The show ended on a not-so-final series finale. It was just a flashback episode to when Terry was first starting off as Batman and revealed his secret identity to a little kid. However, the Batman Beyond story didn’t end with the series. Since the other DC cartoons were all within the DCAU, Terry and his time period came back in a few different ways. There was a short-lived spin-off show called The Zeta Project and Terry had a guest appearance in the 8th episode. In an episode of the cult cartoon Static Shock, the title character travels 40 years into the future and discovers he’s still a hero fighting alongside Batman. And in a particularly good two-part episode of Justice League Unlimited called “The Once and Future Thing,” the villain Chronos accidentally brings Batman, Wonder Woman and John Stewart into 2039 and the JLU trio have to work beside Terry and the other future superheros. Besides John discovering he has a son with his recently broken-up girlfriend Hawkgirl (awkward), the highlight of the episode is in-his-prime Justice League Batman meeting crotchety Batman Beyond Bruce Wayne. And then crotchety Bruce Wayne and in-his-prime Batman play good cop and bad cop with a criminal … crotchety Bruce is the bad cop. I’m telling you, it’s fantastic.
Believe it or not, there are two more parts to the Batman Beyond story. The first is the direct-to-video movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, which featured the return of Mark Hamill as the Joker. It’s a excellently done piece, but it really isn’t a movie young kids should see … seriously, there are The Killing Joke levels of torture in this movie. It’s light on the on-screen violence and blood, but the psychological impact of the Joker’s actions in this story is as dark and heart-wrenching as the DCAU ever went and thanks to it being in canon with Batman: The Animated Series, I don’t think I’ll be able to look at the 4th season of B:TAS the same way again. To put it in perspective: because of the then-recent events of Columbine, the movie’s original release was edited down for violence. An uncut director’s version was released in recent years thanks to fan petitioning. I thought I had gotten the uncut version, but I had actually watched the one that was toned down and I was still completely shaken. Great movie, but unnerving. You’ve been warned.
The in-universe chronological end to the Batman Beyond story — and what can be seen as a fitting finale to the series — happened to be “Epilogue,” the season one finale of Justice League Unlimited (or season 3 if you count Justice League and Justice League Unlimited as the same series). We see an adult Terry dealing with the revelation that Bruce (now into his 90s) is actually his biological father. It was a twist I called bullshit on when it was first revealed since Bruce clearly didn’t meet Terry’s mother until the start of the series. Told in interlacing flashbacks, we learn how Terry has started pushing his loved ones away — especially recently — and how he and Bruce had recently gotten into a fight where Bruce had denied tampering with his DNA (which is possible but apparently illegal in this future). We also get to see a touching flashback where Bruce as Batman helps a tragic antagonist die a peaceful and merciful death. In connection to that scene, Terry is told by sometimes Batman ally Amanda Waller that she orchestrated the plan to use Cadmus tech to make Terry Bruce’s biological son before birth without Bruce’s knowledge. The last act of the episode really features Terry coming to grips with the fact that Bruce is a good man and being like him — by blood, by personality and by walking in his footsteps as the Dark Knight of Gotham — is an honor. We see the mentor and student quietly show affection for each other in their own way before Terry leaves to patrol the city.
Batman Beyond isn’t a perfect series, but it was a stronger contender in this canon than anyone expected it to be thanks in part to the excellent crossovers in other shows. At the crux of the series was Bruce Wayne — his growing relationship with Terry, his struggles to deal with the past and his lingering guilt for letting someone else take up his mantle again despite the emotional and psychological scars felt by his past proteges. And “Epilogue” is not only the end of the Batman Beyond story — while JLU had an entire season after this episode aired, this is the last chronological story in the DCAU. And how does “Epilogue” and this multi-series story end? With Terry flying through Gotham and spooking two cops on duty … mirroring the very first scene of B:TAS complete with the original show’s rousing theme. The DCAU started with Batman and it’s only fitting that it ended with Batman.
After Justice League Unlimited ended in 2006, Warner Bros. broke continuity and rebooted Batman. Come back next week when we look at The Batman.
Clacked by Katie Schenkel 
on Jul 03, 2012 @ 20:00 EST5EDT
I found the revelation that Bruce and Barbara had dated kinda creepy.
You didn’t mention the break-out character of the series, IMHO, Bruce’s companion Ace the Bat-Hound. I liked that it took awhile for Terry to earn his trust too.
Nice. I loved Batman Beyond and watched it when it originally aired. Admittedly, I had the same concerns, but the pilot put them to bed. The only thing I disliked is that Terry acted like the physical body with Bruce as the mastermind. If Terry wore the mask, he should’ve had more mental independence.
I loved the opening techno sequence and the Barbara-Batman romance. It made the show seem grittier and more realistic. However, it felt creepy because I thought Barbara’s cartoon BatGirl was probably in the 18-20 range. While I assumed their relationship happened when she became older, but still ….
*POST AUTHOR*
Maybe it bothered me most because in Barbara’s very first episode of B:TAS (before she was even thinking about becoming Batgirl), she says hi to Bruce and he mentions to Jim that he hadn’t seen her since she was a little girl. It’s one thing to have a relationship with a much younger adult (even one that was your protege), but to date the daughter of a friend AND have known her when she was little? … Yeah, a little creepy there, Bruce.
Oh, and also the ex-girlfriend of your adopted son.
Thank you for mentioning Return of the Joker! That movie snapped my mind.
*POST AUTHOR*
You’re welcome! I heard a recent interview where Mark Hamill had said he was glad his Joker got to go super dark for the video games, but honestly his Return of the Joker version was on a completely different level from the B:TAS version. I still have that particular scene rolling in my head and it’s unnerving.
I’m glad I was able to find a copy for this review because it really did change the way I saw both shows. I didn’t have time to watch (or re-watch) all the B:TAS movies, so maybe that’ll be a future post in itself somewhere down the line.