Batman Beyond

Batman’s history is so legendary and he's had so many sidekicks we had to jump cut to the future! This week on Geek History Lesson, we’re diving into the future history of Batman Beyond -- a time when Terry McGinnis is under the cowl, Neo Gotham is darker than ever, Bruce Wayne has a new god, and we are introduced to some of the most unique and imaginative tales in DC television history.

Additional research & writing by Diego Nunez - https://www.threads.com/@blackcrow521

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Thanks for showing up to class today. Class is dismissed!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Imagine this, Bruce Wayne has finally hung up the Cape
and Cow but gotam shadows are longer and more dangerous
than ever and maybe involve some climate change. You're going
to enter that world with Terry McGinnis. He's a new,
younger Batman who takes up the mantle, and he's guided
by a now elderly and even grumpier Bruce Wayne. Now,

(00:35):
the interesting thing about Batman Beyond is it wasn't just
the sequel to Batman the animated series. It was a
bold leap forward in storytelling. This show reimagined everything we
knew about the Dark Knight, blended in cyberpunk, futuristic tech,
classic detective noir.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
And.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
I think it gave us the Batman that we actually
need to be following right now. He is an everyman
who figures out how to go beyond vengeance and spoilers.
He becomes the leader of the Justice League in his universe.
Yeah that's right, Terry McGinnis is the Robin of the future. So, Ashley,

(01:14):
I am going to spin this episode trying to convince
you why Batman Beyond is cool. So grab your utility belt,
buckle up, because today we're diving into the world of
Batman Beyond. So hello and welcome to geek history of
Lesson Beyond. I'm Jason Inman and that.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Means you're turning into the joker. I'm Ashley Victoria Robinson.
Welcome to your mind University because you have stumbled onto
the podcast where we take one character construct or a
legacy character from pop culture and teach you everything you
need to know about them in about an hour. Because
we are a Canadian comic book writer and a TV
writer for Kansas who know a thing or two about superheroes,

(01:51):
and today we are doing the often requested but never
duplicated Batman Beyond episode, which has a been a the
Hopper for a while.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
It has been in the hopper for a while.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
We're finally doing it.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
And speaking of the Hopper for a while, Ashley, I'm
going to make a request on air. I'm gonna let
the listeners into a little bit of behind the scenes.
I'm gonna ask you would you mind turning on the
fan behind you.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Because I literally I was doing something wrong a little
hot in the podcast, or I'm gonna go, but you
got a VAM, I.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Can totally vam because we're here to talk about Batman
Beyond because I'm going to full transparency here. I think
Batman Beyond, thank you so much, Ashley.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Anything, it's anything, I'm I am the Robin to your No,
I don't, I guess I don't want to be terry,
but the Robin to your Batman.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
You can say you're the Robin.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I'm the Robin to your night Wing. So, because you
are much more well adjusted than Bruce Wayne, I'm just gonna.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Say I actually really love Batman Beyond. True. I think
Batman Beyond is a really good show that I think
kind of gets forgotten. It does have a cult following.
But I actually mean what I said in that intro
and I and this is to me. This episode is
not to convince anybody of anything. This episode is not
really to tell you about the show. It's on HBO Max.

(03:03):
They made an awesome blue ray series. Go flip and
watch it. Our podcast is not here to tell you
this is every day tail that happened. Go figure that
out yourself. Enjoy the art that a lot of hard
working people put into their life. But I want to
talk about Batman Beyond because I do truly feel in
our world of division and anger and violence that the

(03:27):
more and more I think about Batman Beyond, the more
and more I want Batman Beyond to be the Batman
of the DC universe because I think there is a
lot of lessons to take right, because full transparency here,
I have a hard bias against Batman anymore.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Let me ask you this and throw you under the
bus right to begin with, do you prefer the concept
of Terry McGinnis as Batman over Dick grace and as
Batman because you're a big Dick Batman fan.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
I am, But I will say I think they can
exist in the same world. You know, I'm I'm gonna
say that Terry McGinnis Batman still happens in a dig
Grayson Batman world.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Well, yeah, he's like thirty years here. Yeah, you know,
so Erry McGinnis would be being born.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Like now, I don't really, let's not get Let's not
get into the timeline of a nebulous Simpsons timeline where
the man years keep trekking for it. We're never gonna
solve it. There are some years that are stated in
the show, so you sort of have a rough idea.
So let's not get in this thunder. I do think

(04:31):
Dick Grayson is the better Batman. But there is something too.
There is a lot of the Robin's storyline, yeah, for sure,
in Terry McGinnis. And I think because Terry is a
complete outsider to all of it. He's not a member
of the bat family. There are no other members of
the bat family. He is a lone wolf for the

(04:52):
entirety of his Avengers that he sort of fulfills the
Nightling world. Again, he does go on to lead the Justice.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Leag I've seen that episode.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, it's a really good episode, and he's actually a
really good leader. So I just think there's something really
there's there's a really interesting thing in the story of
an everyman being taught all the lessons from Batman Bruce
Wayne and sort of becoming a better Batman than Bruce Wayne. Yeah,
I said it. He's a better Batman than Bruce Wayne.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
I think most of the Batman's who come after Bruce
Wayne are better Batman's than Bruce Wayne. But I will
say that that should be what happened. Your legacy character
should be better than you because they stand on the
shoulders of everything that you've learned. I also think it's
interesting because I'm definitely not as invested in either Terry
or the concept of Batman beyond as much as you are.
I like the opening credit sequence, and that's about where
my thoughts about it end.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Designed by Darwin Cook.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Absolutely gh but so so. The thing that I wanted
to add as well, about him being sort of like
a Batman for the future or whatever is I always thought,
because I was like a little person when the show
came out, I always thought that Terry, despite his last
name being McGinnis, was Asian. Like, I just think he

(06:05):
looks Asian. It's just the way they draw the character's eyes.
And you know what, now I am old enough to
understand that he could be mixed race and his last
name could be McGinnis and he could still look Asian.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
I don't think I go into this. There was an
early version where Keanu Reeves was going to play.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I knew that once upon a time. But so I've
always held in my head Cannon when I read Invincible.
I know people think he's based on Dick Grayson, but
I was like, oh, I think he's influenced by Terry,
because Mark.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Grayson is at least the cartoony have no problem with
r A. I'm also like a fan believer that the
names can change.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Absolutely, but also in that future because this was very
trendy in like a post Matrixy kind of world. Every
future is vaguely Japanese coded, right because we love to
animate at that time, and this.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
In this show is heavily inspired by anithwer for sure.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, yeah, So I just.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Want to give a quick shout out that this has
some research by Diego, Anthony Nuniez or GJO Resources. Thank
you Diego, and let's go into the ten cent origin.
Will you please tell our audience from the future Ashley
very briefly what that.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Is, shway, I would love to The ten cent Origin
is the first part of the podcast where Professor Jason
is going to break down all the basics the who's
its and WHATSITs galore of Terry McGinnis and Batman Beyond.
In case you get invited to a future themed cocktail
party at the DC Warner Brothers building and somebody doesn't
do their homework and they're like, what's this Batman Beyond

(07:29):
guy all about?

Speaker 1 (07:30):
So Batman Beyond premiered in January tenth of nineteen ninety nine.
It was also known as Batman of the Future. It
was created by Paul Deani, Bruce tim and Alan Burnett.
The classic Batman, the anime series Triumvirant of course based
on Batman by Bill Cain and Bill Finger. A lot
of the episodes written by Alan Burnett, Paul Deni, Stan Bergerwitz,
also Rich Fogel, Yeah, Hillary Batter a lot of names

(07:52):
that you've seen over Batman and made series Superman Man series,
including Justice League, the Ammen series. It starred Will Friedel
as Terry McGinnis, Evan Conroy as Bruce Wayne, and a
bunch of other people including Chris Sumner, Lauren Tom Frank Welker,
Stocker Channing, and Angie Harmon. Lord d compose its of
course the great Shirley Walker, the late Gray Shirley Walker,

(08:14):
and then of course Lyda Ritamanas and Michael mccoustion who
would go on, Christopher Carter, who would go on to
do lots of Justice League episodes. There are three seasons
of Batman Beyond. There are fifty two episodes, and that
was before fifty two was a big This.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Is also a Will Freedo at the highthest power.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Not quite actually not really at all, And I will.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Go into so interesting. Maybe they're just a little mush
together in my brain. Let's go into the meet cute, Ashley,
what is that?

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (08:41):
I haven't done one of these in a while. The
meet cute is the second part of the podcast where
we still a term for romantic comedy writing and we
tell you the first time we meet it to character
and how cute it was.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
That's correct, because Diego did some research for us.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
We have he goes first.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, we have his meet cue here, Diego says. When
I was seven years old, I broke up with Batman
after watching Batman and Robin in nineteen mine.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Oh, sweetie.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
I didn't recognize it was a bad movie, but I
did recognize something was wrong and Batman wasn't going to
be relevant. A few laters years later, I found out
the future of cyberpunk Batman and I became obsessed about
learning with it. For my birthday, my mom bought me
The Return of the Joker on VHS that is a
video magnetic tape that you put into a VCR. I
became a huge Batman beyond fan ever since.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
And uh, Diego and I are are good friends and
get along very well. But this continues our trend of
having absolutely opposite tastes in everything. Ashley, do you remember
when you first encountered Batman? I sure do. I don't know,
save your return of the Joker takes till the very end.
We will get to return, I know, I know we will,
and I do know when it falls canonmically in the timeline.
I don't know exactly what year because in Canada we

(09:44):
did not always get everything at the same time that
it came out in the United States, because this was
before streaming. Yes, we're old. I do remember that. I
want to say it was y TV, the channel that
aired Batman. The I made a series and just Sleek
and Superman had Batman Beyond on it, and I'm sure

(10:04):
they were in the same block. I know I watched it.
But the only thing I remember about that early viewing
of Batman Beyond is I knew Terry's name And there
is an arc where he becomes a junkie. He becomes
like addicted to like a speed drug that he's trying

(10:24):
to take off the street, but he uses it to
make him more powerful.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh that's what. There's one episode and it's sort of
like it's kind of like a hormone it makes him faster.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Okay, Yeah, that's that is the only thing I remember.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Okay, because I've shown you a couple of episodes about.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
The Yes, but I mean from from that sort of
original time and then obviously Terry crosses into some of
the other series. Yeah, and that's a pretty good episode
because the only other series that's after this is Justice League. Yes,
and this show was on around the same time as
this other show called The Zeta Project.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
That was also The Zeta Project is a spinoff Batman Beyond.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
An Alt Future. See. I remember them being on at
the same time, and I don't know if that's because
I caught them all in reruns or because they aired
in Canada at the same time.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
The reason I'm saying that right now is because we're
not going to go in The Zeta Project at all.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Why would you.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Zeta was a character on Batman Beyond who they spun
off into their own shows.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
So I liked The Zeta Project and I did not
like Batman Beyond.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
I'm interesting.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I never watched any more Batman Beyond. I never sought
up Batman Beyond. And then you were like, I can't
believe you don't like Batman Beyond and watch a couple
episodes and still don't really like Batman Beyond. So I
am interested to fill in my gaps and to extrapolate
why he resonates with other people, because you said he
is a cult following, and maybe just I'm around too

(11:40):
many commup wers, but I feel like Batman Beyond is
beloved and people will like go to their death talking
about how much they love Batman Beyond.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
People either really like it or they don't.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, there's no in betweens I find.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, so even even before Return of the Joker stomped
all over my heart, I just it's just not for me.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, you know, how about you?

Speaker 2 (12:00):
What was your intro to a Batman Beyond.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
We're going back to the Houseyon days of Wizard Magazine,
the Guide to Comic Books megan when they announced that
there was a new animated series coming out called Batman Tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Ooye is a better title, And when they showed the
first image of him, he had the same costume, black
with red a red bat on his which is a
it's a really costume, but the bat was yellow.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh, very Cassandra Kane about it?

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, yeah, but I remember seeing it at a friend's
house who had cable because I didn't have came I
didn't get see until college, Like I saw it running
on tunami or something like that. Yeah, and I remember
being just sucked in by the opening credits.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
The opening credits are very cool.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Again designed by great, the late great Darwin Cook.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, I mean, and if you know what darn cooks are,
it looks like you're like, oh, yeah, all.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Right, let's get to some fun facts about Batman beyond.
And if you want to know some fun facts about
me and Ashley, you should go check out our Patreon
at patreon dot com slash job on the jaw. I am.
We're not only where we have reviewed just the animated
series and Jason and Jeremy our bonus podcast over there,
which we have over fifty episodes where Terry mc ginnis
appears in. We're also doing Talking Titans, which is a

(13:11):
teen Titans animated review podcast, so go check that out,
along with our Superman Movie Club with Christopher Reeve all
kinds of suff There so much fun patron dot com
slash Johnwin. Oh, and today we're gonna be talking about
technology of the future that I think we want yeah, yeah, yeah,
future devices.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
What futuristic conventions do you wish existed?

Speaker 1 (13:28):
So some fun facts before we dip into the actual.
And again we are not getting into heavy story details
about Batman beyond.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Go watch the series.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Go watch a piece of art that a lot of
people put some work on. Don't look at it, TikTok,
watch it not with your phone. Yeah, freaking enjoy thousands
of people's hard work. Yeah, So some fun facts. Despite
having a birthday episode, the age of Bruce Wayne is
never actually ever revealed in the show that makes sense.

(13:58):
Terry McGinnis was the first voice acting role for will
friedel Uh and he has now become more well known
as a voice actor. His big role before that was
he was Eric Matthews in Boy Meets World. He was
a kid actor, but now he's primarily known as a
voice actor.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, but was he also not like a young person
voicing Terry?

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yes, he was a yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
But when I when I said that earlier, because.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
I was, like I said, he was like famous. He
was not famous when he got this role.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Bro, he was famous from Boy Meets World. He was
the the hot older brother on Boy Meets World.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
No, he's not he's not. He's not the hot older
brother because the was.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
A young woman who watched Boy.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Okay, but he was not the most famous person from
Boy Meets World.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
He's no, no, no, no, he was because then he came
off Meets World and then did he was a supporting
character on Boy Meets World. Is what made him famous.
I understand. He's probably, yes, now more famous from his
has three leads made him.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
He is none of those leaders.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
I know.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
He also doesn't appear in every episode. I know, but
you were like trying to make it like he is
the boy who beats the world. He is not.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
He's way more interesting than the boy who met the world.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
He is the brother of Corey is the least interesting character. Again,
he is more famous as a voice actor than he
is as that guy from Boy Meets World.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
I mean, says you, okay, dear God.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Bruce Wayne's private vehicle that Terry uses the show for
Bruce around is actually the design of the original batmanobile
flipped upside down. Also, in the early years of the show,
a live action feature length film was in development with
Bose Yachin, who is the director Remember the Titans, and
he was set to direct with Clint Eastwooden talks of

(15:47):
the role as an elderly Bruce Wayne until Chelle. I
have no idea if those Keanu Reeves or not. I
don't really care.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
That's bonkers.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, they should have just got Michael Keen.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I've seen remember the Titan, Yes, wild choice?

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah, all right, So we're gonna get into some of
the basics of Batman Beyond right after this. All right,
we're back. We're talking Batman. Sadly, but thank god, we're
talking about Batman Beyond who All right. After the success
of the hit film Batman eighty nine, Batman took a
stranglehold on pop culture from the nineties onward. It's very true.

(16:23):
He always had to wear black. Kind of got an.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
From which we've never recovered.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
We spawned the legendary Batman the anime series during this
time period, thank God, featuring the notable talents of Paul Deiny,
Alian Burnett, and Bruce tim Now. Nineteen ninety seven hit
and that's when the disaster known as Joel Schumacher's Batman
and Robin starring George Clooney hit and basically Batman anime

(16:47):
series had a dip in ratings and it led to
its eventual castlation. Kids w B requested a new series
with a younger Batman and a lighter tone, and originally
Bruce tim was not interest, did not want to do it,
but eventually he puts some thoughts into it and he
launched Batman Beyond, the sequel spin off show, which was

(17:08):
a cyberpunk nir tech dystopian twist. So basically this is
how it works. It's a fresh start. All the characters
of the classic show are gone. There is a complete
revision of what we knew of Batman history, and if
you think about it, you can tell there's a lot
of inspiration from Spider Man twenty nine to nine, and
there's a lot of inspiration from Spider Man. Terry McGinnis

(17:30):
has a lot of similar tendencies to Peter Parker. So
this show decided to create a brand new mythology, new villains,
a new lexicon, new technology, and a new style, and
it was primarily inspired by sci fi genre classics. Akira

(17:54):
and the City of Neo Gotham took a lot of
inspiration from Blade Runner Now Ashley cyberpunk, I know it
is your favorite subgenre of science fiction.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
I like cyberpunk.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
You love it.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
What do you think of neuromancer? I'm educated.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
What do you think about this as the genre of
choice to base this new Batman show in.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
I mean, it's interesting because I really do lay a
lot of Batman beyond at the foot of the matrix,
even though this would have been in development, would for
the matrix, but it does.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Maybe that was just in the zeychay, yeah, and I
was I said, this premiered six months before the making Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, but when you watch it, you're like a so
matrix y. It must have just been in the ether.
It must have just been what was trendy with the
approaching millennium and the idea that the computers were going
to kill us. All I think on I think on paper, right,
I think it's an interesting idea and I think, particularly
for nineteen mid nineteen nineties, it makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
So let me tell you about the distant future. Okay,
the distant future of twenty nineteen. Okay, we see an
aging Bruce Wayne, a man in his fifties, still out
fighting crime against the cowardly, superstitious lot. There's no more Backgirl,
there's no more Robbins because he's pissed them all off
because he's Bruce Wayne. While rescuing a kidnapped victim, Bruce
endures a heart attack and is nearly beaten to death,

(19:14):
and in a desperate attempt to defend himself, he reaches
for a gun to scare off the kidnappers. It works,
but he becomes disgusted with himself, admitting that he's finally
hit his limit, and he decides to hang up the
cow and to never be Batman. This is the opening
scene of Batman Beyond.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
A light hearted kids cartoon.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yep, yep. Now what do you think about this? As
sort of a ending for Bruce's last adventure as Batman?
A heart he and by the way, in this, he's
wearing the Batman Beyond suit like he's in the Batman
with suit. But he has a heart attack and again
these guys are going to kill him and the only

(19:53):
thing that he can do to save himself is he
picks up a gun.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
I it's a good pitch. It's really good if you're
like a deep like we all these guys are big nerds.
We know this. It's why they it's why they do
this so well. I appreciate the thought that's put into it.
It also immediately begs the question for me, which is
something I've always wanted about that maybe beyond why not
just do Kerry Kelly? Like what respect well, why not

(20:20):
why not tell the story with Carry Kelly instead of
inventing like a character whole cloth, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Because they didn't want to pay Frank Miller money.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, but she's right.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
There, Taranty you that's exactly the reason.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Absolutely, or they were like we're not paying no character
payments you make somebody, But you know, like that is
that is something that always kind of goes around in
my head where I'm like, we have a rub and
she's right there, and she's really I like Carry Kelly.
That's just really neat. I think it's a really strong choice.
But again for a kid's cards too. I've never seen
this episode. I imagine if I had been a five

(20:52):
or six or seven year old person, and this would
have been quite scary. So I could respect it as
a storyteller, but I do think I'm like those scary
for them children.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
I think it's a brilliant ding for Batman. And in
the episode we jumped twenty years later, so now Bruce
is in his seventies. Thirty nine, Gotham is different. It's
still a decaying city. The architecture looks like Blade Runner,
and regular citizens turn away from crimes that unfold right
in front of them. And the legacy of the old
Batman rogue gallery has now influenced the modern day youth

(21:24):
of It's called neo Gotham. They have now creating gangs
and drugs in honor of these foreign villains former villain
excuse me, and not much else is known about every
character in the Batman universe, and that is one of
the things that I really like this series, because if

(21:46):
Batman Beyond was made now, they would go out of
their way.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Does what happened to the real word? This is what
happened to the Joker. We're going to someone's grave, someone
is still in prison.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Goes out of its way to not do that.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
No, I do think the way that they choose to
reference is very intelligent. Like specifically they're not use of
the Joker, but the way that the Joker has the
Joker has permeated their culture. There is I know there
is also a scene where we do we don't name
check Harley Quinn, but there's a character who's implied to
be a voice of a character. Yeah, yeah, but but

(22:20):
no one is like, yes, Mims, Harley, you.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Know what I mean? Now, the interesting thing is that
that character shows up before that their name or hinted
that they're Harley Quinn.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
So that was kind of a nice read column where
they were like, oh, you know, what would be funny
if this old lady is herd Wait.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
Yeah, but it totally makes sense. But so I think
it's really intelligent, and I think it's something that you
you wouldn't have now because the criticism that you and
I often have a superhero media now is that it
is but you were sort of just describing, right, it's
the slide show. Hey remember this, heymember, this, hey member
this like these are this is all such deep cut

(22:53):
stuff that like, which is what makes it good for
an all audience show. If you don't know the lord,
that's okay, they're building it along with you. It's smart idea. Now.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Notable BAT characters such as Alfred Penny, where Jim Gordon
and Leslie Thompson are confirmed they have passed on.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Well, they were old people when we saw them in
the previous universe.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Barbara Gordon, formerly Batgirl, is now the Police Commissioner.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
I always liked that choice.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
And villains it's confirmed, like Harley Quinn, Bain Rosa Ghul,
Mister Freeze have either passed on, retired, or have basically
just disappeared. Huh huh. So I wanted to ask you, Ashley,
do you is any of the Batman villains? Do you
have a a retirement plan for them? Is the where
do you think some of them? You know, where do
you think some of these villains end up?

Speaker 2 (23:35):
They all die? Literally, all of them die like these
these characters are set up for us to be irredeemable.
So the Joker is the easiest, laziest example, because he's
the most extreme of these characters. Right if the Joker said, coos,
this is so deep that he has lost everything about himself,

(24:00):
any shred of humanity outside of toying with Batman, just
because he's kind of bored, there's no redemption. He's just
gonna keep going until he stumbles off a bridge and
cracks his neck, you know, or Batman does it for him.
I don't see any of these characters making it too well,
Harley Quinn, maybe because we've given her a bit of

(24:20):
a redemption story. Yeah, a catwoman maybe if you believe
that she like shacks up with Bruce and they get
married or they have a long term partnership. But I mean,
I think all the villains are like dead before sixty
for sure.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Basically yeah, sure, so just let you know. Basically, when
an in prize is gone, it's been absorbed by another
company and it's now called Wayne Powers, and Derek Powers,
the CEO of the company, is sort of Terry's first villain.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Derek Powers does sound like the kind of guy who
would step in front of you in a line.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Sounds like a guy in a James Bond movie.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, he just seems like a jerk.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
So Bruce Wayne is a Clint Easwood type who sits
in his house all by himself with a the bathound
as his only companion.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
And argues with chairs.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
And eventually there comes this young punk Terry McGinnis, who
gets lucky in his preteen years. He commits petty crimes
like break ins and stealing. Fortunately he wasn't unforgiven and
he was set on a different path to better himself.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Hah hah haha.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
And after a chance meeting with Bruce Wayne, the punk
discovers a bat cave some may call a grand Tino
in a bathsuit, Thinking he's some kind of space cowboy,
he steals Bruce Wayne's batsuit to serve his own brand
of justice for the death of his father and for
just a fistful of dollars, and Terry McGinnis joins the

(25:40):
Batman family, so Batman as Batman, he goes where eagles dare,
helping the helpless. As a wise cracking Batman of the future.
He's impulsive, rash, but he gets results, and he's a
million dollars and he eventually takes the mantle. He's not
quite the detective like some dirty Harry. He tries his
hand and disguises and stealth. He sometimes MUCKs it up,

(26:03):
but he follows his instincts. He walks through this tight
rope of living a normal life and his life as
a bat and his friend Max Gibbons eventually discovers his
bat persona, helping him balance his social life and his
work life. As the rookie, Terry shows he's more resourceful
than given credit, and if he truly is the enforcer

(26:26):
he sees himself to be, he will be more than
just the suit he puts on, because being Batman, there's
the good, the bad, and the ugly, and for a
young man, it's a lot of bad and it's a
lot of ugly. Yet when he puts himself in the
line of fire every day to create a perfect world
with Bruce Wayne in his ear, he can become the
perfect dynamic duo like Filo and Clyde.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
I have a question, I fear I know the answer,
but I just need confirmation. Did you write that or
did Diego write that?

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Wait? A little bit of both. Okay, okay, a little
bit of both. Okay. I will just tell you if
you go by can listen to that. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
thirteen Clint Eastwood movie references. Wow. Go check them out.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
So basically, the shortened version of this is Yeah, is
that Terry and his father doesn't get along, and Terry's
father is basically murdered and it's meant to look like
an accident, but it's actually Derek Powers, and Terry doesn't
believe any of the excuses that Derek Powers gives him,

(27:33):
and basically nobody believes Terry about any of the Shenanigans
because he's he has a record. Yeah, so he accidentally
a juvenile record. Come on, and you can kind of
see that The Dark Knight rises a little bit inspired by.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
This, Yeah, And honestly, there's a little bit of the
death of Tim Drake's father in here as well.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Exactly. So he accidentally figures out that Bruce Wayne is Batman,
and after the death of his father, he gets so
he goes to Bruce and he asked him to help,
and when Bruce doesn't help, he basically breaks into the
batcave takes the batman suit and it's like, I'm gonna
go beat up Derek powers on my own old man.
And then as he goes out trying to get his

(28:12):
dad's revenge, Bruce starts popping up in his ear and
Bruce becomes the man in the chair.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Is this is gonna sound rude and I don't mean
it this way. Is Terry smart?

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yes? And no? Okay, So Terry is smart, but Terry
plays dumb because again he has years and years of
nobody believing in it. Yeah. Okay, So what you actually
learn and what is one of the most interesting aspects
of Terry is that Terry knows how criminals think. Oh sure,

(28:48):
because he is one, or he was one, and he
needs somebody. He's always needed somebody like Bruce to be
tough on him, he push him.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
He's really like a more fleshed out post ret con
Jason Todd is. Yeah, you know where he's got those
bad impulses, but the strong hand of a mentor who
can see his potential. Like turns, does he have a sister?

Speaker 1 (29:14):
He has a younger brother. Okay, okay, so he has
a mom and he has a younger brother and he
still lives with his mom.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yes, yeah, And the gag of they live in an apartment.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
They live in a very small because they're poor. Yeah. Yeah,
Terry's family grew up on the bad side of Gotham.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
I'm pulling all these weird corners of my memory.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
And the whole gag is is that the end of
the first episode, Bruce Wayne hires Terry as his driver.
Oh that's clever, and so that is the explanation of
why they're always around all this stuff like that. But
it is one of these things where like Terry is
Bruce's connection to the real world, and then Bruce is

(29:51):
sort of Terry's I was gonna say, Rubicon to becoming
like a fully fledged man.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, he's almost like the Master Key in a lot
of ways.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, now like most of the other Robins. And this
is a you see this and just leg Unlimited. Yeah,
you don't see this in Batman. You see this a
little bit in Return of the Joker, which is the
movie that takes place after the series, but you see
this more and Justly Unlimited because in Just League Limited spoilers,
you see Terry as the leader of the Justice League.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah, yeah. And by that time, when he's in his
like mid thirties.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Ye, ancient decrepit, his life is over.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
He kind of doesn't listen to Bruce anymore.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Doesn't express Yeah, and he cut specifically.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah. But it's interesting because he does treat Bruce very
much like his father.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
But he does treat him with respect. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, he never Terry never leaves Bruce. Yeah, like Bruce.
Terry will always call Bruce and be like, yo, what's up. Yeah,
he'll never walk.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Interesting to think about it, because Terry would have to
almost exists in a world without Robins or where.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Well it's a world where like by the time Terry
shows up, all the Robins have basically sworn off ever talking.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah, and I was gonna say, and that is a
narrative that the TAS universe kind of follows, like there's
a lot of falling outs.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
I will say, we're getting a little bit down the
line here, which is fine. There is a really good
I believe it might be written by your Talking Titans
guest Adam Beachenou. There is a Batman Beyond comic that
was digital only.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
I believe it was written by and it was sport.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
It was supposed to be sort of like the season
four of the show, and in that show, in that
series he goes and finds Tock Grayson yep.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Twenty ten.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
And it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
But he also wrote Bad Girl Beyond Terry.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Is I've said this before, maybe on this podcast about
the twelfth Doctor of Doctor Who. Something I like about
the twelfth Doctor. He's only in three seasons, but as
you watch the seasons, he becomes a change. He's different
in his second season than he is his first season,
just like he becomes a fully flesh character.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
For this being a kid's cartoon that every Saturday morning,
Terry in season two is different from Terry in season one.
Terry in season three is almost at full Batman level.
Like it's interesting that they unlike Superman the animen series
or Batman anime series, where those characters are very static,
even justinely those characters are very static. You see Terry

(32:21):
getting better.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Do you think that's because I don't know how old
he is when we meet him. I presume he's like eighteen,
nineteen twenty. I've nowhere in there.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
I've always assumed that he's either like seventeen or eighteen, like.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
He's almost an adult. But I wonder if that's because
he's young, whereas when we meet Batman and Superman in
their respective series, they're like thirty five or forty, like
they are grown.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Okay, so supposedly so this is from Reddit, right, sure,
this is a Reddit post that says, supposedly, Terry McGinnis,
if you track his age back, sure, was supposedly born
in August eighteenth, twenty twenty three.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Little baby angel Terryn.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Is about to celebrate his third birthday.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
He's a he's a COVID.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
He is a COVID sort of, but no, and I
think that's the reason. I because Terry in the Pilot
is very cantankerous. He's you don't really like him, yeah,
and you don't really like Bruce. And then by the
last by the last act of the Pilot, they both

(33:29):
kind of soften, which is interesting, and it is interesting
that Bruce kind of needed somebody who knew nothing about
him to be like, shut up and be quiet, old man,
you know. And then he's like, oh, maybe I should,
even though he keeps giving him crap all the time.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
And then it is this thing because Terry, because he
has his criminal record, because he's poor, because he's always
from the wrong side of the tracks. Basically, he's always
trying to prove himself, and he has a mentor that
will never give him that impressed and so he just
keeps getting better and better and better and better and
better and better. Like like he he will continually just
like grow, you know, or problematically anyways, But Terry McGinnis,

(34:11):
as I said, he is, I gotta ask your question.
I mean, you talked about the Jason Todd of it. Yeah,
what do you feel about the successor to Batman just
being a regular kid?

Speaker 2 (34:22):
I mean, yeah, that's fine, fine by me. I don't
have a problem with Terry. Yeah, I want to make
that very clear. I don't have a problem with the
character or the concept. My problem, my dislike, I think
comes more from the execution. I would have no problem
if they made if in the DC Studios Cannon they

(34:43):
skipped over all the robins. I know they won't and
just went right to Terry, like it's at streamlines of
the universe. I would understand that move. I think I
kind of like it being some random dude because it's
a bit antithetical to Bruce Wayne, right, because you know,
like you know Bruce went Superpowers. Is he's a rich
white guy. Yeah, so it's nice to see that he

(35:05):
would choose something. The opposite of that is who would
actually represent the people in Gotham who need a hero.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
There is some interesting stuff and Batman. Beyond that, they
give a lot of impressions that Bruce doesn't have full
access to his fortune anymore. So there are some times
that they have to sort of just like they have
to like do some Shenanigans to be able to because
Bruce is like, I don't have that money.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Well, if he's over sixty five, like he could and
he could reasonably not have control over Wayne Enterprises.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, so and he you get lot you don't exactly
learn what happened, but but you get the impression on
a lot of episodes that Bruce kind of got screwed
over in that deal. Yeah, that's somebody.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
He wasn't looking. He wasn't paying a team as Batman
at some time.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, because he got too old. Yeah, and I'm not
saying that being old is makes a bad everybody. You
understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
So Cardila is left on his knees.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
I the other thing I like about Terry is because
there's an age difference. Yep, he's not a Robin, even
though he is a Robin, but he gets to go
straight to Batman. You get you get the Robin's journey
in a Batman suit.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
I mean the suit is sick like. Yeah, and I
think I like the suit as well because it reminds
me of the Cassandra Kane Backrel suit, which is one
of my favorite seas of all time.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Like this would have been before.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
I know, not the Ninja. Well, the Caxandra Kane bat
Girls suit is honestly a ripoff of the Catwoman's suit,
but uh, it's a very cool visual like I love
the black face with just the little white mouth like
gee pee pee peeky.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
So Terry does a lot of stuff as Batman, quite
differently from Bruce. He's very reckless, but he's also driven
by personal loss as Terry's father was Terry's father's murder
echoes Bruce's origin. Terry's journey is shaped by his youth
and his stubbornness in a lot of ways that he
sometimes will just not listen to Bruce. Yeah, and it

(36:47):
will put him in trouble. Very Batman, yes, uh. Terry
is also a very talkative and he's a very joky Batman.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
That's very that's very like spider Man and he es actually.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, and he actually uses it to throw off his foes,
particularly when I think one of the most brilliant scens
and will get this eventually. He uses it to his
advantage in return to the Joker, because it throws the
Joker off when Batman laughs at it Joker, he calls
the Joker a joke, like he beats the Joker by
insulting him, which is kind of a twist that you'd

(37:22):
never seen on Batman. So again, a lot of Batman
beyond as he's trying to balance his work life, his school,
his family, and his relationship because nobody knows that he's Batman,
including his girlfriend Dana Tant. Eventually, as I said, Maxine Gibbons,
his best friend in season two of Batman Beyond, discovers
Terry's secret and sort of becomes his woman on the
chair when Bruce is unavailable. Yeah, so she's a computer hacker.

(37:46):
She does all kinds of things like that. She does
say to him, do not call me a Robin, and
he goes, okay, I'll call you Alfred and she's like,
I don't understand what that means.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
That's fun, that's funny.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Eventually, Bruce accepts Terry Moore and becomes an offer some
wisdom and sort of life guidance and all kinds of
stuff like that. And a lot of the first season
is Bruce Wayne basically bearing very skeptical of Terry and
that he can pull stuff off, and a couple of
times he literally turns the suit completely off interesting and

(38:18):
leaves Terry with no none of the you know, because
the Batman Beyond suit can fly, Yeah, and it has
like all kinds of like special abilities that are normal.
It's almost an iron Man suit, but not quite. Yeah.
So the interesting thing about Batman Beyond, as I said,
is they don't really talk about the regular Batman villains.
They introduce a bunch of new villains, or do they.

(38:41):
So there's a bunch of silver Age villains that have
been sneakily snuck into Batman Beyond, and I'm gonna tell
you all about them. Right for this JJ, we're back
talking about Batman Beyond. So, actually I told you there's
no bat villains and Batman Behind I there's a couple,

(39:01):
there's an I'll just say, there's a Rosogul episode, I've
seen it. There's a minor Mister Freeze episode, very minor,
and then there's a Joker direct tie in movie. That's it.
Every other villain on Batman Beyond is new or influenced
by the Silver Age.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Weather Wizard where no.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
So Spellbinder is a Batman Beyond villain, and the Spellbinder
first appeared in Detective Comics number three fifty eight. He
was a painter who used optical illusions and hypnotic weapons
to commit crimes. In Batman Beyond, they reimagined him as
a school psychologist that uses this therapy session to hypnotize
kids into doing his bidding.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Just not a bad update.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, that's Terry also fights the World Flush Gang.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
They're playing card based team of super villains. At first
appeared in Just League of America number forty three. They
even appeared on Super Friends, and they are centered around
the top cards of a baby. So you have ten Jack, Queen,
King and Ace and Batman Beyond. It's a multi generational
family of aristocrats that use high tech playing card weapons
and an android serving his ace. Now interesting enough, Remember

(40:13):
I said this happened before Justice League. The Royal Flesh
Gang are all over Justice leagu Yes they are. They
only are all over Just League because Bruce Tim and
the producers were so happy with how they worked in
Batman Beyond that they were like, but they were like, well,
let's do the younger like two generations ago, Royal Flush Gang.
That's fine, Yeah, because he apparently Bruce Tim always wanted

(40:33):
to do the Rush Royal Flesh Gang but thought they
were too goofy for Batman the animated series and Superman
the Animated series.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
I think he's right.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yeah, yeah, so eventually they sorry, I'm gonna look at
the there was also Cobra, an international terrorist organization that
makes the believes in snake superiority. Usually a flash villain.
They worked towards genetic enhancements to mold themselves after reptiles.
This organization shouldn't appeared in Batman Beyond. And also the

(41:03):
character of Blight, who is who Derek Powers becomes and
Doctor Phosphorus share a very strong resemblance as they are
both radioactive skeletons now and Batman Beyond, Blight is Derek
Power is the CEO of Wayne Powers. He gets infected
with the experimental toxic nerve gas after Terry mcgannis kicks
him into a vat of acid, which is a very

(41:24):
classic Batman move.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, I know, a very like Joker arch nemesiskeme thing.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Now, what do you think about this? I did not
know this until Diego did all this research for me,
that these villains, because again I love the idea that
Batman Beyond doesn't, but I kind of like the idea
that they were, like, let'st's go find some of these
silver age villains that nobody remembers. What do you feel
about this?

Speaker 2 (41:43):
I think it's really interesting because this generation of creators,
because Jeff john says this a lot too.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Man.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
They love to reference this silver a because that's what
that was the comics when theyogle kick.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
One hundred percent, which is why now all millennial comics
reference this stuff. But it's interesting. I again, I think
it's a clever way to do it. I like their
updates and the thought instead of just being like, well,
we're doing the top the top spins like they've gone.
They haven't done A to B, they've done A to C.

(42:15):
They've given it like one more level and really worked
it into their world. And honestly, most of the people
watching don't know because it was mostly children. So you're
only doing this really for your own satisfaction and because
of your care as a world builder. So I think
it's cool.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Now it's time we're going to play a game. Well,
she always dropped a little bit of this in there,
because Batman Beyond also, like a lot of sci fi
shows and Shlows shows, as my slang for future slang
for show, Shlows developed its own slang terms for neo
Gotham Now actually always said well them shway, I hate it,
which is the adjitide that generally is used in the

(42:52):
show to describe cool. I'm gonna say a bunch of
these to you, and I would like you to tell
me what you think they are. Oh boy, okay, okay,
creds money, Yes, it's the currency clinged on plastic cards.
They also say slapper. What's a slapper?

Speaker 2 (43:11):
A joke like a knee slapper?

Speaker 1 (43:12):
No, slapper. Fun fact is the patch that you put
on your skin to give you a dramatic enhancement and strength.
The episode of drug.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
I don't remember it. Yeah, that's funny, but I remember
him being and in my brain it was like a
four episode thing.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
I think only has one two part episode and it's
the just sleek.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Can I break down? Do you have more terms and phrases? Okay,
when you're done, I want to tell you why shway
is a terrible sub for cool.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
Okay, what is splicing?

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (43:46):
You said that? In like part of my brain lit up,
like I remember hearing this. Is it literally like splicing
your genetics with another animal? Yes, so that's a very
classic cyberpunk several.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Of these characters across the show. So in the future,
you can splice your DNA with animal DNA and you
will like appear like that animal.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah, creepy, don't like it.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
What's a slag It's a noun aniverse, Well.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
A slag if we were in England, is a word
we could not say publicly. It's a loose woman.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yes, it does share a no, I know, I have
a note about it. It does. There is a contemporary yes, yes,
but it generally means to try and kill someone. Okay.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
Also to slag off someone could mean to like kind
of like joke in a rude way.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
So Batman Beyond, you'll say slag them or slag it okay. Yeah, yeah,
they needed a sensitivity. Yes, someone should have called that.
I think they know what they were. Yeah, what's a dreg?

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Drag is a poor person or a junkie.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Sort of a loser, a loser.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
A loser as.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
I was in the future, A loser, a loser, and
a low light ye.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
You might know this one because this is taken from Lobo.
What's frag?

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Oh it's like blowing stuff up that sword?

Speaker 1 (45:01):
It's damn Oh.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
No, I didn't yet.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
What's rips?

Speaker 2 (45:08):
This rips? This is kind of like it's cool, like
it's fun.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
It's awesome. And this has sort of come into.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Commons it has what's a twit a butterflies antenna? What's
a twit a butterflies antenna?

Speaker 1 (45:20):
No, it's an insult to implies an immaturity. Terry often
causes little brother t Yeah, but it.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Is a butterflyies antenna. That's really what twit means.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
So there's the game. You lost all of them? No,
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Okay, shway does not work as a sub for cool
because cool and the reason that it's stuck around in
our slang is English speakers love plosives. Plosives are ps bs,
k's all those hard letters that are fun to say.
So I like to say cool shway has not one,
but two fricatives. They're not powerful to say. It's why

(45:55):
all your swear words have k's or peas or hard
constant or teas in them. So shwey shway should not
mean cool. Shway should be like pretty or like fun.
It's not powerful enough to me cool. Thank you for
coming to my ted talk. I will see my apple
box back to the corner.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
I don't think that's very schwe.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
It's not very shwae of me, but I never pretended
to be so.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
So now it's time to talk about the return of
the Joker.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
I'm girding my loins.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
The series ended. Batman Beyond had fifty two episodes and ended,
and they said.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
It, I mean, honestly a great showing. Well, three seasons
is a great one for cartoon. Yeah, yeah, really good.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
There was a direct to video Batman Beyond film called
Batman Beyond, Return of the Joker, directed by Kurt Gata
and screenplayed by the great Paul Deny. The idea was
the to finally bridge the gap by from Batman the
Amien series to Batman Beyond, finally dealing with the Joker.
So Dwayne McDuffie, writer of Justice League and Justlin Gunlimited

(46:56):
and great, one of the greatest writers.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
All actual genius.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
There is a flash sequence in Batman Beyond, and he
claims that it is basically the last if you were
to say that Batman the Amen series was the present day, yeah, yeah,
that the flashback sequence is the last present day event
to happen in the DC Animated Universe timeline before we

(47:20):
jumped to Beyond, times before we see Bruce with the
gun and whatever. Yeah, So it takes place post the
Just League cartoon, but before the events of Batman beyond.
So the flashback sequence is infamous because it shows the
last note adventure with Batman, Batgirl, and Tim Drake's Robin,
who in that series was basically Jason Todd, but he's
called Tim Drake. It was their last encounter with the Joker. Originally,

(47:40):
the movie was set to release on Halloween in two thousand,
but following the backlash against violence in nineteen ninety nine
due to the Columbine High School massacre, there were concerns
over the film's content and they had to delay the release,
and they decided to re edit and change the flashback scene.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
I do us like to footnote that it's been proved
many times that Coleman had nothing to do with anything
like never thank you so much for coming to my
other ted talk.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
The biggest change was how the Joker dies in the movie.
In the original cut, he is impaled by a flag
that shoots out of a handgun, and in the censored version,
he is electrocuted after being entangled in water tooming. The
censored version was the only thing released publicly until there
was a lot of fan interest in online petitions, and
two years later they released the uncut unaltered version of

(48:27):
the movie. Which was released. That's the only that was
the only version I've ever owned is the uncut for it.
The original home release was not rated. They rated and
gave it to the NPAA to give a rating to
the unreleased version, it got a PG thirteen. Now, I mean,
I guess we should talk about because actually have a

(48:47):
lot of strong feelings about this because in that scene
it is said that the Joker captures Tim Drake, and
the Joker basically brainwashes Tim Drake, puts a little chip
inside of his head. Now in the plotline of the movie,
this is spoilers for the movie. If you haven't seen it,
if you haven't seen twenty, go away right now and
go watch it. It's on HBO Max and then come back.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Welcome back.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Okay, okay, So now you know exactly what I'm gonna say,
so mayor spoilers again. You learn that there is a
Joker in the present day of Batman Beyond in the
future Neo Gotham, and a lot of the movie is
who is Joker? Who is Joker? And they give you
a lot of false flags, specifically because they have Mark
Hamill voice multiple characters in the movie to throw you off,
which I always thought was so funny.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
I can also see Mark Hamill because he's also a
big old nerd, being like, absolutely, this will be so
much fun.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
It's eventually revealed that Tim Drake is the Joker in
the future, and that the Joker like put a copy
of his brain inside Tim Drake. So I want to
ask you, Ashley, what do you think about this as
an ending for the Joker? And then leave the Tim

(49:55):
Drake stuff, and then we'll have the Tim Drake conversation,
because I know we've had this conversation multiple times because
I've always said, this is not comic book Tim Drake.
This is basically it's a character that's actually Jason Todd
who is named Tim Drake.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
I'm like physically stopping myself from rolling wet.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
So what do you think about this as an ending
for the Joke? The Joker is actually now in this version,
Tim Drake because of this torture shoots the Joker. Ya
ya kills the Joker?

Speaker 2 (50:19):
Hot take. I think someone from the Bad Family should
kill the Joker. I think for the Joker, it's it's
a it's it's an interesting ending. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
it's fine.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Now now I'll let you say your piece as kindly
as you can about animated Tim Drake and your feelings
about him becoming the Batman beyond you.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
I mean you can say that he's basically Jason Todd.
I think that's not correct.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
He's found taking the Batman with the wheel off the batmobile.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
I think he's more of a mix of the two characters,
because he's not as They do give him Jason Todd's origin, but.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
They give him Tim Drake's costume.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
Yes, yes, and he's not quite as because this was
the time when like Jason was just sort of being
talked about being reintroduced.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
They make him way younger. They make him like ten.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Yeah, he's a little boy.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
He's like Damien's.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Well, Tim is supposed to be ten when he becomes Robin.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Oh, I don't buy that at all.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
That's the states that he's ten.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
He drives a car with him like one year of
being Robin.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
I'm not saying comics understand timelines, but Tim is ten
during the events of The Lonely Place of.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I don't buy at all.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
So anyway, I hate the I hate it so much.
You could have done this to any Robin and I
would have hated it. I especially absolutely, But I especially
hate it because it is Tim Drake, and Tim Drake
is my favorite Robin, and I think of all the
Robins because Tim is the most like Bruce. And I know,

(51:51):
I totally understand it intellectually. I totally understand how it
gets pitched in the room. I just hate it with
every fiber of my being. I find it to be
disrespectful and I just don't believe that. I just don't
believe that the joker would break Tim so much so
that he would then descend into madness of being the joke. Like,

(52:13):
I just don't buy it. I think because I do
think Tim quits.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
I think it only works because the animated series Tim
Drake is not the Tim Drake of the comics. Yeah,
and he's a little boy.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
I just don't I hate it. I hate it so much.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
There was a planned sequel that was even worse.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Yeah, no, I know, because because but I hadn't never mind,
It's fine.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Right, There was a planned sequel that was even worse,
called Project Batman Beyond that never got off the ground.
It was rumored to feature Selena Kyle and Catwoman, and
she would have been responsible for the origins of Terry McGinnis.
The idea would have been that Selena created multiple clones
Bruce Wayne placed them with random families, systematically murdered their
parents when they reached a certain age and as Selena

(52:54):
became older. Is because she saw the value in Batman's
mission but believe he didn't go far enough when it
came to punishing criminals, so she created a Batman who
would cross the line so she would have a clone
to raises her son and serve as the main antagonist
of the film. Terry would learn that he was a clone,
and Selina's son would be a dark, twisted version of Terry.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Production ne ever got.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Off the ground, and if this sounds familiar, the idea
does make it away its way into what I considered
to be the worst episode of Justice League Unlimited called Epilogue,
where they reveal that Terry McGinnis is secretly Bruce Wayne's
son in the most hackneyed and cliched and terrible way
ever that this is where I'm gonna get on my
soapbox that completely undoes all the good character work of

(53:40):
the entirety of three seasons of Batman Beyond.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
I'll also say this there's definitely lifts from this in
the Damien in the Talia cloned a bunch of Damiens
as well.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
But I I'm that's as far as I'm going to
talk into it. Yeah, that episode is not the only
thing that's in that headcanon. And from that episode is
Terry being a badass leader of Justice League. Sure, Yeah,
I do not buy Terry McGinnis being Bruce Wayne's son
is stupid.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
It's so funny to me, because not funny like haha,
but you have such a strong reality. You have the
rage that I feel about Damian Wayne existing about this storyline. Yeah,
it's so interesting to just like watch it reflected back
on me through but through this lens.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
It's just because again, the whole show is about an
everyman becoming Batman. And if you tell.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Also the most interesting about Batman, he's got adopted children,
yes exactly, and Terry is his son or grandson.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Like it goes back to that stupid thing where you're like, well,
only a Bruce Wayne could be Batman. Screwed. It's stupid. Yeah,
it's so stupid.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
The thing that people say that you and I often
drive against that people like about Batman is that anyone
who is rich and dedicated enough can be Batman. You can't.
It's a dumb idea. Don't do it, go to therapy.
But yeah, and they've cut it off at the knee.
But there must have been something in the ether, you know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Well, the other thing that is like the so that
picture for that final movie is unwell, it sounds it
sounds like a completely misunderstanding. But the other thing that
I like about that episode is that, beyond showing Terry
is a badass leader of the du Just League, is
that Terry's conflict in that episode before he finds out
that he's a weird, stupid colone of Bruce, is that

(55:22):
he's concerned about being Batman on the day that he's
planning to ask Dana to marry him, and so to
me in a lot of the ways, I think it's
a really great showing of Terry's growth.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Terry's already better than Bruce because he can separate the.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Two bingo and and the beginning of the episode is
kind of he finds out and he is like furious
at Bruce, and then the ending of the episode is
he goes to Bruce and he like has a soft
conversation with him again. To me, I'm just like, yeah,
that's the that's the arc of Batman Beyond, is that
this kid, it actually figures out how to have a
life and be Batman. You can do it. He's better

(56:04):
than Bruce. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's better than the Bruce
doesn't He's damnity. It gets a litmus.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
It's so dumb that I hate that episode. That pitch,
especially for that other movie, screams to me, like, man,
we're out of every idea, We're out of the ideas
that we had in that one notebook that we scraped
out for this return of the Joker thing, Like it's
it's just so, it's just so poorly constructed.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
So Batman Beyond the legacy of the show has survived
well beyond it. It has become a major part of
the DC comic universe. Yeah, there is even a storyline
where Terry came and was in the regular DC Comics
mainstream universe for a while. But for years there's always

(56:50):
been this hunger for the Batman Beyond film. Remember I
talked about the Remember the Titans. There was even an
animated feature that was going to happen with Patrick Yarpin
and Yuki Demurs. They were the creative team behind my
Dad the Bounty Hunter. They pitched a Batman Beyond movie
like Spider Man in the Spider Which you can find
that artwork online. You know, Terremy Gwennis has appeared in
the Zeta Project. He appeared on the Static Shark cartoon.

(57:12):
Ye appeared on Justice League. His skin is an Injustice
and the Arkham Batman games, and he has even changed
the legacy of comic books because he's appeared in continuity,
like I said in Jeff Lobes Batman and Superman Run.
He appeared in Superman Adventures, He's appeared in Crisis Events,
and there have been multiple Batman Beyond series that DC
has published. So, Ashley, I want to ask you, why

(57:37):
do you think Batman Beyond has such an enduring appeal
and why do you think we don't have a Batman
Beyond movie.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
I can definitely tell you why we don't have a
Batman Beyond movie here one, because uh, executives who are
not creative executives will be like, let's just the cartoon
who cares, just freaking little card who cares like people
who don't paycheck executives won't get it because they already

(58:08):
don't understand so many things that they're dedicated to working on.
Also because studios, and we know this from linked emails,
we know this from interviews of people. There is this
weird idea with the people who like run Marvel and
adapt Marvel movies that multiple studios, and the same thing
with DC, and they're like Peter Parker can only be
spider Man, Bruce Wayne can only be Batman. You can't

(58:29):
have a flash TV showing a flash movie. Those dumb
hicks who watch and will understand, they think we're dumb,
and they tell me a hic and they first of all,
I'm literally from the woods in Canada, So I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
If there's anybody on this podcast that's a heck, it's me,
you know, but it's way more me than you. Just
listen to how I talk.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
It's a lack of respect for the audience and it's
a lack of curiosity about these characters for so many reason.
But I'm telling you it's it's all an executive problem
and it's all a corporate mandate problem. Why is Batman
beyond popular?

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Why is it endured for yeah, twenty years.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Almost thirty years, twenty five years. Yeah, that's a bit
more of a difficult question for me because it doesn't
resonate with me.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
I think I answered this question, then well.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
I'll give you an answer and then maybe, yeah, give
me your thoughts. A huge part of it, and it's
this is an unquantifiable thing, and it's the reason that
we like Kingsman movies. Sure Thatman Beyond is cool. Yeah,
it looks cool. Terry is cool. Terry is arguably the
only thing I like about Batman Beyond actual figure spotlight.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
I have two Batman Beyond actually figures in this room
right now, Yes you do, I'm McFarlane. One that looks
badass and one that looks exactly like the Tim manimated series.
I just wanted to say that, because yeah, he looks cool.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
He looks cool.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
I have old Bruce so here somewhere.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
The design is really cool, Like there is this cool
factor to the whole and it is that like neo
cyberpunk kind of vibe. I also think it endures because
it is so different from every other Batman thing. I
think Terry's story endures because we've all read the eighty
five Robin origins Yep, they're all kind of the same.

(01:00:08):
They all share a lot of similar characteristics, Terry's, although
he holds a lot of the hallmarks of being a Robin.
It is the most different.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
It is the most different.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
And frankly because millennials, who were the first audience for
this cartoon are now procreating and having children. And we
are emotionally stunted at about the year two thousand, maybe
two thousand and one, depending on where you lived in
the world, and so we like to share that kind
of pop culture with children if we have children with
the next generation. And so I just think now that

(01:00:37):
millennials are having children, it's also coming back into vogue
a bit. Why do you think Batman Beyond is endured?

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
It's small and self contained.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, that's just got a beginning, good ale an.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
End It does not have the eighty years of continuity.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
The shared and it is a shared universe, but it's
not you. You can also not watch that Justice Lega.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
But all you need to know is that there is
a kid in the Batman suit being trained by Bruce
Wayne and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Who used to Batman Beyond.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
And now you can watch any episode of Batman Beyond
go because there won't. The villains will be different. Yeah,
and if any of the Batman, the three Batman villains
that show up, they explain it pretty well. Yeah, you
don't need to know anything. Yeah, there is not even
Dick grayson knight Wing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Well even if you don't know that old Lady's Harley,
so what who cares?

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Even Dick Grayson's night Wing does not have such a
clean entry point that Terry McGinnis has. And yeah, a
lot of it is that his suit is set design
is so damn coolh it is such an astounding design.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
I mean, that's the reason why they gave night Wing
the red stripe.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Yeah, it's but it's it's because it's has such a
clean entry point. Yeah, and it's basically like, oh, what's
Batman beyond? Well, there's only fifty two episodes, fifty three
if you count the movie fifty four if you want
to watch that really terrible Justice Lea. Yeah, Yeah, that's
a low bar of entry. It's a very low bar
of entry that almost every character in the Batman legacy,

(01:02:07):
including Bruce Wayne Batman himself, does not have. Yeah, that's true,
so easy, and it's such I've always said this in
like the best stories are simple stories. Yeah, and Terry's
story is very simple and very easy understand. I'm a
kid trying to be better and Batman is going to
teach me how to be better. Ye bingo.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
And it is that power fantasy thing of like.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Exactly he gets. And it is the personification of what
Dick Grayson, the original Robin West when they created him,
because they were like, oh, what if the reader gets
to go on the adventures with Batman? Terry McGinnis is
the personification of Yeah, what if I was Batman?

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
And he gets to wear pants?

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
And he gets to wear pants, and he gets to fly.
He his cool glider wings.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Yeah, he does.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
And he is, by the way, fun fact, the coolest
batter rangs of any Batman. His batter rangs are the
red ones. Yeah. They like then they got the shape.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
He also is one of the coolest batmobiles because it
also flies, doesn't this? Yeah it flies? Okay, it's a
flying car. Okay, Yeah, go look it up in front
of me. Made a big ol' honkin toy of it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
I'm sure it's like three feet long.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Yeah, it's and probably seven hundred dollars. I don't know. Yeah,
I don't have money anymore inflation right, All right, that's it.
Let's get into the recommended reading, Ashley, where can they
find the recommend you're reading if they want to see
my two choices.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
If you want some more Batman Beyond your Life, you
can head on over to geek hisstreelsen dot com slash
recommended reading, pick up whatever interest you and uh and
turn your brain on a little bit. Jason, what is
your recommended reading for Batman Beyond?

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
So easily there is a Blu Ray series. Batman Beyond.
The Complete Series is the complete package that has all
fifty two episodes and it includes Return of the Joker,
I believe, the unrated and the edited has both versions
of that movie fun and a whole bunch of special features.
I have that set myself. It's great, it's easy pasy.
All the episodes are ranged bo max if you don't

(01:03:56):
want to go into that dip, but if you want
the complete run, and they look great, and they they
did like they up they upressed all of them and
so they look really good. The second thing is there's
Batman Beyond the animated series, classics compendiums. This is a
giant honk and compendium of comics that they were publishing
while Batman Beyond was on the air, similar to Superman
Adventures and Batman Mentors. Yeah, a lot of series writers,

(01:04:18):
Hillary J. Bator and Rich Vogel wrote a lot of
the issues, so it's almost like you get an extra
season of Batman Beyond.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
That's fun.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
They're pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
It's kind of like the Smallville season eleven stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Exactly, which is exactly so if you if you get
to the end of Batman Beyond, you want more Batman Beyond.
That's the Batman Beyond that I would go read, don't
go read anything else. Read that one. Cool, So that's it. Ashley,
Where can they find geek Castra Lesson all around the
social media's in case they want to know more batmany things.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
You couldn't find Geek Castre Wilson everywhere on the internet
at gek history lesson.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Uh and don't forget to subscribe and download us on
every podcast appen. If you enjoy this episode, please tell
your friends about Ashley. Where can they find you? On
social media?

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
You can find me everywhere at Ashley V. Robinson.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Find me on Instagram and threads at jaw and jaw
I n ii in excuse me, jw I I in.
The two eyes are very important because I'm sho shway.
I'm not a drag, I promise. Now it's time in
this podcast with what have we learned today?

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
What have we learned today?

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Well, Ashley, we've learned that even in the future, Gotham
City still can't catch a break nor pick up its litter.
We've learned that Terry McGinnis proved you can fight crime
and still worry about your homework. And most importantly, we've
learned to never let Bruce Wayne be your life coach
unless you enjoy cryptic advice and really late bedtimes, or

(01:05:43):
if you like dogs. If you like dogs, then oh
yeah they have a dog. Yeah they have Ace, the
big old bad hound.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
I'm an actually figure of him up there too. He's
next to Crypto is. Yeah, you're gonna also realize that's
probably like the third or fourth Ace that Bruce has owned. Like,
Bruce just keeps getting dogs and he's like Ace, what's
this one's name? Ace? What's this one's name? Ace? No,
he doesn't put two's, there's all just Ace. He has
a problem with animals. Basically, what I'm saying f Batman,

(01:06:10):
Bruce Wayne sucks. Terry mcgwennis forever he's schway.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
I'll say this. You'll know, Geek History lesson is ending
when we either do an episode talking about the Joker
we've already don't want, or or if we ever do
a watch along of that, just the episode. Okay, that'll
be the last episode ever.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
I thought you were gonna say that we were gonna
have an episode. We were like, read all of Bruce
Wayne's stories, please do it. We love them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
I mean, if you are dedicated enough to read every
story Bruce Wayne's ever been in, don't do it. Read
Guil Commission said it's better.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Prepare to prepare your therapist. That's all I will say.
Thanks so much for listening. Go beyond into the future.
I'm Jason Emmon. Thanks so much. I'm We're off the else.
This is late.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
I'm actional Victoria Robinson. Professor Jason, would you please dismiss
the class. Goodbye,