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DC Animated Universe/Characters/Batman Beyond


The characters of Batman Beyond:

Main Characters

Terry McGinnis / Batman (Will Friedle)

An otherwise Ordinary High School Student who recently put his Delinquent days behind him, Terry's life changes when he gets on the bad side of the Jokerz, a gang that idolizes the long-past Clown Prince of Crime. Leading them out of the city (and away from his girlfriend), the chase happens to end at the gates of stately Wayne Manor, where Bruce shows the Jokerz the hard way that he can still handle punks like them...then collapsing of a heart attack. After helping Bruce back into his home, Terry (in what has become a habit by now) stumbles upon the Batcave and is promptly thrown out.

Terry returns home to find his father murdered, apparently in retaliation by the Jokerz. However, his father's boss Derek Powers, the man who now runs Bruce Wayne's old company, shows up asking about a disk his father apparently had before his death, and not in a nice way. Realizing that the Jokerz were not his father's killer(s), Terry heads back to Wayne to try to convince him to help. When Bruce refused to get directly involved, he steals the last Batsuit and takes off to settle things on his own. After foiling a plot by Powers to sell a devastating chemical weapon to rogue nations, Terry is accepted by Bruce to carry the mantle of Batman.


Terry: You mean, I made him that?
Bruce: You may have. In part.
Terry: Good. *beat* Hey, this guy had my father murdered and all he's done since is hide from the law! Well, no more hiding for Mister Derek Powers. Now everyone can see him for what he is...even in the dark.

Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy)

The original Batman from earlier in the DCAU, Bruce is originally reluctant to let Terry take up the mantle of the Bat, but he eventually gives in and becomes Terry’s mentor and Mission Control.

See here for info dealing with him in the rest of the DCAU.

  • Badass:
  • Cool Old Guy
  • Crazy Prepared: Naturally.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Has his moments.
  • Doesn't Like Guns: The series begins with a heart attack forcing him to scare a criminal off with one, horrifying him into retirement.
  • Good Is Not Nice
  • Heroes Love Dogs: Understandable, since Ace is his only companion at Wayne Manor other than Terry.
  • Lonely at the Top: The rare heroic example of this trope at the beginning of the show. He is one of the richest men in the world and it is due to his crusade as the Dark Knight that Gotham is still standing. However, he has also completely alienated everyone around him and is utterly alone. And once he got older, his failing body conditions prevented him from further activities as Batman, which has made him bitter. Finding his successor in Terry did improve the situation but it is clear that Bruce sometimes thinks about what could have been.

Terry: Why do you hate him so much?
Barbara Gordon: No, I don't hate him. I hate what he's become. Such a great man...so alone.

Maxine "Max" Gibson (Cree Summer)

Dana Tan (Lauren Tom)

Ace

The McGinnis family

Warren McGinnis (Michael Gross)

  • Amicably Divorced: Though the JLU episode Epilogue reveals that Bruce is the boys' biological father, opening a possibility that given Terry and Matt's black hair, which considering Mary's red hair and his brown hair is genetically improbable, suspicions of infidelity on Mary's part may have had a factor.
  • Death by Origin Story
  • We Hardly Knew Ye

Mary McGinnis (Teri Garr)

Matt McGinnis (Ryan O'Donohue)

  • Alliterative Name
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: Although understandably he is very young, and some of his antics could be seen as a coping mechanism for losing his father at a young age.
    • A good example of this is one episode where, even being told that the ghost at Hill High is being destructive, he wants to have a séance. The reason? He's scared he'll forget what his father was like and wants to contact him.
  • Idolizes My Alter Ego: A fact Terry wholeheartedly approves of.

Recurring Characters

Barbara Gordon (Stockard Channing [seasons 1 and 2], Angie Harmon [season 3])

The former Batgirl, she has put aside her cowl and has now taken her father’s place as Gotham’s Police Comissioner.

See here for info dealing with her in the rest of the DCAU.

  • Badass Normal
  • Cool Old Lady
  • The Commissioner Gordon: Like father, like daughter. Except that her relationship with Batman was generally far worse. It got better over time.
  • Happily Married: To Sam.
  • I Am Not My Father: Barbara felt no need to continue her father's policies towards the Bat in the beginning, and she minces no words about it. Her apparent rancor over it is probably more due to soured feelings toward Bruce rather than her feelings towards her father, since they were always shown to be close.
  • Inspector Javert: She was quick to believe the worst about Batman at first, though to her credit, she wises up when it's not his fault. And to be fair, in at least one case she literally witnesses him kill Mad Stan (it was an illusion, but the guy put a lot of work into it).
    • Spellbinder (the illusionist himself) was quick to point out, however, how easily and quickly Barbara fell for it.
  • Never Mess with Granny
  • The Other Darrin: In the movie.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Though that's reasonable, not nice.
    • Sometimes she's not even that reasonable. "Eyewitness" is a good example where she willfully holds the Idiot Ball.
  • Secret Keeper: She knows Bruce's secret. She's also one of the few people who knows about the circumstances surrounding the Joker's death, but chooses to keep quiet about it.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Her appearance here showed that DCAU Barbara didn't suffer the same fate mainline DCU Barbara did.

Sam Young (Paul Winfield)

Gotham City's District Attorney and Barbara Gordon's husband.

Howard Groote (Max Brooks)

Bobbi "Blade" Summer (Melissa Disney)

  • Alpha Bitch: She's actually fairly apathetic, but has the look down pat, and is more than content to do things such as throw most of a school assignment on Terry, or manipulate a classmate to make another guy jealous.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl

Chelsea Cunningham (Yvette Lowenthal, Rachel Leigh Cook)

Nelson Nash (Seth Green)

  • Alliterative Name
  • Asshole Victim: It's really difficult to feel sorry for him when Willie destroys his expensive car, and continuously hounds him with his new powers.
  • Butt Monkey
  • Dating Do-Si-Do: Implied to be in a relationship with Chelsea one episode, hits on Dana in another, and has a messy break-up with Blade in yet another.
  • Expy: Of Flash Thompson.
  • Hidden Depths: The eggbaby episode revealed that Nelson is surprisingly good as a father, if his grade was anything to go by. Remember, Max did his math homework so he'd raise the kid by himself.
  • Jerk Jock: A massive one. In the pilot alone, he introduces himself by spitting in Terry's face. Not to mention he picks on weaker kids.
  • Playing Against Type

Villains

Derek Powers / Blight (Sherman Howard)

The corrupt CEO and co-owner of Wayne-Powers Enterprises. After being exposed to his own nerve gas, he is treated with high levels of radiation. He glows green in his natural form, so he must wear an artificial skin that only lasts temporarily and must be regularly replaced. The skin wears out more quickly if he gets angry.

Blight: And behold, I shall be a blight upon the land, and everything I touch shall wither and die!

Terry: Now everyone can see him for what he is...even in the dark.

  • Light Is Not Good: He emits a bright radioactive green glow. This contrasts with Batman, who is dark, and can even turn invisible.
  • No One Could Survive That: Apparently died in the Season 1 finale. He was never seen again, though the possibility that he was out there, hungry for revenge, hung over his son Paxton.
    • According to the comics, Blight did indeed survive, sort of. His body did survive, but he doesn't seem to remember anything about his past life outside of hatred and a desire for vengeance for Batman and Paxton Powers, and was eventually made into a target for the Stalker, and was eventually killed by being caught in a blast furnace.
  • Offing the Offspring: Wanted to do this to Paxton, after he was betrayed by him.
  • Uncanny Family Resemblance: His son Paxton is basically just him with brown hair.
  • Villainous Breakdown: His mental state starts deteriorating from the pilot episode forward as his hope of being cured dwindles...and as he embraces the power of being Blight.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Subverted, he's has a bad reputation even without his illegal actions.
  • Walking Wasteland

Inque (Shannon Kenny)

A woman who is able to transform into a liquid after being paid to be a human test subject for a mutagen. She works as a freelance saboteur and is often hired by powerful corporations.

  • Body Horror: In her other form.
  • Combat Tentacles: One of her main combat tactics.
  • Godzilla Threshold: Bruce has actually come out of retirement twice to aid Terry in defeating her.
  • The Juggernaut: The only member of Terry's Rogues Gallery that he was never able to beat on his own. All of his victories against her were owed to by the aid of others.
  • No One Could Survive That: Her daughter, Deanna, injected her with a dissolving agent and assumed it killed her. Ever the Genre Savvy crimefighter, Terry knew better. The end of the episode shows that Terry is right to think this, and Inque later appears in a Justice League Unlimited episode set farther in the future.
  • Orifice Invasion: Her last-ditch attempt to kill Terry in her first episode.
  • Shapeshifting
    • Morphic Resonance: She always has a black coloration with the blank, white eyes (her human form is black all over, with chalk white skin and normal eyes). Batman exploits this when he recognized her, after Inque very nearly loses him by impersonating a member of a group of walruses.
    • Shapeshifter Baggage: Possibly, but never outright stated, averted. She's implied to be relatively quite heavy for her size (i.e. roughly that of an average sized woman for most of the time), implying she has a dense body. The strength she's demonstrated can explain her ease of movement if that's the case.
    • Shapeshifter Default Form: She has a "human" form that imitates her original human body, though she can only get the shape right, not the color. Her regular form is much more simplistic, humanoid with an oval-shaped head with a single white dot on it for an eye.
    • Shapeshifter Weapon: Mostly Combat Tentacles, but has used blades and giant needles
    • Unstable Genetic Code: Sorta. She does need a steady diet of mutagens to survive, and she eventually suffers genetic damage that doesn't let her return to her human form.
  • Superpower Meltdown: She is in the midst of one throughout the series (see above). Despite this, Inque still manages to be the most physically powerful foe Terry faces.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Her inky liquid form is vulnerable to water. Just some water can dilute her enough so that she can't form a solid shape, but it doesn't permanently kill her either, since she's usually able to eventually pull herself together from being flushed.
    • Averted with her other main weakness: being frozen. While, yes, it is a very effective way to stop someone, she's probably the only one in the series whose biology allows for Harmless Freezing as well as being lucid while frozen solid. In a later episode, she demonstrates a technique she learned for breaking out of ice blocks almost instantly.

Willie Watt (Scott McAfee)

A bullied nerd at Terry's high school. He steals a giant construction robot from his father and, after an accident, is able to control it with his thoughts. He uses it to take revenge on his bullies. Though Batman destroys the robot, Willie is left with telekinetic powers.

  • Abusive Parents: Willie's dad is an aggressive macho idiot.
  • Alliterative Name
  • Bond Creatures: Willie treated the Golem like this was the case after he discovered he could control it himself.
  • Freudian Excuse: Willie tried to kill his father, and everyone at his high school dance. But only after putting up with his Jerkass of a father, getting bullied and assaulted by a Jerk Jock, and pushed off a 30 foot dock into the water by said jerk jock. Then he gains the power to control a giant robot with his mind, and then Psychic Powers, and his main motivation is getting back at everyone who ever wronged him.
  • Genius Bruiser: After a while in juvie with nothing better to do than hit the gym.
  • Hopeless Suitor: For Blade.
  • Lightning Can Do Anything: After he was electrocuted while controlling the Golem, he gained the ability to control it without the control headband. Later develops into other psychic powers.
  • Meaningful Name: A man, who can control a giant robot via electricity, named Watt. It's pretty self-explanatory.
  • Not Me This Time: In the tie-in comic, the Golem (or what's left of it) starts attacking people. Terry goes to Willie, who claims that while it's not him, the Golem did send him the message that it found a new master, so he still might have a connection to it. It wasn't him, either.
  • Prisons Are Gymnasiums
  • Psychic Powers: At first, he could control a robot, and by the end of the episode, it was revealed he appeared to be developing a greater talent as a Technopath. Later demonstrates levitation and some serious psychokinesis.
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: Though he ditched them after becoming buff.
  • Stalker with a Crush
  • Took a Level in Badass: Twice. If he ever gets out of juvie, he's going to be one scary member of the Rogues Gallery.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: His ultimate goal is to push everyone around like they used to do with him.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Willie was more than willing to kill his father with his new control over his robot, even with Terry trying to reason, "But he's your father!" Only for Willie to respond, "Not for long."
  • You Are What You Hate: Nelson did a pretty good job of humiliating Willie in front of their peers. But when Willie returns, more powerful than ever, he now understands what enjoyment Nelson got bullying people weaker than him.
    • Though in all fairness he'd only come after people who'd ever wronged him.

Victor Fries / Mr. Freeze (Michael Ansara)

Mr. Freeze is still the severed head in a jar that last appeared in The New Batman Adventures. Dr. Stephanie Lake creates a clone body for him and transfers his brain patterns into it, hoping to use the same procedure for Derek Powers.

  • And I Must Scream
  • Anti-Villain: Type II/IV.
  • The Atoner: He genuinely did want to try to make up for all the pain he caused. Too bad nothing ever goes his way.
  • Creepy Monotone
  • Darker and Edgier: Yes, the terrifying, emotionless villain who likes to freeze people solid is made even darker, due to the fact he gets to commit his first on-screen murder since his debut.
    • In addition to freezing his traitorous girlfriend to death (with a Gory Discretion Shot) he also freezes an oncoming car in a block of ice and encases a squad of soldiers shooting at him. This may be the biggest killing spree he's ever gone on in the shows.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Sometime between his new body regressing back to requiring sub-zero temperatures and Derek Powers' and Dr. Stephanie Lake's betrayal. At that point, revenge is the only thing he has left (again).
  • Driven to Suicide: During "Meltdown", Mr. Freeze tries to reform and becomes able to withstand normal temperatures due to Dr. Stephanie Lake. Unfortunately, he reverts back to needing subzero temperatures to survive and is nearly killed by Dr. Lake. Fries becomes Mr. Freeze once more for vengeance and at the end of "Meltdown", Mr. Freeze gets a cracked helmet, exposing him to temperatures above zero and stays in a collapsing building which ultimately explodes. Terry tries to help Mr. Freeze get out, but Mr. Freeze creates a wall of ice to force Terry to leave him behind to die.
  • He's Back
  • An Ice Person
  • Ironic Echo: Uses one towards the scientist who had betrayed him Dr. Stephanie Lake, who had also becomes his lover. It also doubles as a Pre-Mortem One-Liner.

Mr. Freeze: There may be some momentary discomfort.

  • Mad Scientist
  • Pet the Dog: Saving a kitty cat from an oncoming train, letting go a man who tried to shoot him in revenge for killing his family decades before, and even starting a charity dedicated to helping the victims of his previous actions and naming it after his beloved wife, Victor really wanted to make up for all the horrible things he had done.
  • Powered Armor: Upgraded with the option to emit even more powerful ice blasts from his hands.
  • Villainous Rescue: Saves Terry from Blight with an ice blast, though it was mostly due to his own anger than concern for Terry's safety.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: His opening monologue.
  • The Worf Effect: Mr. Freeze reappears halfway through the episode decked out in a new set of bulletproof Powered Armor, and displays a more powerful Freeze Gun built into the suit. However, he gets one-shotted by new villain Blight in order to demonstrate the strength of the new Big Bad.

Walter Shreeve / Shriek (Chris Mulkey)

A sound engineer whose brilliant but impractical inventions nearly drove him out of business. He is bailed out by Derek Powers, who then pressures him into becoming a hitman for him. He wears a suit with four built-in speakers that fire destructive sound blasts. After losing his hearing because of Batman, Shriek turns to supervillainy in his quest for revenge.

  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Inverted; it's the fact that his inventions weren't cost-effective that led to his supervillain career, even if it took some pushing from Powers to get him there.
  • Electric Instant Gratification: He pays his assistant Ollie by letting him use a "pleasure wand" that directly stimulates the brain's pleasure centers.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The irony. A sound engineer turned deaf by his own invention.
    • Another time, his deafness was an advantage in a fight. Too bad he didn't know a building coming down behind him could possibly crush him.
  • Make Me Wanna Shout

The Royal Flush Gang

"Let me tell you about a woman named Selina Kyle..."

King: I couldn't stand it anymore. The constant comparison. Do you have any idea what it's like living in someone's shadow?!

Terry: Actually, I can relate.

Dr. Ira Billings / Spellbinder (Jon Cypher)

  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Played with; he does what he does because he feels severely undercompensated for the work he puts in. He already does put his skills to legitimate use and doesn't find it remotely satisfying.
  • Expy: He resembles the Mad Hatter with his hypnotic technology, with a little of Scarecrow throw in.
  • The Shrink
  • Warrior Therapist: With an emphasis on "therapist" than "warrior."

Bane

  • And I Must Scream: Arguably; years of Venom-abuse have made him a frail old man incapable of moving, and now Venom is the only thing even keeping him alive.
  • The Brute: Used to be, see And I Must Scream above.
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Not Bane himself, but his caretaker, Jackson Chappelle realized that a super-strength serum could make him a ton of money, rather than just using it for generic supervillainy. Not legally, of course, but still in the sense that it could be marketed.

Curare (Melissa Disney)

Dr. Able Cuvier (Ian Buchanan)

The Stalker (Carl Lumbly)

Mad Stan (Henry Rollins)

Patrick "Packrat" Poundstone (Taran Noah Smith)

Kobra

The Joker (Mark Hamill)

  • Grand Theft Me: This is how the Joker survives, thanks to a control chip planted in Tim Drake's neck years ago.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Twice. The first is when Tim turns on the Joker and administers the fatal strike. The second is when Terry uses the Joker's own joy buzzer to fry the control chip in Tim's body.
  • Kill Sat: His master plan is to use one to carve up Gotham into a smiley face.
  • Killed Off for Real: Happens twice, averting his own Joker Immunity.
  • Monster Clown: Still has the skin and hair after all these years.

Charlie "Big Time" Bigelow (Stephen Baldwin, Clancy Brown)

  • Body Horror: He becomes a deformed hulk in his transformation into Big Time with unevenly sized appendages.
  • Evil Former Friend: He starts out as a shady old friend of Terry's and becomes a true villain when he turns into Big Time.
  • The Other Darrin: Originally voiced by Stephen Baldwin, but by the time his second episode rolled around, it was Clancy Brown instead.
  • Super Serum: His transformation is the result of a growth steroid for plants. Apparently learning from his example, said serum is used on dogs in another episode.

Ra's al Ghul (David Warner)

Zander (Alexis Denisof)

Tim Drake (Dean Stockwell)

Starro (the Starfish Alien)

  • Alien Invasion
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: A shocking and disturbing example. Starro hides practically in plain sight by attaching himself to Superman, in one of the biggest twists of the series and as a Continuity Nod to Superman: The Animated Series, and in the process taking over his mind and body until Terry manages to free him from Starro's control. The scariest part? Starro managed to maintain the masquerade for years.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Starro does this to Superman and the entire future Justice League except for Terry
  • Pragmatic Villainy: After Terry and the Justice League thwart Starro's attempt to conquer Earth, they get rid of him once and for all by returning him and all his clones to his home planet. Starro and his clones are more than willing to return to their own planet when they're given the opportunity, instead of sticking around and trying to conquer Earth again.
  • Send in the Clones: Starro's casual time controlling Superman was apparently dedicated to creating a clone army to take over Earth, since he is the last of his kind. He only goes evil when they're ready to spread.
  • Starfish Alien: Obviously.

The Jokerz

Unlike the usual random goons who bear the title, these are a specific gang who show up in the episode that debuts Max, and the tropes that apply to them are:

  1. ↑ Basically Cadmus leader Amanda Waller believed that Batman was the keystone in the war on crime in Gotham City and that he would always be needed. Collecting genetic samples that Bruce Wayne left around the city due to the various scrapes and bumps he takes in his line of work, Amanda picked out a target couple to inject these samples into, Warren and Mary McGinnis, overwriting Warren's genetic code as Bruce Wayne. Terry is then born as the biological offspring of Bruce Wayne. In order to bring this full circle, she attempts to have Terry's parents murdered to invoke the same feelings in Terry but the assassin doesn't go through with it. The project was thought to be over and done with until Terry's father is murdered...at which point he stumbles on the Batcave and dons the Batsuit...thus becoming Batman.
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