Batman Beyond

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' biological father. The story, set 15 years after Batman Beyond, centers on Terry (now a 31-year-old) tracking down an elderly Amanda Waller. She explains through flashbacks that, even though she trusted and respected Batman, she was aware of him growing older and slower, 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. After finding 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. 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 Phantasm (Andrea Beaumont, Bruce's ex-fiancée, whose exit from Bruce's life became one of the reasons why he became Batman in the first place) 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 Bruce would never resort to murder to achieve his goals. Waller eventually conceded that Beaumont had been right and abolished the project altogether. Eight years afterward, Warren would be murdered, 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; 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. Whether Bruce was the genetic father of Matt McGinnis as well was not clearly established in-story, since nothing was stated as to the longevity of the alterations made to Warren McGinnis' DNA; however, the series' creators have said that this is the case. The fact that Matt was born with black hair despite both of his biological parents having red hair is also an indicator of Bruce's dominant DNA.[6]

In order to complete the series, Warner Bros. Animation outsourced Batman Beyond to Dong Yang Animation, Koko Enterprises and Seoul Movie 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.

Some episodes of the series were released on VHS from 1999–2000, 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).

• *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.

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. 41 of the episodes and Return of the Joker were remastered. The remaining 11 episodes were an upconversion.[10]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[11]

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.

In 2000, Burger King included Batman Beyond toys in their kids' meals.

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, though a second, uncensored version was later released. Nevertheless, it received critical acclaim for its story, voice acting, animation and score.[12] 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. Unfortunately, it was finally scrapped due to the dark tones and controversies surrounding Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.[13]

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.[14][15] 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[16] eventually placed Batman Beyond on hold in August 2001, but ultimately canceled the proposal.[17] Yakin reportedly wanted to the film to be dark, nihilistic, and with swearing and violence, and not the PG-13 film the studio wanted.[15]

In June 2020, Michael Keaton entered talks to play an elderly Bruce Wayne, reprising his role from the Tim Burton Batman films in the DCEU film The Flash, which is set for release in 2022. 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 Jackson as Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, something of a mentor or guide or even string-puller."[18]

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.[19]

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".

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 (TV series), and the original design by Bill Finger.[20] Though the androids' source is unstated, they're 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 future self Nightwing's apartment where a poster of the Batman Beyond Batman can be seen, indicating that Nightwing admires this incarnation of Batman.