Timstuff
Avenger
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- Jul 26, 2004
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This has always been kind of a pet peeve of mine. I am a big fan of Batman Beyond, but there were certain things they did with it later on that really annoyed me. I didn't like when they gave Terry a sidekick, or the contrived way they went about introducing her, and I felt that overall the second season of the show was pretty weak. However, what annoyed me was the epilogue they did for the show in Justice League.
On paper, I loved the idea of giving the show a proper send off after its somewhat abrupt ending (although I would have been pretty content with Return of the Joker as the series sendoff anyway), but what really annoyed me was that they decided that the series wouldn't be complete unless Terry had some kind of biological connection to Bruce Wayne, no matter how contrived or unnecessary it was.
I could go on and on about all the ridiculous logic loops and plot devices they had to pull out of their asses in order to make Bruce Wayne be Terry's biological father, but at the end of the day, no matter how good of an explanation they came up with, I was still going to hate the idea of Terry being Bruce's son, and it was completely contrary to the fundamental idea behind Batman. Batman is someone who suffered a horrible tragedy, and devoted his life to cleaning up the city that took his parents. When Bruce Wayne was too tired to keep going as Batman, the city started to rot again, and it it took Terry's father. Terry was another victim of the city who needed justice, and like Bruce Wayne he was willing to devote himself to finding justice and cleaning up Gotham. Batman Beyond showed that the idea of Batman was something that could outlive Bruce Wayne, because when Gotham gets rotten enough a new Batman will rise, like how a sick person will produce antibodies. If Gotham City has succumbed to crime and corruption, a Dark Knight will appear.
When you make Terry be Bruce's illegitimate son though, it changes everything. Now, it becomes clear that Batman is not the result of Gotham's decay, but because of something in Bruce's genes that inevitably causes him to be Batman. It's almost like the show was saying "only someone with Bruce's blood is capable of being Batman." Being Batman is something that Terry inherited as part of his genetic legacy, and that makes Terry seem pretty unremarkable when you compare him to the stranger who accidentally ended up on Bruce's doorstep, and ended up becoming the new Batman. They tried so hard to make it seem like it was Terry's destiny to become Batman, that they completely usurped the message of destiny in the original show episodes, where a chance encounter changed the future of Gotham for the better. It was as if the city saw Terry, and decided he was the right guy for the job. That was just enough of a sense of fate that it worked, and it was cool. However, by having the giant ass-pull concidnece that Terry also just so happens to be Bruce's son, they might as well have just had a Joseph Campbell zombie burst out of his grave and read Terry "The Hero's Journey."
It's like they just couldn't be content with the good thing that they'd started. They showed us a vision of the future, where the idea of Batman could be something that will never die. They took this great story about history repeating itself and a new generation rising up to the challenge, and dumbed it down to "this guy is Batman's son and his destiny is to follow in dear ol' dad's footsteps." I really wish that they hadn't decided to go this route. I still love Batman Beyond, but I'd prefer to remember it as what it was when I first saw it, not the cheapened version that it was morphed into years later.
On paper, I loved the idea of giving the show a proper send off after its somewhat abrupt ending (although I would have been pretty content with Return of the Joker as the series sendoff anyway), but what really annoyed me was that they decided that the series wouldn't be complete unless Terry had some kind of biological connection to Bruce Wayne, no matter how contrived or unnecessary it was.
I could go on and on about all the ridiculous logic loops and plot devices they had to pull out of their asses in order to make Bruce Wayne be Terry's biological father, but at the end of the day, no matter how good of an explanation they came up with, I was still going to hate the idea of Terry being Bruce's son, and it was completely contrary to the fundamental idea behind Batman. Batman is someone who suffered a horrible tragedy, and devoted his life to cleaning up the city that took his parents. When Bruce Wayne was too tired to keep going as Batman, the city started to rot again, and it it took Terry's father. Terry was another victim of the city who needed justice, and like Bruce Wayne he was willing to devote himself to finding justice and cleaning up Gotham. Batman Beyond showed that the idea of Batman was something that could outlive Bruce Wayne, because when Gotham gets rotten enough a new Batman will rise, like how a sick person will produce antibodies. If Gotham City has succumbed to crime and corruption, a Dark Knight will appear.
When you make Terry be Bruce's illegitimate son though, it changes everything. Now, it becomes clear that Batman is not the result of Gotham's decay, but because of something in Bruce's genes that inevitably causes him to be Batman. It's almost like the show was saying "only someone with Bruce's blood is capable of being Batman." Being Batman is something that Terry inherited as part of his genetic legacy, and that makes Terry seem pretty unremarkable when you compare him to the stranger who accidentally ended up on Bruce's doorstep, and ended up becoming the new Batman. They tried so hard to make it seem like it was Terry's destiny to become Batman, that they completely usurped the message of destiny in the original show episodes, where a chance encounter changed the future of Gotham for the better. It was as if the city saw Terry, and decided he was the right guy for the job. That was just enough of a sense of fate that it worked, and it was cool. However, by having the giant ass-pull concidnece that Terry also just so happens to be Bruce's son, they might as well have just had a Joseph Campbell zombie burst out of his grave and read Terry "The Hero's Journey."
It's like they just couldn't be content with the good thing that they'd started. They showed us a vision of the future, where the idea of Batman could be something that will never die. They took this great story about history repeating itself and a new generation rising up to the challenge, and dumbed it down to "this guy is Batman's son and his destiny is to follow in dear ol' dad's footsteps." I really wish that they hadn't decided to go this route. I still love Batman Beyond, but I'd prefer to remember it as what it was when I first saw it, not the cheapened version that it was morphed into years later.
t: . One impossible genetic mix-up explained, yeah!
