000
49	48	"The Curse of the Kobra: Part 1"	February 3, 2001
50	49	"The Curse of the Kobra: Part 2"	February 10, 2001
51	52	"Countdown"	April 7, 2001
Cross-Over	N.A.	The Zeta Project: "Shadows"	April 7, 2001
52	47	"Unmasked"	December 18, 2001

Series Finale Feature: Edit-2000 – Uncut-2001

Feature	Production Code	Title	Airdate	Feature Information
Series Finale	N.A.	"'' Return of the Joker'"	2000, 2001

Post-Series Cross-Overs: 2004–2005

Series	Production Code	Title	Airdate
Static Shock	N.A.	"Future Shock"	January 17, 2004
Justice League Unlimited	N.A.	"The Once and Future Thing: Part 1"	January 22, 2005
Justice League Unlimited	N.A.	"The Once and Future Thing: Part 2"	January 29, 2005
Justice League Unlimited	N.A.	"Epilogue"	July 23, 2005

From Justice League to Batman Beyond

When the original Justice League series premiered, there were debates on whether or not Batman Beyond would stay as a main future or possible future. Mainly because not all JL viewers watched Batman Beyond or it would restrict the creative teams from doing certain stories. The Static Shock episode, "Future Shock", as well as the Justice League Unlimited episodes, "The Once And Future Thing Parts 1 & 2" and "Epilogue" make BB canon. Aside from those certain episodes, there are also bits of foreshadowing in other JL and JLU episodes:

Injustice For All — Batman pockets a huge chunk of Kryptonite belonging to Lex Luthor. Sometime offscreen he most likely takes a piece of it to keep in storage in the event Superman goes rogue, as seen in "The Call" (The rest of that chunk was apparently destroyed by Amazo in the Justice League episode "Tabula Rasa").

Twilight — Batman feels a bit sick from the Boom Tube, referring to Old Bruce stating that he didn't really trust Boom Tubes in Batman Beyond's "The Call."

Maid Of Honor — The Princess Audrey dresses in "Spellbound" might have belonged to Kasnian Princess Audrey. In addition, a younger Vilmos Egans can be seen in the background when Wonder Woman initially enters the International Space Station reception in Part 1, but prior to the Paparazzi spotting her.

Starcrossed — The storyboarders made sure that the Freeze Gun in the Batcave was still intact as we see Bruce and Terry using it a few times against Inque.

Task Force X — Justice League technician and Cadmus spy Vance (Robert Vance), would later become a software tycoon passing away thereafter as seen in Batman Beyond "Lost Soul".

Double Date — It was confirmed by Dwayne McDuffie that Edgar from Batman Beyond "Mind Games" is Edgar Mandragora son of crimelord Steven Mandragora.
- While Justice League Unlimited sees the Helena Bertinelli/Huntress making her animated debut, there was consideration of bringing the original Pre-Crisis Huntress/Helena Wayne into Batman Beyond. The notion being that it would be more natural than doing a Batgirl Beyond.^*

In "Shriek", Bruce mentions in a speech that ghouls, vampires, and zombies do exist.
- This is proved to be true when he fights Hades and his zombie army as well as Solomon Grundy.

"In See No Evil", Bruce noted that only "normal" gorillas didn't eat meat. This is perhaps a reference to Gorilla Grodd or Ultra-Humanite.

Also, a few moments from Mystery of the Batwoman:

Batwoman's costume could have been the inspiration for Bruce's design of the Batman Beyond costume.
Barbara briefly flirts with Bruce during the phone call.

As well as some subtle nods to The Zeta Project:

Secret Society — The Justice League are training with some robots. The robots resemble Zeta's original appearance in Batman Beyond.

Fearful Symmetry — Supergirl, Green Arrow, and The Question are attacked by Zeta type robots. The robots are connected to the army and General Hardcastle (from The Animated Series, though a martian invader poses as him in JL Secret Origins). Also, the term metahumans appears here, cementing Static's connection to the DCAU.

Project Batman Beyond

The Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue", set fifteen years after the conclusion of the Batman Beyond series, reveals that Bruce Wayne is actually Terry's genetic father. During the time of the Justice League, Amanda Waller, the head of Project Cadmus, came to believe that there would always need to be a Batman in Gotham City. To that end, she instituted "Project Batman Beyond". Waller used Project Cadmus nanotechnology and a sample of Bruce's DNA to create a nanovirus that was injected in Terry's father Warren during a routine physical. Waller's plan was to parallel Bruce's childhood trauma in Terry to 'create' another Batman, and she enlisted the aid of an assassin to murder Terry's parents. However, the assassin could not go through with the killings, and, in a nod to the Mask of the Phantasm movie, it's revealed that Waller's assassin WAS The Phantasm, Bruce's former fianceé Andrea Beaumont.

The insinuation made is that Beaumont wouldn't kill the McGinnises because she knew first hand what the death of Bruce's parents did to him, and she refused to see that happen to another person. Also, Waller realizes that by killing to create a new Batman she would be going against all that he stood for. Terry eventually mends fences with Bruce and makes the first steps towards treating him as his father. Terry also calls his girlfriend Dana Tan and asks her to meet him. According to writer Dwayne McDuffy, Bruce was aware that Terry was practically a clone of him, but would never bring it up as he wanted Terry to be his own man. ^* He is holding a diamond ring while they talk, clearly insinuating that he is going to ask her to marry him. By the end of the episode, Terry is on his way to having full lives as both Batman and a family man — a balance which Bruce was never able to reach.

It should be noted that the black and white sequences of the "Epilogue" episode are intended to represent a dream and not flashbacks. Though it is not specified in the episode, as Terry's father was genetically reprogrammed to be ejaculating Wayne DNA, Terry's brother Matt is also the biological son of Bruce Wayne. ^*

It is interesting to note that this episode marks the first time that the title "Batman Beyond" was actually mentioned in the context of a Batman Beyond story. While in costume, Terry identifies himself simply as Batman. (In some parts of the world, the title itself was dropped, and the show is called "Batman of the Future".

Movies

Return of the Joker - A direct-to-video feature in which the Joker makes his return to Gotham.

There was also a planned Batman Beyond live action feature, to be written by Paul Dini, however Warner Bros shelved the project and eventually went with the Batman Begins concept instead. A "Batman Beyond: Year One" live action short fan-film was made as a tribute to the show by a group of fans.

Finally, a Direct-to-DVD sequel to Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker was to feature Selina Kyle/Catwoman. This project never made it off the ground, however much of the concept of this film eventually made it into the Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue", which is seen by many as Batman Beyond's true finale.

DVD releases

Batman Beyond: The Complete First Season - Contains a two-DVD set with all of the episodes from the first season as well as audio commentaries, interviews, and other special features. Released on 21 March 2006.

According to a recent online chat with Warner Home Video, all 26 episodes of season 2 will be released in a single boxset by the end of 2006.

The intense Return of the Joker feature has been available on DVD in edited/televised and Uncut/Directors' Cut versions for quite a number of years. The edited/televised version was released in 2000, and the Uncut/Directors' Cut released in 2001.

Comics

Like most DCAU shows, Batman Beyond had its own comic series (after an initial limited series) set in the same world of the show and aimed at younger readers. Terry also appeared in Superman Adventures #63. The story has Terry/Batman traveling to the present and teaming up with Superman against Brainiac Beyond.

But more recently, in Superman/Batman #22 (written by Jeph Loeb), a Batman wearing the Beyond costume appears, making his first foray into the regular DC Comics continuity. The plot involves Bizarro being transported to an alternate version of Gotham. It would appear from #23 that this Batman is someone named Tim presumably Tim Drake. However, the writers admitted to the mistake of misnaming the character, and the name will be changed to "Terry" in the trade paperback. Another oddity is the Batwing is the version from the original animated series, not Batman Beyond. Whether this is the regular DC universe or a parallel one is still to be seen. It seems possible that this may be an alternate reality as the same story has Batzarro transported to the world of Red Son, an Elseworlds communist version of Superman.

At the end of issue 7 of the Infinite Crisis series, a splash page shows those heroes that will come into prominence during the year that the DCU is without Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. One of those figures is a female wearing an outfit very similar to that worn by Terry McGinnis. It's been revealed the character is an update of Batwoman.

Spinoffs

The television series had a spinoff called The Zeta Project, featuring the shape-shifting android Zeta from the Batman Beyond episode "Zeta." Batman would guest star in the episode "Shadows".

Stalker was to have appeared in The Zeta Project episode "Taffy Time", but didn't make it. Season 2 episode, "Ro's Gift" has an appearance made by Brain Trust from the Batman Beyond episode "Mind Games". Terry McGinnis as Batman was originally suppose to be in this episode too, but was cut since Timm and company were working on Justice League.

External links

Batman of the Future | Batman Beyond | Batman, la relève | Batman Przyszłości | Batman Beyond

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