Plot summary: In the year 2042, Terry McGinnis uncovers a conspiracy that led to his father’s murder, and stumbles upon an elderly Bruce Wayne.

(Originally published on The Reel World September 11th, 2021)

Batman Beyond

Set in 2042 (and given the far less subtle title of Batman of the Future basically everywhere outside North America), Batman Beyond was initally met with backlash as it featured a new Batman battling new villains, neither of which originated from comic books, but it gradually grew on fans and critics alike.

The idea came from Jamie Kellner, head of programming at the WB, who felt TNBA was skewing a little too old demographically, chasing the popularity of teen-centric shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Dawson’s Creek… BUT, also wanted it aimed at children, despite kids NOT watching any of those shows.

Kellner was so insistent on the idea that he cancelled TNBA before it had even finished production and greenlit his hypothetical teen Batman show. None of the producers liked the idea and considered quitting, but Bruce Timm suggested setting it in the future as a compromise which Kellner loved and everyone else gradually came around on thanks to the opportunity to pay tribute to anime and cyberpunk, as well as a full cast of original villains. Unfortunately the team had less than a year to produce the show, while still finishing off TNBA and Superman: The Animated Series!

The opening credits were created by the iconic Darwyn Cook, and while they may have not aged terrifically well, they were somewhat of a technical marvel at the time. Some of it is even live action, with models on a Lazy Susan!

Beyond ultimately lasted for three seasons and a movie (that we’ll talk about way down the line), and got a spin-off show, The Zeta Project, as well as crossing over with Justice League Unlimited and Static Shock. It was ultimately cancelled, possibly due to the movie underperforming despite being beloved.

Notes

Original Air Date: January 16^th, 1999

Directed: Curt Geda (1)

Written: Alan Burnett (1) (story & teleplay)) & Paul Dini (1) (teleplay)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (1) & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (1)

Music: Lolita Ritmanis (1)

This episode was nominated for an Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television Production. Catchy!

Bruce Wayne’s line “Never again.” is an homage to The Dark Knight Returns.

Bruce Timm voiced the leader of the Jokerz himself because the actor they cast was unable to match what was in Timm’s head.

The motorcycle action is an homage to Akira, much like in ‘Robin’s Reckoning Part II’ and a million other things.

Recap

Batman rescues the kidnapped Bunny Vreeland (daughter of BTAS‘ Veronica), but with considerable strain, frequently clutching his chest. One of the kidnappers begins beating him with a metal pipe, and a desperate Bruce grabs a discarded gun to scare him off!

Disgusted with himself, Bruce returns to the Batcave and locks the suit away in a display case, vowing “never again” as he turns out all the lights.

Twenty years later, a punk dressed like a clown vandalises a crazy future-elevator and harasses a female passenger. Terry McGinnis punches him and tells him to beat it. Who is he, the protagonist or something??

Later at Hamilton Hill High School (named for the BTAS-era mayor), Terry gets into a fight with big jock on campus, Nelson Nash. Despite Nelson starting it, Terry gets the blame.

Terry’s father, Warren, meets with a visibly nervous colleague at ‘Wayne-Powers Industries’ with strange markings on his skin. He hands Warren a disc before being dragged away to meet with Derek Powers by a brute named Mr. Fixx.

Powers assures Warren that the whole thing was a misunderstanding and not so subtly asks about a missing file. Warren lies and later gets into an argument with Terry while trying to review it.

Terry heads to a club to meet his girlfriend, Dana. More creeps dressed as clowns arrive on motorcycles to terrorise everybody waiting to get in, so Terry gets in his third fight of the episode.

One high speed motorcycle chase across Gotham later, Terry crashes trying to avoid an elderly Bruce Wayne outside the gate of his mansion. The ‘Jokerz’ try to intimidate them both, but Wayne is unafraid and nonchalantly kicks all their asses.

Bruce succumbs to chest pain and lets Terry escort him back inside to take some medication and then falls asleep. Terry attempts to call his father, but spots a bat trapped in the grandfather clock and in his attempt to free it, opens the secret passage to the Bat-Cave.

He discovers Bruce’s secret past, which promptly gets him kicked out of the house. Returning home, he learns that his father was murdered in a break-in by the Jokerz!

Sometime after the funeral, Terry moves in with his mother, Mary, and little brother, Matt. He stumbles onto the stolen disc amongst his father’s belongings, but can’t make any sense of it.

Heading back to Wayne Manor, he tells Bruce over the intercom that he believes his father was killed for whatever is on the disc but doesn’t want to go to the police because they’re in Powers’ pocket. Bruce opens the gate…

Best Performance

Will Friedle puts in a solid first shift as Terry McGinnis, and while there is some ‘you can’t tell me what to do, dad!’, which no doubt worried audiences with concerns about the teen-focus, he does a good job with the emotionally-charged scenes. The highlight is his guilt-ridden conversation with his mother following the death of his father, but his pleading with Bruce at the end was well done as well.

Kevin Conroy is the only other contender, but he’s deliberately kept too enigmatic to get in enough lines to justify giving it to him instead. Quality over quantity of course, but there are limits.

Episode Ranking

God it feels good to have a blank slate to rank things against again!

Alan Burnett is credited with starting the episode with Bruce Wayne’s final night as Batman (in the new suit), and I think that was an incredibly smart decision, especially as so many wrote the show off the moment it was announced a new character would be under the cowl. Depicting Batman in such a frail state, collapsing from chest pain mid-fight and seeing no other choice to save his own life but to break his biggest rule by pointing a gun at somebody is truly shocking stuff. It drove home why Bruce had to hang it up despite seeming like he’d die in the suit one day. I love that his last hurrah wasn’t a dramatic final stand-off with The Joker or another big name from the Rogues Gallery, but a random group of nobodies that he simply couldn’t handle anymore. And that’s before they hit us with a second twenty year time jump! It’s just an extremely powerful story idea dealing with the long-term reach of Bruce’s mission, showing the downfall of a legend, literally switching the lights off on his secret headquarters, which have always served as a quasi-museum of his efforts (the ‘souvenirs’ from his capers), but are transformed into a mausoleum in this moment.

We could talk about the aesthetic of ‘Neo Gotham’ all day, and while there’s a definitely overly-optimistic prediction of how far society will advance in a few decades, I really like it. The fashion, the vehicles, the buildings, even little things like news reporters appearing as creepy superimposed blue shadows. It’s incredibly impressive to me that they were able to design this distinct and cohesive world in such a short space of time, with even the returning characters requiring brand new models. The world-building is impressive too, conveying the timeline of the Wayne-Powers merger, using Veronica Vreeland’s daughter as the hostage in the opening, naming the high school after Mayor Hill, demonstrating how much society has changed and technology has advanced etc.

It’s not just the design of the city that’s impressive, but the new Batsuit too, which was a monumentally important element to nail. I love that you can tell that it’s Bruce wearing it here, not just from his larger physique, but even the shape of his head compared to Terry. It also helps to underline that the opening is in the future too, given what a dramatically different look it is to the BTAS Batsuit.

They went go to great lengths to make everything moody and atmospheric, with the Beyond soundtrack hitting the ground running and cementing itself among the best music in the DCAU. It’s definitely its own thing, with frequent guitar shredding and some occasional synth. They couldn’t show Warren McGinnis’ corpse, but the important moment of Terry coming home to a crime scene with HAHA spray-painted on the walls as his mother and the GCPD hold him back is powerful imagery, and again, likely put some minds at ease scared off by the teen-focus.

Burnett & Dini wrote the hell out of Part I, showing us Bruce’s retirement, introducing a new world and protagonist and setting up a mystery to bring the two leads together. I love that Bruce is a total shut-in, only drawn out to beat up punks and intrigued by a mystery stifled by police corruption. Just excellent character work. There’s not an ounce of fat to be trimmed and every one of those elements works. I have no notes.

1. Rebirth: Part I (NEW ENTRY)

Rogues Roundup

Derek Powers (Sherman Howard) (first appearance)

It was a great call to have news coverage of Powers attempting a takeover of Wayne Enterprises on Bruce’s final night as Batman, and then showing him having succeeded twenty years later. It’s almost as if the gun incident broke his spirit and he couldn’t hold Powers off anymore…

Anyway, for now, he’s just a random shady business dude. We hate him because he took Bruce’s company and had Terry’s dad killed, not to mention swallowing up smaller businesses.

The Jokerz (Marc Worden/Bruce Timm) (first appearance)

While they may seem to be nothing more than Joker cosplayers, that’s a powerful concept in and of itself, and one that rings incredibly true if you look at how the Internet treats Joker in real life, as well as the whole True Crime phenomenon. The idea of disenfranchised youth hero-worshipping an anarchist Murder Clown is perfectly plausible to me. They’re detestable on purpose, and they’re one of the more memorable parts of the show.

Mr. Fixx (George Takei) (first appearance)

Not much to say at this point. He’s a distinct-looking heavy that ostensibly murdered Terry’s dad for Powers. Last place? No, no, no! Top three, baby!

1. The Jokerz (NEW ENTRY)
2. Derek Powers (NEW ENTRY)
3. Mr. Fixx (NEW ENTRY)