Hero Spotlight: Batman Beyond

Character Spotlight time! With the Batman anniversary issue and this month’s posts of Robin reviews, why not do a Batman-related Spotlight as well right? Terry McGinnis deserves to be included in all these Robin talks too. Not only has Bruce Wayne taken him under his wing, but also he didn’t get the Robin-phase to learn the ropes. He got thrown into the deep end as Gotham’s Batman, Batman Beyond.

The Batman Beyond character was made popular by the TV show, Batman Beyond, as it showed a continuation of the Batman legacy. Fun Fact: Batman Beyond was 40^th IGN’s “Top 100 Animated TV series” list. The show depicted Terry McGinnis as a futuristic Batman under the tutelage of Bruce Wayne. However, after 52 episodes and one of those “directly to video” films, it got cancelled as producers shifted focus to the Justice League animated series. Terry does make an appearance in the comics, Batman #700, though some of the origin and timeline differences don’t match up with origin established in the show. He was also featured in Superman/Batman Annual #4 and even had his own Batman Beyond miniseries in 2011. The Batman Beyond character can also be found in other various publications, including the “Hush” arc and more recently, the new ongoing series: Batman Beyond Unlimited. Come to think of it, this Spotlight would go good with a review of the first issue from that series, but the art doesn’t look appealing enough to Deanpool to pick it up. It looks like it’s meant to attract a younger audience… even though many of them may not even know of the Batman Beyond animated series. Check out Netflix people.

What makes Batman Beyond such a fan favorite character? Well for the first thing, everyone loves dystopian futures in the Hunger Games era. But this was a dystopain future as depicted back in the early 2000s, so it's not as dark of a future as the ones that we're accustomed to today. But amongst all that, we want to see the Batman legacy moving forward. We're even weaned into it as Bruce Wayne is still there to guide the new Batman Beyond as he did with many other sidekicks/apprentices. Also, this is the next best thing to The Dark Knight Returns, which still gets a lot of popularity as a story that tells the retiring of Bruce Wayne but the continuation of the Batman legacy. That graphic novel is often considered one of the greatest Batman graphic novels. If nothing else, the dialogue and interactions between an aged Bruce Wayne and a younger, spry Terry McGinnis provide a snarky yet humorous relationship that fans appreciate. Bruce keeps his macho, alpha dog personality coupled with a mean, old man appearance. Terry shows he's cunning enough to not let Bruce always get away with talking down to him. You can spend a good amount of time just reading quotes from the show here. The show did the idea justice, and though we haven't seen much of Batman Beyond since the ending of the series, it isn't an overplayed story in the Batman universe. Deanpool still hopes Batman Beyond makes some sort of return to an animated series, animated film, or just a better comic series.

For the most part, even the comics relating to Batman Beyond are based on the television series, so most of this Spotlight will be based off that as well.

Terry McGinnis

Twenty years after Batman was last seen, young Terry McGinnis finds himself on the run from the Jokerz, a street gang who have modeled themselves after Gotham’s legendary criminal, the Joker. Terry runs onto Wayne Manor territory, where an elder Bruce Wayne comes to his rescue. Not the Bruce Wayne he used to be in his cowl and cape days, he becomes significantly weak after the fight and Terry helps Bruce into the mansion and gets him his medication. Bruce pulls the typical old-man move and falls asleep. Terry only did what any of us would’ve done… take a tour of the mansion! Well not really, he notices a bat stuck in the grandfather clock that Batman fans knew led to the legendary Bat-cave. Cue the revelation: that elder man that helped Terry was Gotham’s Dark Knight, Batman. Grumpy Bruce is pissed and tells the boy to get out. When Terry returns home, he finds out his father had been murdered by what appears to be the Jokerz. However, Terry learns that Derek Powers ordered his right hand man to kill Terry’s father and make it look like it was the Jokerz doing. The reasoning being that Terry’s father’s death had just discovered Power’s plans to start producing biological weapons. Fun Fact: in the comic version of this story, the henchmen that shoots Terry’s father is a great grand-nephew of Joe Chill- the man responsible for the deaths of Bruce’s parents. Looks like they have more in common than they think. 

Anyways, Terry goes to Bruce for help in bringing Powers in for his crimes, but Bruce isn’t interested in helping as Batman. Instead Bruce suggests that Terry take evidence against powers to the commissioner of police (Barbara Gordon, daughter of ex-Commisioner Jim Gordon and the ex-Batgirl!). But things are never that easy… Powers is able to take the evidence away from Terry before he could turn it in to the police. This is where Terry takes things into his own hands and takes the latest version of the Batsuit to confront Powers. Bruce isn’t quick to help, but after the initial mistrust Bruce decides to aid Terry. He cut it pretty close too honestly, not sure if he was more concerned with getting the suit back or keeping the kid alive. Nonetheless, Terry successfully stops Powers and even exposes Powers to his own chemicals that he’s been using for weapons. This resulted in his mutation into the villain Blight.

Bruce realizes that Gotham may still need a Batman to protect it, and hires Terry as his “personal assistant” as he secretly trains him into being the new Batman. He also takes the Oracle role as he helps Terry in the field by keeping in contact with him from the Bat-cave. Also similar to the role Alfred had done for so many years for Bruce. Another perk of “personal assistant” was being Bruce Wayne’s personal chauffeur. Don’t think any of the Robins had it that bad.

Joker, a foe for Batman's of all generations.

Terry soon develops his own villains and allies. As stated earlier, Powers’ alter-ego, Blight, a seductive shape-shifter Inque, and more. There are also some of Bruce Wayne’s old foes like a revived Mr. Freeze, the long-living Ra’s al Ghul, and inevitably, the Joker. Allies include a hacking genius named Maxine ‘Max” Gibson and police commissioner Barbara Gordon. Although Barbra is unhappy seeing someone follow Bruce’s dark and dangerous footsteps, she admits the city needs Batman.

New villains like Blight.

Familiar ally, Commissioner Gordon. Not Jim.

Can you see any resemblance?
Maybe in the chin.

The series finale presented an idea that challenged Terry’s fate to become Batman. It’s technically the unofficial series finale within the Justice League Unlimited episode “Epilogue” where Bruce needs a tissue donor to clone him new kidneys. Terry is deemed a perfect match for Bruce. After more of his own research, Terry accuses Bruce of using Cadmus nanotechnology to rewrite his genes to match Bruce’s. Terry tracks down government agent Amanda Waller and she reveals the actual origin. Waller wanted to find a way to create a new Batman knowing that Bruce Wayne’s Batman was getting older and slower. Using Cadmus to gather technology, she started “Project Batman Beyond” using a collected sample of Bruce’s DNA. The McGinnis’ were a young couple who matched the psychological profiles as Thomas and Martha Wayne and had a nanotech solution injected into Warren McGinnis, Terry’s father. This rewrote his reproductive materials into an exact copy of Bruce Wayne’s. Thus, Terry is biologically the son of his mother and Bruce. Science rules.  After Waller had tried having Terry’s parents murdered in order to replicate the incident defined Bruce’s internal motivation to become Batman (and failed obviously), she made no further attempts to push Terry into becoming Batman. Despite Terry’s genetics, he still has free will and he made his own choice in becoming Batman. Crazy! This could have easily led to Terry questioning his decision into becoming Batman as a type of pre-determined destiny, but it’s good that they reinforced that Terry became Batman on his own free will. Here’s another tidbit, the co-writer of the episode notes that Bruce did become aware that Terry (and his brother Matt) were his genetic offspring after Terry takes the role as Batman, and even figured out it was tied to Waller and Cadmus. But he didn’t bring it up out of respect to Warren McGinnis, and he wanted Terry to be his own man. Hard to tell if this was clear at all, but Deanpool will accept it as closure to the episode and the series.

As far as the comic series, well Deanpool doesn’t want to get as much into these but it has a similar tone. Batman Terry McGinnis investigates murders involving many of Bruce’s former enemies. Bruce keeps a short leash on Terry as he believes he’s not worthy to become Batman. Like it’s stated above, there were different mini-series that featured Batman Beyond. Even the current on-going series has been cancelled and re-launched once already. Terry is now a freshman at Gotham University and has more experience under his belt as Batman. Also, Dick Grayson is now the one sitting at the computer rather than Bruce. 

 

Cover to Batman Beyond #9

Cover to Batman Beyond Universe #1

For the most part, like all the Bat-characters, Terry’s abilities and powers stem from the high-tech combat suits: cloacking, magnetic boots, rocket jets, scarlet retractable bat wings (bet Red Robin likes this one), and digital audio recorder. Among all these, Terry is at peak human physical condition and a skilled martial artist. Another requirement to be in the Bat-family.

It’s been a “Batman & Robin” month, but Deanpool thought this would be a perfect Spotlight to do to tie-in with these posts. Too bad Terry/Batman Beyond can’t get a good comic series going, but at least fans can always look back to an animated series for those kinds of stories, and a bit of nostalgia as well (the series first aired in 1999). It’s hard to imagine a future without Bruce Wayne as Batman, but we get a glimpse of the future with Batman Beyond. Deanpool's favorite Batman Beyond memory is actually in a Justice League Unlimited episode where Batman and other Leaguers are sent into the Batman Beyond future. There's also the entertaining interactions between the young and old Bruce Wayne's.

That's a lot of "Batmen" in that room.