Before R. Patz did it, Batman Beyond gave us a younger hero braving a more dangerous Gotham

Batman might be world-famous as a hyper-competent superhero, but in Matt Reeves’ The Batman he’s yet to earn that reputation. In the film, Robert Pattinson stars as a darkly driven vigilante who has only just established himself in Gotham City, and his destructive self-appointment as its watchful protector is a tenuous one.

It’s an intriguing take on a classic character, set during a crucial period in his fabled career. Good Batman stories conjure a foe who is the equal to the Caped Crusader at his peak, but the better ones often throw seemingly insurmountable problems at a version of Bruce Wayne who scarcely has a grip on himself. Batman has to begin somewhere, sure, but what happens after that?

There is a veritable Batcave filled with Bat-origin stories, but tales that tackle the crucial years when the character endures the stress tests that will one day forge him into the legendary hero are less pervasive. There’s Batman: Year Two, which pits Batman against a more lethal caped crusader. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight tosses a wild card at Batman just as his dark presence in Gotham is beginning to affect change. And then there’s Batman Beyond, which follows neo-Batman Terry McGinnis (Will Friedle) as he wages his own campaign against criminality in a Gotham City that has existed for an entire generation without a resident Dark Knight.

Batman Beyond, which debuted on the Kids’ WB on January 10, 1999 and ran for three seasons, tackled its requisite origin beats with a two-part premiere (“Rebirth”) and then proceeded to follow Terry as he suffered various superhero growing pains under the mentorship of an aged Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy, reprising his role from Batman: The Animated Series). Developed by B:TAS creators Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Alan Burnett (just as the latter two were wrapping up a sterling run on Superman: The Animated Series), Batman Beyond ventured into a brave new world where Gotham City had evolved into an expansive technological hub but was still no stranger to crime and corruption. In “Rebirth” we learn what became of Wayne—he suffered a heart attack during a mission, was forced to use a gun to protect himself, and subsequently retired his cowl in shame—and we also learn what kind of city Gotham was allowed to become outside of his influence.

The concept of a teenage Batman was initially met with resistance by his creators. “We didn’t want to do that,” Timm told TwoMorrows Publishing in 2012. “Rather than just handing it off to someone else to let them do it and possibly mess it up, we figured we kind of owed it to the character to give it our best shot.”

What began as an unwanted studio prerogative to create a new kid-friendly Batman quickly became one of the DC Animated Universe’s most beloved series and one of DC’s most enduring properties; its success is largely attributed to the way Batman Beyond diverged from the Dark Knight’s well-trod paths. As Batmen, Terry and Bruce have similar backstories—both suffer tragedy and soon discover they have the wherewithal to do something about it—but their backgrounds couldn’t be further apart.

Terry McGinnis is what Bruce Wayne might have been in another life. Had Thomas and Martha Wayne died penniless, Bruce might have done a stretch in one of Gotham’s juvenile detention centers just as Terry did; if Bruce had grown to his teenage years with his family, he might have known what it meant to mature into a regular human being instead of becoming an engine of anger running purely on vengeance. Bruce sees something of himself in Terry—that much is obvious by the end of “Rebirth, Parts I & II.” Their kinship becomes the bedrock of Batman Beyond.

That relationship is important, because the threats Terry faces in Neo-Gotham aren’t your garden-variety Arkham rogues. There are a few Bat-nemeses who survive all the way to Beyond, sort of, like immortal head-in-a-jar Mr. Freeze (Michael Ansara), or Bane (who hangs on via life support courtesy of a shady nurse), or the Joker (Mark Hamill, who reprised his role for the direct-to-video feature, Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker). This new Batman is put through a fresh gauntlet of enemies who either have a fortune that rivals Wayne’s, like Derek Powers/Blight (Sherman Howard); have the technology on hand to utterly disrupt the social order, like Spellbinder (Jon Cypher); or are the sort of enemy you definitely don’t want lurking behind your shoulder, like The Stalker (Carl Lumbly).

Young as he is, Terry has yet to hone his mind and body to counter these kinds of threats. So his in-story learning curve takes the form of the new Bat-suit, a sleek, wraithlike wonder of next-era tech that has an array of wonderful toys at his disposal to meet virtually any situation: There’s the camouflage setting, which renders Terry invisible (a handy substitute for the years Bruce trained as a ninja), the jet boots and retractable wings that allow Terry to soar over Neo-Gotham’s skyscraper canyons (far more efficient than Bruce’s grappling hook), and enhanced strength and agility. Despite all the gear Wayne provides him (which includes an absolutely cherry Batmobile), Terry still has a hell of a time navigating this dangerous frontier of opportunists, brutes, and villains.

Like Pattinson’s Batman, Terry doesn’t have it all figured out. He’s not an ultra-shrewd Caped Crusader, not yet, and all he has in his arsenal that is truly his are his wits. Batman Beyond‘s hero has to improvise; one of the more brilliant examples of this can be found in Return Of The Joker, where Terry realizes that in order to put the kibosh on The Joker he needs to use his uncanny knack for talking trash. Unfortunately, as a feature-length spin-off, Return Of The Joker doesn’t meet the parameters of this article. For now, let’s zero in on the 10 best examples of Batman Beyond that showed just what it meant for a young Batman to become the hero Gotham needed—a young, brash, and impulsive Tomorrow Knight.

“Black Out” (season 1, episode 3)

The first major threat for this new Batman (after his first brush against Blight, that is) is Inque (Shannon Kenny), a shapeshifting saboteur who works on behalf of tech magnate Derek Powers to knock out his competitors in Neo-Gotham (including the legacy company of one Lucius Fox). Inque, a sleeker version of the Clayface character, can mold throwing weapons at will and melt into the shadows in the blink of an eye—not exactly a B-list opening salvo. “You have to learn to think on your feet,” Wayne tells Terry, and he does, after admitting his limitations. (“You may be used to dealing with freaks and monsters, but I’m a little new at this!”) When Terry comes to the realization that the gooey villain can’t wriggle their way out of an ice block, he provides one—courtesy of Mr. Freeze’s frost gun, an antique from the Batcave arsenal. Cool extra bit: This episode introduces Commissioner Barbara Gordon (Stockard Channing), a tougher top cop than her predecessor, who keeps her disapproving eyes on our new winged warrior in the episodes to come.

“Meltdown” (season 1, episode 5)

That frost gun from “Black Out” turns out to be clever foreshadowing. “Meltdown” boasts the surprise return of Dr. Victor Fries, whose unique physiology (i.e., he has to stay really, really cold) has caused his body to deteriorate to the point that the only thing that remains is, alarmingly, his head. Thanks to funding from Derek Powers (who wishes to cure his own degenerative maladies by utilizing untested procedures on Fries), Mr. Freeze lives again in a new body, kinder, gentler, and under the scrutiny of a suspicious Bruce Wayne. “Meltdown” amps up the dramatics for which Batman: The Animated Series was famous and twists this cyberpunk Saturday morning cartoon into a fraught soap opera, where naïveté gives way to betrayal, and betrayal gives way to tragedy. As Terry and Bruce look upon the destruction wrought by a vengeful Freeze, the new Batman learns a tough lesson: Not every instance of supervillainy is going to be black and white.

“Shriek” (season 1, episode 7)

Possibly the darkest episode from the first season of Batman Beyond, “Shriek” explores the horrifying possibility of what might happen if Terry suddenly found himself operating without his mentor. In this wild installment, Derek Powers uses his leverage over a struggling sound technician named Walter Shreeve (Chris Mulkey) to apply his talents to the terrible purpose of driving Bruce Wayne mad. More than a showcase for the series’ top-flight sound design, “Shriek” explores themes of elderly dementia, suicidal thoughts, and the pain and helplessness that comes with both over the course of its fleeting 22-minute run time. Here, Terry has to use his wits to put Shreeve away for good (he goes undercover as a wise-crackin’ pizza delivery guy), which culminates in a gorgeously executed showdown where sound is stolen from the Batman—and from the viewer as well.

“Dead Man’s Hand” (season 1, episode 8)

Being a superhero can be rough on your social life. Naturally, a teenage superhero’s romantic endeavors can take a real beating. In “Dead Man’s Hand,” Terry’s nightly excursions finally cause the first major rift between him and his girlfriend, Dana Tan (Lauren Tom). Nursing a broken heart and wounded pride, Terry falls head first into a whirlwind romance with a mysterious girl named Melanie Walker (Olivia d’Abo) just as the notorious Royal Flush Gang returns to Gotham for a bit of wanton burglary. The frustrations of a nightly vigilante routine begin to show in Terry’s attitude here, which temporarily put him at odds with Wayne: “Hey, I put my life on the line all the time. One night’s not gonna make any difference!” “One night always makes the difference,” Bruce replies. This moment gives Terry perspective, eventually (hormones!), but this youthful Batman’s first scrape against forbidden love softens Wayne’s stone cold heart for Terry, just a bit. When the episode comes to a close, we watch as Bruce regales his partner with a tale from his own past concerning the perils of romance.

“Ascension” (season 1, episode 13)

“No more hiding for Mr. Powers. Now everyone can see what he is—even in the dark.” Batman Beyond differentiated itself from Batman: The Animated Series in several ways, but its most exciting diversion was giving Terry McGinnis a season-long arc that results in a chance for Batman to bring in the person responsible for the death of his father: Derek Powers, a.k.a. Blight. (Bruce Wayne would never find such closure in the DCAU.) Terry and Blight’s origins were inextricably linked in “Rebirth,” and their fates come to a surprisingly nuanced conclusion in this first season capper. Powers’ intrusive glow-in-the-dark radiation powers have forced him to step back from his position at the Wayne-Powers corporation, which means calling in his estranged son, Paxton (Cary Elwes). Terry allies himself with Paxton to seek out his dangerous, borderline psychotic father, but the young Powers’ dark ambitions test Terry’s desire to see justice done. Vengeance clouds judgment, Terry learns very quickly—and it rarely, if ever, brings about closure.

“Splicers” (season 2, episode 1)

Another high school drama episode, and the best of the series. Written by Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer, “Splicers” embraced the tech-horrors of this future-shocked Gotham City by contriving a body-changing fad that turns the city’s tragically hip into feral beasts. Terry follows Dana to the gene-splicing institute run by Dr. Abel Cuvier (Ian Buchanan) and quickly discovers that Gotham’s rise in splicer crime has a closer connection to the good doctor’s business model than people realize. The twist comes when Terry finds himself overpowered by a crew of splicers (led by a ram-man voiced by Ice-T) which gives Cuvier an opportunity to give Batman a taste of his medicine. “Splicers” is Batman Beyond putting its futuristic settings to proper use, a riff on The Island Of Dr. Moreau by way of William Gibson that shows us a youth culture enamored by things that could irrevocably change their lives for the worse.

“Hidden Agenda” (season 2, episode 5)

Throughout Bruce Wayne’s superhero career, he amassed a small contingent of allies: Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox, Harold the mechanic, and others who came and went as his war on crime carried on for decades. Terry’s partnership with Bruce is essential to what makes Batman Beyond work as a DCAU legacy series, but Terry’s too charismatic to not have at least one member in his large circle of friends eventually get wise to his night work. Enter: Max Gibson (Cree Summer), a whip-smart student who finds herself targeted by a vengeful member of the Jokerz gang for reasons only she—and Batman—can suss out. Voiced by future Flash Michael Rosenbaum, Terminal was a different, more vicious take on the Jokerz concept who uses his influence over his small crew to infiltrate one of Terry’s few safe spaces specifically to do harm to the people he cares about. It’s a disturbing episode for a variety of reasons, but the darker story beats of “Hidden Agenda” are in service to the introduction of Max, a great new supporting character and an equal to Terry, who soon becomes an invaluable asset in the adventures of this new Batman.

“Bloodsport” (season 2, episode 6)

The urban jungle of Neo-Gotham has plenty of shadows, and you never know what kind of predator might be lurking inside them. As a teen superhero, Batman Beyond is often compared to the early exploits of Peter Parker, but few episodes played with those parallels quite as brazenly as “Bloodsport.” A big game hunter who has become murderously devoted to his craft comes to Gotham in search of the ultimate prey: Batman. The Stalker is an obvious riff on Marvel’s Kraven The Hunter, but Carl Lumbly’s haunting vocal performance provides depths to the character and reveals a frightening pathology to his methods. Obsession and tragedy forges a new lethal opponent for a young Batman who has to quickly learn what it means to fight a battle where he is constantly on the offensive.

“Terry’s Friend Dates A Robot” (season 2, episode 13)

Not every Batman adventure has to be a grim excursion into the internal and external forces pulling at Terry’s soul. Written by Emmy award-winner Paul Dini, “Terry’s Friend Dates A Robot” zeroes in on class dork Howard Groote (Max Brooks), whose desire to ascend the school’s social strata by scoring a cool girlfriend leads him to the seedy underbelly of Gotham’s android black market. Howard feeds his ideal partner’s stats to a skeezy, Buscemi-esque technician and thus is born Cynthia, a synthetic babe who wins Howard his popularity. Keeping Cynthia’s programmed devotion in check becomes an issue when other girls begin to take notice of good ol’ Groote, which pulls Terry away from one of the few quiet evenings where he can let his hair down and party with his awesome friends. Easily the funniest episode of Batman Beyond, and one of its best.

“The Last Resort” (season 2, episode 16)

As we’ve established, Terry McGinnis’ school life is just as complex as his private one, and they often dovetail into strange quagmires wholly unique to this new Batman. None were more dramatic than “The Last Resort,” where fed-up parents addressed Gotham’s juvenile delinquency problem by signing their at-risk teenagers over to an unscrupulous counselor named Dr. Gray Stanton (Mitch Pileggi). Stanton uses cult-like forms of emotional torture to cow his patients into becoming subservient to his control. His endgame is unclear, but Stanton represents a different, more heinous kind of adversary for Batman, who comes to the realization that this particular dilemma won’t be solved with batarangs and jet-boots alone. It’s a Very Special Episode of Batman Beyond that raises tough points about who is truly responsible for children losing their way, and doesn’t shy away from the reality that some kids sometimes grow beyond the reach of help.

“The Call, Part I” (season 3, episode 7)

Possibly the most important two-parter of Batman Beyond, at least in terms of cementing Terry McGinnis’ legacy as the future’s one true Batman, “The Call” brought in Superman (Christopher McDonald, replacing Tim Daly) to invite this new Batman to become a full-fledged member of a futuristic iteration of the Justice League. Naturally, Bruce is suspicious of Superman’s timing—a Leaguer named Micron was just taken out under dubious circumstances—and his suspicions turn out to be correct: Superman wants Terry to ferret out a traitor in the Justice League. Hands-down the biggest adventure McGinnis would see during his animated run, “The Call” goes to terrifying cosmic depths to usher the Tomorrow Knight toward a higher strata of superherodom. Rewatching these episodes makes one hope against hope that a Batman Beyond revival is closer to today than lost to some far away point in the future.