Another twenty years later, crime in Gotham is worse than ever, and the city itself has largely fallen under the influence of Derek Powers, the new CEO of Wayne's former company. In a chance occurrence, Bruce meets a teenager named Terry McGinnis, who shares his passion for justice and inadvertently discovers his past secret identity as Batman.
After Terry's father Warren is murdered, Terry suspects foul play on the part of Powers, his former employer, and asks Bruce for help. Having long given up vigilantism, Bruce insists that the proper route would be to inform the police and have them further investigate the situation. Terry, upon finding the batsuit, has different ideas...
Tropes:
- Adventure Rebuff: Bruce initially refuses to help Terry. Once Terry steals the Batsuit, Bruce shuts it down remotely, but eventually decides to let him become the next Batman.
- Art Evolution: Musical example. The pilot's prologue follows the familiar, traditional orchestral scoring that had been part and parcel of the DCAU since BTAS. After the Time Skip, the scoring then shifts into Beyond's now-familiar electronica. Bruce Timm has confirmed on the
DVD Commentary this was deliberately done to help sell how different the show was going to be from its predecessors. - Asshole Victim: Although the Jokerz certainly intend to prank everyone at the nightclub, Nelson's the primary victim because of his fancy car.
- Badass Boast:
- Batman Grabs a Gun: Happens in the prologue. In the middle a hostage rescue attempt, the aged Bruce suffers a heart attack and receives a severe beating from a mook. He is then forced to hold off the mook by pointing a gun at him, much to his own horror. This is the final nail that leads him to hang up his Batsuit for good.
- Being Good Sucks: Terry realizes this about Bruce after he refuses to do anything about Powers' nerve gas project.Terry: Something happened to you, didn't it? And it wasn't just that you got old.
- Big "NO!": Powers after being exposed to his nerve toxin.
- Bittersweet Ending: Terry successfully stops the nerve gas sale and avenges his father's murder. But while Mr. Fixx is dead, he no longer has the evidence to prove Derek Powers orchestrated it. Realizing his city still needs a hero, Bruce accepts Terry as the new Batman. Meanwhile, Powers himself has not only been treated of his own plague with a radiation treatment, he's become a radioactive being who may pose a threat...
- Break Out the Museum Piece: The new Batsuit is at least 20 years old by the time Terry wears it, but he mentions that it's still cutting-edge.
- Career-Ending Injury: Bruce's bad heart (and his deteriorating physical state in general from all the injuries he'd sustained over his years as Batman) finally catches up to him during a fight with some kidnappers, and he is forced to use a gun to make the last attacker step down.note
- Changing of the Guard: By the end of the episode, Bruce decides to hire Terry as his "assistant", effectively accepting him as a worthy successor to take over the duties of Batman.
- Chekhov's Gun: A relatively quick one. During the battle at the hover-pad, the bad guys hurry the loading of the nerve gas and the takeoff, conspicuously leaving a single canister behind. Batman soon uses this lone canister to distract Powers.
- Coincidental Broadcast: The kidnappers in the opening scene watch a TV news report of the kidnapping, followed by a business news item that shows Bruce Wayne is now considerably older than he was in Batman: The Animated Series and introduces Derek Powers as a rival trying to take over his company.
- Continuity Nod:
- Bunny Vreeland, the kidnapped young woman in the prologue, is confirmed to be the daughter of Veronica Vreeland, a recurring character from Batman: The Animated Series.
- Powers is trying to sell the nerve gas to the Eastern European nation of Kasnia, which had been introduced in the Superman: The Animated Series pilot and would remain the DCAU's go-to fictional European country through Justice League.
- Bunny Vreeland, the kidnapped young woman in the prologue, is
- Commonality Connection: Bruce initially demands that Terry hand the Batsuit back after he steals it. Terry manages to win his sympathy by saying that this is his one chance to catch his father's killer, while referring to Bruce's loss of his own parents. It is what convinces Bruce to aid him.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Powers in spades. In the intro, it is mentioned that he had repeatedly attempted hostile takeovers of Wayne Enterprises, eventually succeeding and transforming the company into Wayne-Powers. And he only gets worse from there.
- Create Your Own Hero: Powers having Warren McGinnis murdered for his knowledge about the nerve gas is what brings Terry and Bruce together, reviving Batman.
- Create Your Own Villain: Terry causes Powers to get exposed to his own nerve gas. Later, his doctors treat him with high levels of radiation to save his life, but the effects transform him into a translucent glowing green skeleton...
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: During the climax, Powers turns out to be an adept hand with a gun, quickly blasting Terry's Batarangs before they can hit him mid-air. When Terry chucks the last remaining nerve gas canister at him from behind, he turns around and reflexively blasts it before he processes what the projectile is, exposing himself to the gas, and eventually resulting in his transformation into Blight.
- Death by Origin Story: Warren McGinnis and Mr. Fixx.
- Dented Iron: It doesn't matter how skilled Bruce is; he still grows old and can't do the kind of things he did when he was younger and healthier.
- Didn't See That Coming: Powers and his goons are caught completely off-guard by the arrival of the new Batman as it has been over two decades since Batman last made an appearance.
- Dirty Coward:
- The kidnapper in the Distant Prologue has no qualms against brutally beating Batman with a metal bar while he's incapacitated and in agony on the ground from a heart attack, but quickly freaks out and bails when Batman threatens him with a fallen gun.
- The Jokerz at Terry's first scene (named "Scab" in later appearances), once he realizes Terry is not afraid of duking it out with him.
- Distant Prologue: The first episode begins with Bruce Wayne's final night as Batman, twenty years prior to the rest of the story.
- The Dragon: Mr. Fixx to Powers. He is the one who murders Terry's father.
- Dramatic Irony: The Jokerz trying to intimidate Bruce during the confrontation outside Wayne Manor in Part 1. They have no idea they're facing off with their namesake and inspiration's archenemy, or that they're childishly trying to emulate a force of pure evil that they could never measure up to (and that Bruce's mocking dismissal of them is completely justified).
- Downer Beginning: The Distant Prologue that shows Batman taking on his last case, suffering a Game-Breaking Injury and retiring the cowl.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Kaznian Minister Vilmos Egans. He's visibly unnerved during the meeting with Powers when he sees video documentation of the nerve gas and its effects on animals and humans. Subverted in that he buys the gas anyway.
- Evil Gloating: The mook while he's overpowering Bruce in his last fight as Batman.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Fixx drowns when his craft crashes into the Gotham Bay.
- Feeling Their Age: In the prologue, the original Batman, who's in his late fifties at least, has a heart attack while fighting Bunny Vreeland's kidnappers. The last thug nearly beats him to death with a giant wrench, forcing Bats to grab a nearby gun and aim it at the thug. The thug stops and runs away, but is stopped by the police. The combination of his declining health and breaking his moral code convinces Bruce that it's time to retire.
- Foreshadowing:
- In the Distant Prologue, the news mentions Powers trying to take over Wayne Enterprises. Post-Time Skip, he's succeeded.
- This dialogue:Terry: Something happened to you, didn't it? And wasn't just that you got old.
- Bruce tells Terry to take the incriminating information on Powers to Commissioner Barbara Gordon, who's taken her now-passed father's place. Of course, she'll be much more important later.
- During the sales pitch to the Kasnian diplomat, Powers mentions that intense heat or radiation are the only ways to treat exposure to nerve gas. At the end of the episode, he gets radiation treatment that transforms him into Blight.
- Mr. Fixx met his end by drowning and his body is at the bottom of the ocean and this will later repeat in the season 1 finale Ascension where Derek will meet the same end as well.
- Get Out!: Bruce snarls this at Terry after catching him in the Batcave.
- Good News, Bad News: In the end, the good news from Powers' doctors is they stopped the deteriorating effects of the nerve gas. The bad news is he's turned into a glowing skeleton from the radiation used to treat him.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Mr. Fixx has a jagged scar down from his left eye.
- Gory Discretion Shot:
- The eventual fates of the test subjects of Powers' nerve gas, given the horrified reaction by the Kaznian minister upon seeing the pictures.
- We never see Warren's corpse either.
- Groin Attack: Terry manages to escape Mr. Fixx by kicking him in the balls.
- He Knows Too Much: Harry Tully and later Warren McGinnis are murdered by Mr. Fixx for knowing about the nerve gas.
- Heroic BSoD:
- Bruce after being forced to use the same weapon of his parents' murder to defend himself against a criminal. This act convinces him to retire from being Batman.
- Terry also has one after his father's funeral. He sits morosely in his bedroom and later breaks down in his mother's arms as he laments his parting words to his dad.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- During the battle with Batman, Powers gets exposed to his own nerve gas, quickly suffering from the effects.
- Terry and Fixx's climactic struggle ends when he knocks him backwards into the transport shuttle's control panel, the electrified brass knuckles he was wearing short-circuiting the panel and causing it to crash into the Gotham bay, eventually drowning Fixx.
- History Repeats: While the circumstances differ, the death of Terry's father leads to Terry becoming Batman, much like when Bruce became Batman decades ago after losing his parents.
- Hollywood Heart Attack: Bruce's final battle as Batman begins with him easily taking down criminal mooks as usual...until he clutches his chest in distress.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Zigzagged. After stealing the Batsuit, Terry takes a few minutes to get used to the suit's flight patterns. However, he manages to use the suit's other functions (notably the fingertip microphones that he uses to eavesdrop on Powers). It's implied that Terry took some time to figure out some of the suit's abilities when making his way to Powers' office, but he still shows himself to be a remarkably quick study in using its abilities, especially the Batarangs.
- I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: Before he dies, Harry Tully passes on an infodisk about the nerve gas to Warren. Later, Terry finds the same infodisk hidden in one of his pictures.
- Impairment Shot: When Bruce collapses during his final battle as Batman, we see a wavering double-vision view through his eyes.
- Irony: After Warren's murder, Terry laments their argument and feels they could have fought off the Jokerz together if he'd stayed at home. After discovering it was Mr. Fixx in Part 2, however, Terry's subsequent fight in the climax proves he and Warren couldn't have won that fight. Terry is barely able to beat Fixx even with the technological edge provided by the Batsuit. Had he not disobeyed Warren, Terry would have surely perished alongside his father.
- It's All My Fault: While not responsible for his father's death, Terry blames himself for leaving Warren unprotected after being out for too long when he stormed off. He believes he should have stayed if he had known about the attack.Terry: He grounded me, and I didn't listen.
- Jerkass: The crooks Bruce fights in in the Distant Prologue. They kidnapped Bunny Vreeland to ransom five million dollars for her, and despite being given the money, fully intended to kill her anyway.
- Karma Houdini: Zigzagged with Derek Powers. Legally, he's able to get away with the development of the nerve gas and the murder of Warren (as Powers had reclaimed the evidence from Terry and thus he and Bruce have no way to prove it). Personally, however, Powers does pay for it with his viral exposure, radiation treatment, and mutation.
- Kick Them While They Are Down:
- When Bruce is incapacitated due to a sudden heart attack, one of the kidnappers gleefully beats him with a crowbar.
- The Wayne-Powers guards take glee upon beating a helpless Terry once Bruce shuts the Batsuit down.
- Laughing Mad: Powers, upon seeing his new appearance after receiving the radiation treatments.
- Layman's Terms: When the lead doctor starts answering Powers' question about what happened to him with a line of technobabble, Powers grabs him and demands that he "bottom line it".
- Leitmotif: In the prologue, Shirley Walker's iconic Batman theme is reprised when Bruce begins his rescue of Bunny Vreeland.
- Make It Look Like an Accident:
- Harry Tully "accidentally" got exposed to the nerve gas.
- Later, Mr. Fixx makes it look like Warren was murdered by Jokerz.
- Mugging the Monster: When the Jokerz run into Bruce, they assume that he is just a feeble, crippled old man and not a threat. Cue Curb-Stomp Battle.J-Man: Who do you think you're talking to, old man? We're the Jokerz!
Bruce: [smirking] Sure you are. - Never-Forgotten Skill: Bruce's showing against the Jokerz gang shows that old as he is, age hasn't blunted his fighting skills in the slightest, only his stamina. Particularly, his Offhand Backhand skill is still in top form.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Bruce in Part II ordering Terry to take Harry Tully's evidence to the GCPD and Barbara Gordon instead of sending it himself. Powers and Fixx are able to intercept Terry en route and recover it, thereby forcing Terry to steal the Batsuit and go after Powers himself.
- Terry also can't believe Bruce wants him to go to the GCPD as he'd pointed out at the end of Part I that they were cozy with Powers. Bruce doesn't tell him why Barbara should be trusted (i.e. she used to be Batgirl). Had he told Terry, it might've swayed him. It's justified, though, as Bruce has only just met Terry and doesn't know or trust him yet (and sharing Barbara's secret isn't his decision to make). Moreover, given revelations later in the season, there's also old bitterness between Bruce and Barbara that's strained their working relationship.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Once they obtain the disk, Powers orders his driver to stand down from shooting at Terry. This obviously backfires on Powers in the most awesome way.
- "Not So Different" Remark: When Bruce threatens to shut down the Batsuit again, Terry brings up how Bruce lost his own parents and how this is his one chance to nail his own father's murderer. Knowing all too well what Terry is going through right now—the pain, rage, guilt, and need for closure—is what ultimately convinces Bruce to stand down.
- Offhand Backhand: At the tail end of his brief fight with the Jokers, Bruce does this to their leader when he attempts to hit him with a pipe from behind, with nary a change in expression. With his cane. Age has done nothing to blunt certain skills it seems.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Terry's third foray into the Batcave, stealing the Batsuit right under Bruce's nose. The latter wouldn't have even found out until he saw Ace tied to the mansion gate.
- Obviously Evil:
- Vilmos Egans, the Kaznian Minister.
- A security guard at the apartment complex where Mary McGinnis lives, who is unsurprisingly on Powers' payroll, spying on Terry and reporting that the boy has the incriminating file.
- Oh, Crap!: In the prologue, the kidnapper is reduced to terrified babbling after Batman Grabs a Gun, apparently realising the significance of this act.
- Outside-Context Problem: Terry as Batman is this for Powers (and by extension the rest of Neo-Gotham City's underworld during Season One). Be they mugger, mafioso, or corrupt CEO, none of Gotham's current generation of criminals have had to deal with a Batman in 20 years and it takes them by surprise. It's offset, though, by Terry being completely inexperienced and in over his head.
- Parting-Words Regret: Terry bitterly regrets his last conversation with his father.Terry: I yelled at him, Mom. He grounded me, and I wouldn't listen. The things I said—!
- Post-Victory Collapse: Bruce helps Terry fight off the Jokerz, but then needs help getting back to Wayne Manor for his medicine and falls asleep in his chair right after taking it. This serves as an Establishing Character Moment (building on what we saw in the Distant Prologue); he still knows how to fight, but lacks the stamina to do it for very long.
- Pretender Diss:
- Bruce gives one to the Jokerz when they try to threaten him.
- Later, Mr. Fixx tries to give one to Terry.
- Red Herring: Terry thought that the Jokerz killed his father. When he investigates Powers, Terry overhears that Mr. Fixx was the one who did it.
- Reflexive Response: Powers easily shoots down the Batarang that Terry throws at him. He's just as quick to shoot the next thing Terry throws at him...a canister of his nerve gas, which bursts open right in front of him.
- Rule of Symbolism: Bruce grabbing the gun in the prologue to defend himself. Bruce is essentially having to use the same kind of weapon that killed his parents in Crime Alley all those decades ago. Batman was created by a desperate man with gun...and Bruce has now ironically become a desperate man with a gun. While his declining physical health technically forces his retirement, the symbolic damage really, more than anything, is what breaks Bruce's spirit (until Terry's arrival revives it).
- Shout-Out: Powers' reaction to seeing his mutated form is to laugh insanely at himself in the mirror.
- Spiteful Spit: Nelson Nash spits on Terry's face after the other insults him during a wrestling match. Terry punches him, causing him to get in trouble and get grounded by his father.
- Spotting the Thread: Played with when after Warren's funeral when Terry's going through his It's All My Fault monologue. Terry unwittingly pokes the very first hole in the frame-up: how did the Jokerz even trace him? They didn't know his name or ID. Mary suggests it may not even have been the same gang, but Terry ultimately doesn't pursue this line of investigation (as he instead discovers Warren's disc and gradually deduces what must've really happened).
- That Man Is Dead: Bruce invokes the inverted version when Terry tries to enlist his help against Powers:Terry: You have to do something! You're Batman!
Bruce: I was Batman. - Underestimating Badassery: When he hears of the report of Batman sneaking around in his company premises, Powers initially scoffs at the idea and believes it's not a big deal.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Nelson Nash of all people is this to Derek Powers' entire scheme. If Nash had not provoked Terry during their match, Terry would never have been grounded by Warren that evening. If he hadn't, Terry wouldn't have stormed out to go clubbing with Dana and would've been killed along with his father by Mr. Fixx. If Terry had not gotten into that altercation with the Jokerz while clubbing, the chain of events that literally brought him to Bruce Wayne's doorsteps and the Batman legacy would never have happened.
- Welcome to My World: Bruce says this to Terry verbatim. Terry's mother thinks he's referring to the world of big business; Bruce, Terry, and the audience know that he means taking up the mantle of Batman.
- You Killed My Father: Terry's motivation for stealing the Batsuit and taking on Powers and Mr. Fixx.
