Batman Beyond

Batman Beyond (Batman of the Future in Europe, Latin America and Australia/New Zealand) was an animated television series created by WB Network in collaboration with DC Comics as a continuation of the Batman legacy. The series is part of the DC Animated Universe; kicking off the future time period of Bruce Timm's still continuing universe.

Project Batman Beyond

The Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue," set fifteen years after the conclusion of the Batman Beyond series, reveals that Bruce Wayne is actually the genetic father of Terry and his younger brother Matt, due to a genetic alteration on Terry's father, Warren McGinnis, by Amanda Waller using Project Cadmus nanotechnology. In the same episode, Terry proposes to his longtime girlfriend Dana, balancing the legacy of being the Batman with the personal happiness that Bruce Wayne never found.

Related Topics:
Justice League Unlimited - Epilogue - Amanda Waller - Project Cadmus - Nanotechnology

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At first Terry was angry and bitter about this news, but he was calm enough to allow Amanda Waller to explain to him what led her to do what she did. Being the government liaison to the Justice League, Amanda Waller slowly began to realize and believe that Batman was the most capable person in the League; despite not having any powers, his willpower, body strength, and acute intelligence made him the most balanced and reliable fighter in the entire League. Because of this, Amanda Waller slowly began to respect and trust Bruce Wayne. Unfortunately, Amanda Waller noticed something as the years went by: Batman was human. As such, he was getting older and more and more unable to handle the day to day intensities as a crime fighting superhero. She knew that one day Batman would have to retire, or there would be the chance that he'd be killed by one of his enemies eventually. Fearing that fact and believing the world always needed Batman, she decided to create a new one.

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Waller, with old connections to Cadmus, gathered the technology necessary for her movement. She called this movement "Project Batman Beyond." Bruce Wayne's DNA was obtained from a mission where he got injured - a small blood sample on a piece of gauze left at the scene of the mission. years later in Neo-Gotham, she found a couple that was psychologically identical to Bruce's parents. Warren McGinnis was called in to make a routine flu shot that was actually a nanotech solution that was used to reconstruct his reproductive material to match Bruce Wayne's. A short while later - approximately one year - Mary McGinnis gave birth to Terry, who was a combination of her and Bruce.

Related Topics:
DNA - Flu shot - Nanotech - Reproductive

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But that wasn't the end of Waller's plan. When Terry was eight years old, he and his parents went to a film - ironically titled The Grey Ghost Strikes (The Grey Ghost was Bruce Wayne's hero as a child). While they were going home, they didn't notice someone following them. It was in fact an assassin - Andrea Beaumont, an old love of Bruce Wayne's and the enigmatic - hired by Waller to kill Terry's parents. The trauma at seeing his parents murdered in front of him would cause Terry to someday become Batman. However, a problem came up just as Beaumont was about to do the deed - she refused to murder Terry's parents, saying that even though "Batman was obsessive and would do anything to achieve his goals, he'd never resort to murder." Waller knew that Beaumont was right, and if she wanted to honor Batman and his legacy, she couldn't order the murder in cold blood of two innocent people. This led to the project's inevitable cancellation, resulting in Terry's brother being born later.

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In the end however, Terry's father was murdered anyway, causing Terry to become the new Batman in his search for vengeance against his father's killers. Because of this fact, Terry believes he'd been cursed with the fate of becoming Batman since he was born. This bitterness increased when Bruce Wayne's kidneys failed and Terry happened to be a perfect histo-compatibility match with him, allowing doctors to clone his kidneys and save Bruce's life. This event's small percentage of possibility (111 to 1 against) caused enough suspicion in Terry to run a DNA test, discovering that he was Bruce's genetic son. Believing Bruce had set the whole thing up, he became angry and bitter at his mentor - so much so that he compared what was done to him to what the Joker did to Tim Drake in the Batman Beyond movie Return of the Joker. This anger and bitterness made Terry create some scenarios in his mind wherein he abandoned all the people he was close to - Bruce, the Justice League, eventually his lover Dana - because of his apparent curse of the Batman mantle.

Related Topics:
Joker - Tim Drake

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Before he acted on his anger, he tracked down Amanda Waller and broke into her home, where she told him everything. In the final moments when he discovered the truth, she affirmed that he wasn't Bruce's clone, but his son - he was never fated to become Batman, it was his own choice to don the legendary costume. Waller also said that while Terry wasn't as smart as Bruce, he certainly cared for his fellow man as much as, maybe more than, his mentor.

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Waller's admission of guilt and affirmation of Terry's destiny allowed Terry to break free of the chains of the 'curse' that bound him, and freed him from the anger and bitterness that he experienced since he found out his origins. This newfound freedom allowed Terry to finally find the courage to propose to his longtime lover Dana, finding the happiness that Bruce Wayne never did, and to truly become the new Batman.

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