Detail Diatribe: Being Batman - A Curse Or A Choice?

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Bruce's arc in Batman Beyond was him coming to the realization that "If I can't be Batman, maybe I can be Alfred."

Kevin Conroy wrote a short comic for an anthology a few years before he passed where he talked about how he spent the decade leading up to his Batman audition losing several close friends to AIDS and being harassed by others in the industry for being gay, even when he tried to stay closeted. The casting director told him "Alright, this Bruce guy, he's been through a horrible tragedy and copes with it by hiding his pain behind a mask of confidence. You think you can do that?"

I think, in a bittersweet way, Conroy being Bruce Wayne was as much an inevitability as Bruce Wayne being Batman.

"His parents died when he was so young. Shot. Killed right in front of him. He was raised alone. A kid in a huge mansion. With his memories of his mother and father. He had love, and they took it from him. He should be a killer. He should want to tear the world apart for what it did. And yet he took that pain. That shock of death. And he turned it into hope."
- Superman, about the curse and choice of Batman.

That part about Joker losing his shit when Terry starts bantering back reminds me of that joke about how if Batman and Spider-man swapped rogues galleries, none of the villains would last an hour, and the image of Joker seething to be taken seriously by Peter while he quips circles around him still makes me really happy

It's like a European fable: Bruce is cursed to be Batman until he can find a warrior so noble that he would choose to bear the curse himself.

"If it ain't broke, then break it (with a space laser)" is such a good Joker line that I'm actually amazed he hasn't said something like it in anything I've seen/read.

"We'RE ThE JokeRS~~~"
"Sure you are."

There was so much top tier acting in the entirety of those two sentences and I love it every time I remember it.

Fun history about Batman Beyond: the creative team behind Batman the Animated Series was forced to end production on the show since Warner Brothers wanted to create a "teenage Batman" show to compete with Spiderman's rising popularity. No one on the creative team was happy about this decision, they just wanted to keep doing the awesome stuff that they were doing. But orders were orders, so they came up with the idea of a Batman successor and an old Bruce Wayne, as this would at least let the team connect the new project to their previous work. Well, Warner Brothers loved the idea and gave them 9 months to finish the show, which was a practically impossible timeline. So, the creative team worked with as much haste as possible to finish "Batman Beyond" while they were also finishing up Superman the Animated Series. In some meetings, the crew literally had the artists draw a random character, then pass it to the storywriters, who turned that drawing into a villain ready for their episode.

Somehow, against all odds, the team finished the first season of Batman Beyond by their 9-month deadline. They not only managed to create an entirely new concept of Batman hot off of the character's definitive take, but they did it with an unrealistic deadline while having zero interest in the project to begin with. Nothing about this show should have worked. It was doomed to fail. And yet, audiences came to love it, the crew came to love it, and it managed to develop the Batman mythos in an interesting way. Man, what a legacy! :)

Bruce getting a sad lonely life in Beyond was a pretty approppiate tragic fate for the character, but you cannot deny the Bat-family getting destroyed because he got Barbara pregnant was just a big NO

One important detail in the Justice Lords episode is that Lord Batman eventually changes his mind after Batman sarcastically suggests how proud his parents would be.

"Would that be fucked up or what, anyway I'm Amanda Waller" sums her up so well, I love it.

Gonna point something out for all the Batman Beyond fans.

Terry's bomb ass jacket: Just a regular, brown, bomber style jacket with silver/white reflective stuff on the sleeves. It helps with visibility when riding around town on a motorcycle.

You're welcome.

Possibly my favourite part of Terry heckling the Joker is the laugh at the end: when The Joker tries to kill Terry McGuinness, he also cries out, "Come on, McGuinness! Laugh it up now, you miserable little punk! Laugh! I can't hear you!" And Terry could've just zapped The Joker with the joy buzzer, but, before he does, he instead gives a defiant, mocking, "Ha, ha". Batman had the last laugh against The Joker.

Best line in that whole "Out of the Past" episode that sums up his feelings of what Ra's has done is "Sure Ra's, why not? Anything to hold off the grim reaper for another few seconds. I take it back: you don't cheat death, you whimper in fear of it."

Edit: fixed the quote

An oddly dark note on the Black Mercy scenario-- in his dream, it's not "Thomas Wayne beats Joe Chill and they're safe," it's "Thomas Wayne beats on Joe Chill forever." I fully believe that it's an expression of the agony of his loss, but also that he simply can't comprehend a world where his family lives, where everything is fine

In Batman Beyond, in a very real way, Bruce DID die as Batman. The moment he could no longer wear the cowl, he shut down. He might have still been moving, breathing, and so on, but he was dead and just waiting for death to catch on. Terry becoming Batman gave life to Bruce because Batman was also alive again, even if no longer as Bruce Wayne.

Bruce's initial compromise with Terry kind of boils down to "I'm not cool with YOU being Batman, but maybe I can deal with US being Batman."

I think it was in the Justice League show and comic Batman was getting grilled for recruiting children.
Wonder Woman said something like "you adopt these children and train them so they become like you."
Batman said "I take them in and train them so they don't become me."
Like he cannot stop.

I love a line that Neil Gaiman wrote for Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader which Martha Wayne says to Bruce at his death:

'You don't get heaven or hell. Do you know the only reward you get for being Batman? You get to be Batman.'