Andrea Beaumont

Andrea Beaumont unmasked.

In Mask of the Phantasm, producer Alan Burnett "wanted to do a big love story with Bruce because we hadn't really done it on the TV show. I wanted a story that got into his head."[1] He also felt that the film's narrative should be removed from Batman's traditional rogues gallery. The resulting narrative, which dealt with Bruce's decision to become and remain Batman,[1] hinged on the love story between Bruce and Andrea. Andrea's role in Mask of the Phantasm corresponds with that of the femme fatale from hardboiled detective fiction. Like classic femme fatales such as Brigid O'Shaughnessy from The Maltese Falcon, Andrea is a beautiful, intelligent woman who harbors dark secrets. The fact that Andrea is secretly the main villain is another convention of this stock character.

Andrea also serves as a foil for Batman. The characters are very similar; they both don an intimidating costume and speak to the gravestones of their parents (as if holding a conversation with the deceased). The paralleling of their characters — most importantly the death of their parents at the hand of criminals — highlights how different they are: Though they both became vigilantes, Andrea chose to become a killer, following a warped code of "eye for an eye" justice, while Bruce chose a code of ethics that forbids killing.

Andrea Beaumont is the daughter of wealthy businessman Carl Beaumont and his deceased wife, Victoria. In her youth, while attending Gotham University, she meets Bruce Wayne, and they fall in love. They have a date at the Gotham City Fairground, an exposition which extols a high-tech, prosperous Gotham, and Bruce notices a futuristic vehicle which inspires him. He vacillates between his desire to keep the promise he made to his murdered parents to fight crime versus pursuing a bride, which he feels his parents would have wanted for him had they not died prematurely. After an early crimefighting attempt succeeds, but with mixed results (Bruce donned a leather jacket and balaclava, which the criminals mocked instead of feared), Bruce decides to abandon his vendetta against sinners, donating a sizable fraction of his fortune to the Gotham City Police Department, so he can marry Andrea. As Bruce and Alfred are exploring a grotto near Wayne Manor which will eventually become the Batcave, Andrea shows up. Bruce gives her an engagement ring, and Andrea happily accepts.

Andrea discovers that her father is in business with the Mafia, having set up dummy corporations for some of the most powerful mob bosses in Gotham, including Chuckie Sol, Sal Valestra, and Buzz Bronski. When they learn that Carl has embezzled from them, they demand immediate repayment. Unable to quickly access the money he had stolen and invested, Carl insists they leave town, forcing Andrea to break off her engagement with Bruce, and they flee to Europe. A few years later, however, when Mr. Beaumont refuses to make campaign contributions to Arthur Reeves, an aspiring alderman who was once Beaumont's lawyer, the young politician sells information on the Beaumonts' whereabouts to Salvatore Valestra. Although Carl has repaid them, the vengeful gangsters want "interest, compounded in blood" and plan to have him killed. They send a hitman, who would later become the Joker, to do the job. Andrea encounters the hitman as he leaves her villa, and discovers her murdered father only moments afterward.

Consumed with hatred, Andrea waits patiently for many years, planning to destroy the men who ruined her life. When she returns to Gotham, she dons a costume reminiscent of the Grim Reaper, complete with a smoke-generating device and scythe-bladed gauntlet. Disguised as such, she kills Sol and Bronski. Due to Batman attempting to thwart a conspiracy by Sol to pass counterfeit money at the same night Sol is killed by the Phantasm, he is spotted by multiple civilians and rumors spread that he was Sol's killer. After Bronski's death in the graveyard, Andrea visits her mother's grave, where she first met Bruce. Batman, also drawn to his parents' grave after investigating the crime scene, is shocked to see her. He quickly flees, but Andrea immediately realizes his secret identity. Batman later discovers the link between the mobsters and Carl Beaumont and questions Andrea, but she rebuffs him.

The Phantasm attempts to kill Valestra, but nearly falls into a trap laid by the Joker. She escapes unharmed, but Batman attempts to apprehend her. After a brief rooftop skirmish, the Phantasm is able to abscond in a cloud of smoke as the police arrive on the scene. When Andrea realizes that the police will arrest Batman in her stead, she quickly changes out of her costume and helps him elude the authorities. At Wayne Manor, in a final attempt to conceal her vendetta, Andrea tells Bruce that the Phantasm is her father, Carl, and that she has returned to Gotham stop his murderous rampage.

Andrea tracks the Joker to his hideout at the derelict Gotham World Fairgrounds, but he guessed her identity and anticipated the attack. The two battle in the "Home of the Future" exhibit, before the Joker lures Andrea to a giant turbine. He attempts to kill her by sucking her into it, but Batman intervenes, breaking the machine moments before its blades would have crushed her. Andrea attempts to justify her actions: "They took everything, Bruce. My dad, my life, you. I'm not saying it's right, or even sane, but it's all I've got left. [...] They had to pay!"[3] Batman begs her to leave, and Andrea disappears in a cloud of smoke. After a stalemate battle between Batman and the Joker that sees both men on the brink of exhaustion, the fairgrounds - rigged with explosives - detonate and begin to crumble. Andrea reappears and explains that "one way or another, it ends tonight."[3] With the Joker defeated and in her power, Andrea bids farewell and disappears with her captive before Batman can stop her.

After escaping the fairgrounds' destruction through a series of sewers, Batman assumes that Andrea and the Joker have perished in the inferno. However, she survives and leaves a locket for Bruce in the Batcave as a keepsake. In the penultimate scene of the film, Andrea stands alone at night on the deck of an ocean liner.

The Phantasm makes her first returning appearance in the comic Batman & Robin Adventures Annual #1 "Shadow of the Phantasm" (November 1996). In a direct sequel to Mask of the Phantasm, Andrea and Batman defeat Arthur Reeves, who - having been driven mad by the Joker - is determined to exact revenge on Beaumont.

In Batman Adventures: Shadows and Masks, Andrea goes undercover in the Black Mask's organization, the False Face Society. During this story arc, she confronts Bruce at Wayne Manor and asks him not to interfere with her operation. He rebukes her, calling her a "killer". She eventually fights Batgirl and tries to kill Black Mask.

The Phantasm reappears as an assassin in the season 2 finale episode of the television series Justice League Unlimited ("Epilogue"). Now an elderly woman, the Phantasm is hired by Amanda Waller to murder Terry McGinnis' parents. The psychological trauma, Waller reasons, will steer Terry toward becoming Batman's successor. However, the Phantasm abandons the hit moments before she would have slain the young couple, unable to tear apart a child's life. The Phantasm argues that the murder would defile the Batman legacy by breaking Bruce's paramount rule to never take a life. Andrea's change of heart marks the official end of Waller's "Batman Beyond project", only to have fate compel Terry to eventually become Bruce's successor anyway. In the episode, Andrea has no lines or voice actor; her sentiments are conveyed through Waller's monologue recounting the event.

The Phantasm returns in Mark of the Phantasm, a seven-part storyline in the digital comic Batman Beyond 2.0 (set after the Batman Beyond animated series). Andrea seeks out the great-grandnephew of Joe Chill, Jake Chill (a.k.a. Vigilante), for the murder of Terry McGinnis' father to ensure that Batman will not kill him. As in "Epilogue", she is hired by Amanda Waller.

The Phantasm is expected to make her debut in the mainstream DC Universe in the new Batman/Catwoman comic series, written by Tom King and illustrated by Clay Mann.[6]