Batman Beyond

''Batman Beyond'' (also known as ''Batman of the Future'' in Europe) is an American superhero animated television series based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, and serving as the sequel to both '' Batman: The Animated Series'' and '' The New Batman Adventures''. Created and developed by Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Alan Burnett and produced by Warner Bros. Television Animation, the series began airing on January 10, 1999; in the United Kingdom, it began airing on September 4, 2000.

The series follows the exploits of teenager Terry McGinnis, who becomes the new Batman for the city of Gotham in the near future. Terry is aided and mentored by the previous Batman, Bruce Wayne, as he faces a variety of criminals including several new supervillians. Despite being conceived as a kid-friendly Batman series by Warner Bros. Animation, it ended up being darker than its predecessor ''Batman: The Animated Series'', yet went on to receive critical acclaim and gained a cult following.

''Batman Beyond'' ran for three seasons, concluding with a direct-to-video feature film. The decision to end production on the series came due to Warner Bros. Animation opting to favor pushing forward production for the ''Justice League'' animated series, though with ''Batman Beyond'' featuring crossovers with additional shows in the DC Animated Universe.

Plot

''Batman Beyond'' takes place in Gotham City in the year 2039, in which the city has evolved into a futuristic megalopolis known as Neo-Gotham - consisting of advanced technologies such as flying cars and holographic virtual reality games, and new, sky-high high-rise buildings. Parts of the old city are either as they were in the past, are run-down, or have been abandoned. Despite the changes to the city, it retains the greed, corruption, injustice, and social and class divides of the old Gotham.

The series focuses on the life of Terry McGinnis, an athletic high school teenager and reformed juvenile delinquent with a deeply ingrained sense of personal justice, who serves as Gotham's new Batman under the guidance and tutelage of Bruce Wayne, the former Batman, who in his 70s lives as a recluse at Wayne Manor, with his only companion being a Great Dane named Ace.

Twenty years ago, Bruce continued to work as Batman on his own - as most of his close friends, allies and partners had either retired and moved on with their lives, or passed away. But having reached his 50s, he was forced to retire due to health issues, alongside increasing concerns that he would break his cardinal rule of no-killing following his last routine mission. Over the two decades he spent in isolation, Bruce reduced involvement in Wayne Enterprises, later agreeing to a merger deal with Derek Powers that led to the company being renamed as Wayne-Powers, a decision he later regrets.

Terry's decision to become Batman stems from sharing a similar origin story to Bruce, in that his father, Warren McGinnis, is murdered after discovering an illegal weapons project being conducted at Wayne-Powers. After uncovering Bruce's secret when he is rescued by him from a criminal gang outside Wayne Manor, Terry steals a high-tech Batsuit Bruce had made before his retirement, granting him increased strength and agility, flight capabilities, stealth, and enhanced sensor systems, with Bruce allowing him to use it not only to get justice for his father's murder, but also to prevent the illegal weapon being manufacutured being sold to a foreign power. His actions lead to Bruce accepting him as the new Batman, and providing him cover for his work under the pretense of Terry doing part-time work for him outside of school hours, with the two having moments where they differ in methods, but also gaining respect for each other's work as Batman.

Terry mainly lives with his remaining family - his mother Mary, who was divorced from Warren around the time of his death; and his brother Matt - while dating fellow student Dana Tan, though his life as Batman creates complications to their relationship. Alongside Bruce, Terry is aided in his life by Max Gibson, a close friend and highly intelligent student who uncovers his secret several weeks after he becomes Batman, serving in a role similar to Alfred Pennyworth. Apart from Max, Terry's role as Batman is also known to Barbara Gordon, who aided Bruce as Batgirl before parting ways with him to become the Gotham City's Police Department's new police commissioner following her father's death. Like Bruce, Terry develops his own rogues gallery amongst the criminals he brings to justice, and also faces a few of Bruce's own enemies from his time as the Dark Knight.

Voice cast

* Will Friedle as Terry McGinnis / Batman:
The second Batman, he is a high school student and former delinquent. Under the pretense of doing errands for Bruce, Terry fights crime as the new Batman. Terry was chosen to be the new Dark Knight as he shared a similar loss as Bruce had, that being the death of a parent (although unlike Bruce, who lost both of his parents, Terry only lost his father).
* Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne:
The original Batman, although initially reluctant he later becomes Terry's employer, mentor, and predecessor who guides Terry through the Batcomputer but also occasionally ventures into the field to help his successor if the situation demands it, despite the risks associated with his age. During his final mission, rescuing a wealthy heiress as the Dark Knight twenty years prior to the events of the main story, Bruce suffered a heart attack that nearly cost him his life, forcing him to break his primary moral principle by threatening to kill a criminal with a gun in self-defense. Horrified that he nearly used the type of weapon that took his parents' ( Thomas and Martha) lives and the very thing that drove him to become a vigilante, and afraid of what he might do next, Wayne reluctantly hung up the cowl.
* Cree Summer as Maxine "Max" Gibson: A genius high schooler and friend of Terry's. She discovers his secret identity, and from then on occasionally helps Batman in a role akin to that of Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's deceased former butler, though she is considered a nuisance to his predecessor (but less so as time went on). Her parents are divorced and she has an unnamed sister.
* Lauren Tom as Dana Tan:
Terry's on and off girlfriend in high school who is initially and formerly unaware of his secret identity as the new Dark Knight, and thus surprised or upset by his frequent absences which she only knows due to him working as a personal assistant for Bruce Wayne, to support his family financially following his father's death. She also has a father who is disapproving of Terry because of the latter's past as an irresponsible delinquent, which serves as a reminder and another motivation for Terry being Batman.
* Frank Welker as Ace:
Bruce Wayne's pet dog and his sole companion in Wayne Manor, the billionaire rescued and took in the stray Great Dane after the canine defended him from a Jokerz thug during one of Wayne's annual visits in memory of his parents to Crime Alley. Fiercely loyal to Bruce, he eventually develops a bond with Terry as well.
* Stockard Channing (season one and two) and Angie Harmon (season 3) as Barbara Gordon:
The new Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department, having succeeded her father Jim and one of Bruce's former crime-fighting partners, Batgirl. Barbara was at one point in her younger years romantically involved with Bruce, which ended badly. Unlike her father, Barbara initially has a rocky relationship with the new Batman, being aware of his criminal record and showing resentment towards Bruce for dragging him into this life and is at first against him intervening in police duty, even threatening him with arrest. This is revealed to have been due to a long standing grudge towards Bruce for how he treated his former partners and also because of a fateful night when the Bat-family splintered. She slowly gains a grudging respect for Terry after he helps her in several sticky situations and begins acknowledging his help whenever needed, though she does not use a Bat-Signal, unlike her father. However, she still has direct access to the Batcave. She is married to Sam Young, the District Attorney of Neo-Gotham.

Episodes

Crossovers

The third season of ''Batman Beyond'' featured the two-part episode "The Call" with (for the first time) a futuristic Justice League, a springboard for the ''Justice League'' animated series. The setting and characters of ''Batman Beyond'' were also briefly revived in '' Static Shock'' during the episode " Future Shock" in which Static is accidentally transported 40 years into the future.

''Justice League Unlimited'' revisited the ''Batman Beyond'' world twice in 2005. The first was in " The Once and Future Thing" (Part 2), which featured Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern transported 50 years into the future to stop a time-travelling villain with the help of the future Justice League (Batman II, Static and Warhawk).

The second time was meant to be the de facto series finale for ''Batman Beyond'': the episode " Epilogue" reveals that Bruce Wayne is actually Terry McGinnis's biological father. The story, set 15 years after ''Batman Beyond'', centers on Terry (now in his early 30s) tracking down an elderly Amanda Waller. She explains through flashbacks that, even though she grew to trust and respect Batman, she was aware of him aging, getting slower, and getting weaker, thus accepting the idea of either Bruce retiring or being killed at some point. Finding the idea of a world without Batman unacceptable, Waller used her Project Cadmus connections to gather the technology for "Project Batman Beyond", whose goal was to physically create a new Batman, starting with a secretly collected sample of Bruce Wayne's DNA. Some years after Bruce retired, Waller found a young Neo-Gotham couple—the McGinnises—with psychological profiles nearly identical to those of Bruce's parents, a nanotech solution was injected into Warren McGinnis to rewrite his reproductive material with that of Bruce. The eventual result was his wife Mary McGinnis giving birth to Terry, a child sharing the genetic traits of his mother and Bruce Wayne. When Terry was eight years old, Waller employed an elderly Andrea Beaumont in her Phantasm alias as an assassin to kill Terry's family, hoping the trauma would put him on the path to becoming Batman. However, Beaumont could not commit the act, arguing that she would be doing something against what Bruce stood for. Waller eventually conceded that Beaumont had been right and abolished the project altogether. Eight years afterward, Warren would be murdered because of Derek Powers, and Terry would meet Bruce by happenstance—resulting in Terry becoming Batman's successor. Waller concludes by reminding Terry that he is Bruce's son, not his clone, and that, despite the circumstances of his existence, he still has free will to live out his own life; Although not his clone she later tells Terry how he is not even close to as smart as Bruce Wayne but he does have his heart. Terry comes to terms with his revelations, and continues in being Batman. With a new sense of purpose, Terry plans to propose to Dana, while continuing his life of crimefighting.

Animation

In order to complete the series, Warner Bros. Animation outsourced ''Batman Beyond'' to Dong Yang Animation, Koko Enterprises and Seoul Movie (a subsidiary of TMS) in Seoul, South Korea. While the South Korean studios animated the series' episodes, the feature film '' Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker'' was animated by TMS Entertainment in Tokyo, Japan.

Soundtrack

Released on August 31, 1999, the soundtrack to ''Batman Beyond'' features many of the same composers who worked on the previous animated ''Batman'' shows. The music style is more industrial, with some metal influence, to tie in with the show's futuristic cyberpunk genre.

Critical reception

While the idea of ''Batman Beyond'' seemed as if it were "not a proper continuation of the legacy of the Dark Knight", the series received critical acclaim and a cult following after its release. It has been praised for its dark and cyberpunk storytelling. The show was nominated for four Daytime Emmy Awards, two of which it won in 2001 for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program and Outstanding Music Direction and Composition. In addition, the show was nominated for five Annie Awards and won two of those nominations in 1999 and 2001. In 2009, IGN.com named ''Batman Beyond'' the 40th-best animated television series of all time.

Den of Geek, when listing the best episodes of the series, wrote that "Batman Beyond's first year on the air represents the show at its most realized form. It's the only season of the show that's written at the same level of quality as ''Batman: The Animated Series''. Not to say that later seasons don't have their moments, but it seemed like the writers approached Beyond as a Saturday morning cartoon during seasons two and three, whereas during season one, they most certainly did not." Creator Bruce Timm has stated ''Batman Beyond'' is the most uneven series of the main DC Animated Universe shows, particular in regard to the latter two seasons. Greg Weisman commented that while the series was well made, it felt more like a Spider-Man series and much less like Batman. ''Batman Beyond'' was cited by actor Jacob Bertrand, who voice-acted Bam the Batmobile in ''Batwheels'', as his introduction to the Batman franchise.

Home media

VHS

Some episodes of the series were released on VHS from 1999 to 2000, including the series' premiere (as ''Batman Beyond: The Movie''), and select episodes as five VHS volumes containing three episodes per tape (the same contents as the individual DVD volume releases, see below), and the direct-to-video film ''Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker'' (edited version).

Season DVDs

Individual DVDs

* *Note: The audio commentaries for both the edited and uncut versions of ''Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker'' were provided by the same contributors; however, both versions are slightly different from each other.

Blu-ray

''Batman Beyond'' was released on Blu-ray on October 29, 2019. The four-disc set includes all 52 episodes and the uncut version of ''Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker''. Forty-one of the episodes and ''Return of the Joker'' were remastered. The remaining 11 episodes were an upconversion.

Spin-off

A spin-off from ''Batman Beyond'', an animated series called '' The Zeta Project'', featured a revamped version of the synthoid Zeta from the ''Batman Beyond'' episode "Zeta". Batman would guest star in the episode "Shadows". The super villain Stalker was to have appeared in ''The Zeta Project'' episode "Taffy Time", but ultimately did not do so. The second-season episode "Ro's Gift" has an appearance by the Brain Trust from the ''Batman Beyond'' episode "Mind Games". Terry McGinnis/Batman was originally slated to appear in this episode as well, but was cut since Bruce Timm and company were working on ''Justice League''.

In other media

Comics

Books

''Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker'', a novelization of the feature film written by Michael Teitelbaum, was released on November 1, 2000.

Two ''Batman Beyond'' books for young readers were released on November 14, 2000: ''Batman Beyond: New Hero in Town'' and ''Batman Beyond: No Place Like Home'', followed by two more, released on May 28, 2002: ''Batman Beyond: Hear No Evil'' and ''Batman Beyond: Grounded''.

Toys

In 1999, Hasbro had released a ''Batman Beyond'' Toyline with sub-lines, In 2000, Burger King included ''Batman Beyond'' toys in their kids' meals.

Films

A direct-to-video feature film, '' Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker'', was released on December 12, 2000. The original release was censored for elements of violence and death following the Columbine High School massacre, though a second, uncensored version was later released. Nevertheless, it received critical acclaim for its story, voice acting, animation and score. A second ''Batman Beyond'' film, focusing on the origins of Terry McGinnis, multiple clones of Bruce Wayne and the appearance of an elderly Selina Kyle, was planned by Bruce Timm and Glen Murakami, though it was never scripted, as it never went beyond a 45-minute impromptu plotting session between the two. The project was scrapped due to the dark tones and controversies surrounding ''Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker''. Despite this, the plot elements were eventually reworked into the second-season finale of ''Justice League Unlimited'' titled "Epilogue" (which was intended to be the series finale until the show was renewed for a third and final season) where Terry discovers his genetic origins. Amanda Waller planted Bruce Wayne's DNA into Warren McGinnis through his routine flu shot and later helps create a copy of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle is briefly mentioned in passing.

Among the live action films proposed between the critical failure of '' Batman & Robin'' and the reboot of the ''Batman'' franchise was ''Batman Beyond''. In August 2000, Warner Bros. announced that it was developing a live-action film adaptation with Boaz Yakin attached to co-write and direct. The TV series' creators, Dini and Alan Burnett, were hired to write a screenplay for the feature film, with Neal Stephenson as consultant. Yakin hoped to cast Clint Eastwood as the retired Batman. By July 2001, a first draft was turned in to the studio, and the writers were waiting to see if a rewrite would be needed. The studio, also exploring other takes of Batman in development eventually placed ''Batman Beyond'' on hold in August 2001, but ultimately canceled the proposal. Yakin reportedly wanted the film to be dark, nihilistic, and with swearing and violence, and not the PG-13 film the studio wanted.

In January 2019, rumors began to circulate that Warner Animation Group was developing an animated ''Batman Beyond'' film following the critical and commercial success of Sony Pictures Animation's '' Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse'', but was later reported that no such film was in the works. In the later August interview with DC Universe, Paul Dini revealed that Warner Bros. continues to express interest in a film adaptation but have put emphasis on other projects. Actor Tyler Posey has expressed interest in playing Terry McGinnis in the possible film adaptation. In June 2020, Michael Keaton entered talks to play an elderly Bruce Wayne, reprising his role from Tim Burton's ''Batman'' (1989) and '' Batman Returns'' (1992), in the DCEU film, ''The Flash'', which was set for release in 2023. According to ''The Hollywood Reporter'', Warner Bros. hopes for Keaton to return for multiple DCEU films in a way "akin to the role played by Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, something of a mentor or guide or even string-puller". Keaton was officially confirmed to return in August of the same year. In December 2022, it was announced that Christina Hodson, writer of ''The Flash'' and the cancelled ''Batgirl'' film, had been hired to write a script for a live-action Batman Beyond film. The plot would have involved an aged Bruce Wayne, continuing the plot threads from his appearance in ''The Flash'', and would have included the return of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman. Development on the film was shelved after James Gunn and Peter Safran were appointed as co-heads of DC Studios. In January 2023, Gunn and Safran stated that there is potential for a future multiverse project in which they may incorporate Keaton's incarnation of Batman.

In March 2023 it was reported that an animated ''Batman Beyond'' film had been put into development, written by Daniel Casey and serving as WB's answer to ''Spider-Man'': ''Into the Spider-Verse''. However, the project was put into commission under the leadership of Walter Hamada, who served as DC Films president from 2018 to 2022, and it is currently unknown if it is still happening under Gunn and Safran's direction, though Jeff Sneider of ''The Hollywood Reporter'' noted that nobody who was working on the project was told it was cancelled.

Video games

The first appearance of the Terry McGinnis version of Batman in a video game is in the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, and Game Boy Color video game '' Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker''.

The ''Batman Beyond'' Batsuit appears as an alternate costume in '' Justice League Heroes'' and as downloadable content in '' Batman: Arkham City'' and '' Injustice: Gods Among Us''.

A ''Batman Beyond'' DLC was included in the third ''Lego Batman'' video game.

A "Batman of the Future" character pack featuring the Terry McGinnis Batman with all its trademark gadgets (such as the flying suit and the ability to turn invisible) and other ''Batman Beyond''-era characters were revealed to be PS3/ PS4-exclusive DLC for '' Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham''.

Rocksteady Studios created their own unique take on the ''Batman Beyond'' Batsuit for '' Batman: Arkham Knight'' as a pre-order bonus along with ''The Dark Knight Returns'' Batsuit titled "Gotham's Future Pack".

Batman Beyond appears in the mobile games ''Teeny Titans'' and ''Teen Titans Go! Figure''.

Animation

In April 2014, a ''Batman Beyond'' short by Darwyn Cooke premiered at WonderCon. The short, which saw Will Friedle and Kevin Conroy reprise their roles, sees Batman (Terry McGinnis) battle a Batman android (resembling the design from ''The New Batman Adventures'') in the Batcave with help from the elderly Bruce Wayne and the Batmobile (resembling the design from ''Batman: The Animated Series''). Once defeated, Batman and Bruce look out to see and prepare to fight seven additional invading androids resembling the designs from '' Beware the Batman'', '' The Batman'', '' Batman: The Brave and the Bold'', '' The Dark Knight Returns'', ''Batman'' (1989 film), ''Batman'' (1960s TV series), and the original design by Bill Finger. Though the androids' source is unstated, they are reminiscent of the story arc from ''Batman: The Animated Series'' involving the computer program HARDAC.

''Batman Beyond'' is alluded in ''Teen Titans Go!'' In the episode "Sandwich Thief", Robin travels to the future to his father Nightwing's apartment where a poster of the ''Batman Beyond'' Batman can be seen, indicating that Nightwing admires this incarnation of Batman.

References

External links

DC page



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at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
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