So, watching Batman Beyond on Netflix....

[Kaos Arcanna]

Terry totally should have picked Max over Dana.

Just saying.

[Rotten Luck]

I agree with you too.  Max a much better mach.  Over all Dana seemed to be a nothing character she had no benefit to the story but to be Terry's girlfriend.  She only showed up for plot convince and even then rarely.

P.S. I would so love to see a Batman Beyond Live action Movie!

[Night-Hawk07]

I'm glad I was alone when I found out Batman Beyond (among many other awesome 90s-early 2000s cartoons) had made it to Netflix. Haven't geeked out like that in long time.

I never noticed how many sound effects that were used in the show also were in CoH. Certain sounds play and I'm like "OOOOOOOOHHHH!!! THAT WAS IN COH!!!!".

[Rust]

Batman Beyond is a terminally underrated series.

As for the Max vs Dana argument...I like Dana, and I like that Terry (unlike Bruce) managed to make the relationship angle work. It's another dynamic difference between the two that helps make Terry his own man as the Bat.

A shame Terry's rogue gallery was never as dynamic as Bruce's though. I got really sick and tired of seeing Inque and the Royal Flush Gang by the time the series ended.

[Rotten Luck]

I'm not against Dana.  Just she was missed handled.  Wouldn't it have been interesting to have an episode where we follow Dana as she tries to figure out why Terry been slipping dates.  Could have been written in such away where she nearly catches him as Bats.  At the end she sees a moment between Terry and Bruce and comes to the understanding Bruce is becoming a replacement father figure. 

Instead that dawning understanding was all done off screen. 

[Rust]

Dana has a better arc in the recent Batman Beyond comics, where her brother gets back from jail, only to become "The Joker King".

[Night-Hawk07]

Dana has a better arc in the recent Batman Beyond comics, where her brother gets back from jail, only to become "The Joker King".

I'm reading through this now. So glad they brought back this series even though it's in comic form.

[Kaos Arcanna]

Of the possible love interests Terry had in the show, Dana ranks third for me as she seems to be the one he has the least amount of chemistry with.

It's a tougher call between Max and Melanie (Ten of the Royal Flush Gang), but Max edges things out a bit as she and Terry just seem to get along better on a personal level whereas Melanie and Terry had more of a physical attraction (at least on Terry's part) than anything else.

Dana's best episode was the one where she was kidnapped and showed some moxie.

Beyond that ... (heh) ... the big thing to me was that Terry never told her his secret on the show. I just never got the feeling they were meant for each other long term ... and then we find out that they are.

[Rust]

Max and Terry wouldn't have worked for the same reason Barbara and Bruce never worked - they were too "close" in terms of the job. Max was Oracle - someone to fill in for Bruce when he was unavailable or to flesh out information because she's a all around better hacker then Bruce.

I always got the impression that when Bruce finally got around to acknowledging mortality, Max would have stepped into Bruce's role.

Max and Terry always struck me as really good friends, but never as anything more then that. I think there was an episode of the show where Dana has fears that Max and Terry are closer then they appear to be too. Can't recall...but that just is an excuse to break out the Batman Beyond DVDs again.

As for Melanie...she was the Selina Kyle archtype for the show. I actually did really like her character - especially her last appearance when she had to make the decision to turn against her family. But her and Terry in a long term relationship? It might have worked, but the fact Melanie knew Terry's double life would mean she would eventually grow to resent it.

Dana might not have been a huge entity in the show, but she was a nice solid "rock" for Terry. Same with his mother and younger brother - they were anchors to the "normal world" that Bruce never had - probably why he ended up the way he did. Alfred - bless his soul - was too much of a enabler.

[Rotten Luck]

Story wise Dana had a lot of missed chance to expand as a character and story wise.  As you said she did in the comics.  Mental note need to see if I can get them on digital.  Anyway I have to say I agree with you Rust as I gave myself some time to think on it. 

Max and terry worked best as friends.  Would like to see her get more involved in the Batman side of thing not as a Robin but as Oracle (*Grumbles about DC reboot*) I really don't see her doing physical work as in physical crime fighting. 

One villain I would have like to see expanded was Terminal.  Thought he was in the Jokerz gang he was his own character.  In the way Joker was Batman's Mirror I saw Terminal as Terry's.  Why unlike Terry his mother was a cold hard controlling tyrant.  Story wise I can see her rejecting her son after his arrest thus driving Terminal deeper into the criminal world.  I see in the comics they made him more of a Two face I not sure I agree with that angle.  What I liked about the character was his intense personality the only person he did back down to was his mother.  Terminal would have been better as a Revenge driven character almost like a Riddler style wit testing Terry, not in physical abilities but mental.  Given how he seemed to use traps and taunting (putting acid in the cleaning robots and reprogramming them.)  Story wise this would help show Terry's mental possess and cunning.

On the other hand I haven't read the story in the comics I'm going only by what I saw in the T.V. show.  Mentally wise Terminal was to driven by Carter Wilson desires.  Two Face guilt was the wedge that separated Harvey Dent  from Bad Harvey at least in the Batman Animated show.  There no such wedge to cause the split personality in Carter's case he knew what he was doing as terminal and enjoyed it.

[Rust]

Terry's rogue gallery desperately needed fleshing out, I agree there. That being said, I can only give them props for trying desperately not to just "Copy + Paste" Bruce's rogue gallery into the future.

I did get really tired of Inque and the Royal Flush Gang. And Spellblinder, Shriek, and Stalker had fairly weak follow ups.

Doctor Chimera, Arsenal, Terminal...I wish we'd gotten more with them.


Though I do want to say part of the problem with Terry's Bats is it was hard to keep villains around because he was a lot more brutal then Bruce. Deliberately dousing Powers with his own nuero-toxin (Inadvertently creating Blight), knocking Bane 2.0 into his own Venom Patches, causing a (seemingly lethal) Overdose, and probably the most brutal bit...Throwing Ace down a laundry chute and following it up with a grenade before Terry knew Ace was a android.

[Rotten Luck]

Arsenal was less a Rogue and more a desperate man.  I could see him becoming an ally maybe even hired by Bruce to further build and design a new generation of bat tools.  Given how Arsenal seemed to prefer nonlethal weapons. 

Doctor Chimera I would have like to see come back as well.  Given how messed up his DNA was at the end he could have enough creatures in him with regeneration to return.  I also agree Terry didn't pull any punches, would have been a good story if that causes more trouble then solves. 

Batman Beyond was more action driven then some of the Batman the Animated stories.  I don't see Terry's Rogues playing cards in a dark room or the episode where the Penguin fell in love only to be betrayed.

[Rust]

They should have kept the Barbara/Terry antagonism arc going for longer then they did. I thought it was a neat dynamic that the Commissioner and Batman were at odds in the beginning. Especially if they'd kept the relationship the two had when Terry was out of the Batsuit. Make Barbara hate what Batman represented for Terry as a person, not the actual person underneath.

The Mister Freeze episode also did not disappoint.

"Freeze! Get out of there! You'll die!"
"Believe me Batman...you're the only one who cares."

THE FEELS.

[Night-Hawk07]

Of the possible love interests Terry had in the show, Dana ranks third for me as she seems to be the one he has the least amount of chemistry with.

It's a tougher call between Max and Melanie (Ten of the Royal Flush Gang), but Max edges things out a bit as she and Terry just seem to get along better on a personal level whereas Melanie and Terry had more of a physical attraction (at least on Terry's part) than anything else.

Dana's best episode was the one where she was kidnapped and showed some moxie.

Beyond that ... (heh) ... the big thing to me was that Terry never told her his secret on the show. I just never got the feeling they were meant for each other long term ... and then we find out that they are.

She finds out eventually. The Season 1 finale of Justice League Unlimited, "Epilogue" is set 15 years "beyond" Batman Beyond and there's a part where Terry wants to end things with Dana cause "it's too dangerous"....and of course she doesn't care about that fact.

To my knowledge, though, Melanie never knew Terry was Batman unless that came up later in the original BB comics that were out around the same time as the show.

And I agree with Rust, I loved the Freeze episode.

One other note, it kind of makes sense though that Terry wouldn't pull his punches like Bruce. He doesn't have the fear of killing like Bruce does, I'm pretty sure I've even seen him use a gun before, and it seems his attitude is more like Christian Bale's Batman: he won't go out of his way to kill and doesn't want to, but if it happens as a result of his fighting then it happens. What is it Bale's Batman says, "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you."

[houtex]

Yeah, that line, and it's aftermath, if you will, has always bugged me.  Purposeful inaction is by itself an action.   Might as well have shot Ras outright.

But it's a rationalization, much like Sisko's in "In the Pale Moonlight."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-YyL7X4CWw

/I had *shudders* the first time I saw that... scary... and necessary.  War sucks.
//Yes yes, fiction... but point still is.
///Confession:  Still sorta shuddered at the last line after watching it, the way he delivers it to the computer... Yeesh.  Just gives me the willies.

[Rust]

The problem with Batman in the movies is Frank Miller's rendition from the 80s has pretty much become "The" Batman. I have issue with Nolan's Batman's bendable morality myself (Especially when he then gets weepy that he deliberately breaks a mob boss' legs to extract information), but it's simply part of the larger problem that the public awareness of the character is a lot darker and grittier then he actually is.

And if TAS and Beyond taught us anything, it's that you can be darker and grittier without sacrificing a cornerstone of the character. It's what makes Mask of the Phantasm - in my opinion - the greatest Batman story ever put to film because it's these two styles (The Phantasm offing criminals vs Batman's apprehension of them) into stark relief against each other.

But at the end of the day, I still enjoy the Nolan Bat Films. if Batman has a bendable morality in them, at least he's not outright gunning people down or shoving dynamite down the pants of opponents a la the Burton era.

[FatherXmas]

That's because before Miller's/Burton's Batman, the public image of Batman is Adam West's.  It's going to take a lot of dark, gritty, brooding Batman to scrub that image out of the collect consciousness.  The campier Batman movies didn't help that cause one bit.  Fortunately most of the WB animated series stayed with the serious, dark Batman.

[Night-Hawk07]

I just watched the episode "Outof the Past" with Talia al Ghul tonight, and it reminded me of something else I liked. On the rare occasion Bruce gets in on the action (such as this episode and this one with Inque), they play a "Beyond-ified" version of the TAS theme. Get goose bumps every time.

[Rust]

That is awesome.

Even more awesome is when Terry is the one that merits that treatment. Only happened twice though - once right at the end of Return of the Joker and during the series opener, when Mr. Fix is holding Terry on the sinking ship and says "You're good for some clown who thinks he's Batman."

Terry replies "I. AM. Batman!" and cue the theme.

Coincidentally, that's another tick on the "Ruthless Terry" meter. He does kill Mister Fix (Even if it is via Batman Begins "I don't have to save you." logic).