Batman Beyond is the Best Spider-Man Series

Batman Beyond is the best Spider-Man series.

Well, that's probably an over exaggeration, but lets get some of the similarities out of the way:

The show is about a teenage superhero with a secret identity that has to balance super heroics with everyday problems. Beyond obviously has a lot of similarities to Spider-Man 2099, but is more comparable to Miles Morales, or maybe Tom Holland's MCU Spidey. Terry McGinnis, the new Batman, is a legacy hero with a mentor figure. He has a cool mostly black suit with a red logo. He has a hacker friend and can even turn invisible. There's even an episode about the suit not being what makes him Batman, just like in Homecoming, but it actually makes sense because Batman doesn't have any superpowers.

All of that aside, Beyond is also just a really great show that holds up on its own.

I love the visual style of the show. The Y2k futuristic aesthetic is great. The theme song is absolutely ridiculous. It flashes through so many different animation styles and edge-lord vibes, that none of it really makes any sense, but they went so hard on it that it grows on you. The cyberpunk Neo-Gotham is such a great idea that totally works. It's sort of anachronistic like the old-timey Gotham of The Animated Series. There’s a lot of future stuff that kinda seems dated, but also a lot of stuff that’s spot on. Like there's an episode about people who splice their DNA with animal DNA, and furries would be all over that. They use credit cards in place of cash which I think works. It's easily identifiable as a physical representation of money, but everyone seems to have large amounts of credit cards for some reason. I really like the invisibility effect, where you just see the shading. It looks really cool, and is probably my favourite invisibility effect that I've seen.

Max is the best character in the show. Once again, Cree Summer lends her voice to yet another iconic and memorable character in animation. Max is this hacker friend of Terry who figures out his secret and starts helping him out, becoming a major supporting character in season 2. It's the best idea in the series and the only major change in status quo. She's sort of like Terry's sidekick, she even has a don't call me Robin moment. But she isn't Robin, she's Oracle. She's a super fun personality and adds a lot to the character dynamics, which leads me to:

The Danny Phantom connection. There's some really obvious similarities, both shows are about a teenaged superhero in high school. Cree Summer also plays the best character in DP, Valerie Gray, an anti-hero ghost hunter, who is also a friend/love interest of Danny. There’s even a couple episodes that have essentially the same plot. The DP episode "Life Lessons," and the Beyond episode "The Eggbaby," are both about the characters taking a family studies class, and having to take care of a baby analogue while fighting crime.

I think DP should continue to take cues from Beyond and resurrect the show as Danny Phantom Beyond. Here’s what you do: make the show about Danielle Phantom, Danny's X-23-esque clone. Have it take place in the future that we saw briefly in the Dark Danny episode, "The Ultimate Enemy." Danielle is in high school and there’s a whole bunch of new characters and adventures in a sci-fi setting. You can even have Tucker come back and be like her guy in the chair.

I’d love to see more Beyond stuff, or at least more stuff like it. There’s been some continuations in the comics, but not much that I’ve heard people really love. I think the best way to resurrect the series would be to do a video game. Something like "Arkham Beyond." A game where you explore an open world cyberpunk future, what could possibly go wrong?

I'd like to see more things like Beyond, but at the same time, I feel like it might have been lightning in a bottle. It’s a totally new take on Batman, but it’s also entirely recognizable as the character; pointy ears, the bat symbol, Batmobile, the cave, Commissioner Gordon, colourful villains, it’s all there. I’d love to see more takes on characters like this that are very different and yet very recognizable. There has been some attempts, Loonatics Unleashed, Spiderman Unlimited, the Buffy spinoff comic Fray, the "Ken 10" episode of Ben 10. All similar ideas that place the characters in a futuristic setting, and probably drew from Beyond, but none of them did it quite as well. Except for maybe Fray, that shit was cool as hell. Part of why Beyond worked so well was that it was done by creators who are very talented and understand the character they are riffing on. Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and most of that whole team that worked on Batman: The Animated Series had that strong foundation to build off of, so, this could be a once in a lifetime situation.

Epilogue.

There's an episode of Justice League that sort of attempts to wrap up Batman Beyond. There are elements that I really like about this episode, how it manages to connect Batman TAS, Justice League, Mask of the Phantasm and Beyond seamlessly, and the flashback stuff with Bruce and Ace is genuinely great. But there's this super crazy retcon that makes Terry biologically related to Bruce Wayne, and it kinda goes against the point of the show in my opinion. I get that some of the writers like the idea, and they kinda vaguely hint at it in certain episodes, but the whole thing that works about Terry is that he’s his own person. It’s the thing that makes Spider-Man appealing, the idea that anyone could be behind the mask. Anyone could be Batman. Plus the whole dynamic between Bruce and Terry works because Terry’s lost a father and Bruce has ruined all the relationships with his surrogate kids. Bruce and Terry both lost parents to crime, it's why they understand each other so well. Their relationship doesn’t hit the same if they are literally father and son, because it means that Terry hasn’t lost anything. His whole reason for being Batman is irrelevant.

The movie, Return of the Joker works as a better epilogue/end to the series. It’s dark, the animation is more fluid and dynamic, and Terry fights the ultimate Batman enemy, Mark Hamill, and defeats him in a way only Terry could. Plus, Bruce begins repairing the relationships he’s ruined, with Tim and Barbra, because of Terry's actions.

Batman Beyond is a very cool show that reinvents a beloved character, while still paying tribute to his roots. It's extremely influential for early 2000s cartoons and aesthetics, as well as being an excellent iteration of teenage superhero troupes, continuing to influence Spider-Man and Danny Phantom. If you haven't already, you should definitely give it a watch. Plus, there's an episode where a guy has chainsaw knees. What's not to love?

So apparently there’s a spinoff show called The Zeta Project about this robot who shows up in two episodes, and I know almost nothing about it. There’s this YouTube channel I like called Watchtower Database who exclusively cover DCAU content, and they just refuse to talk about it. Like is it that bad? Should I watch it? Has anyone seen this show? Does anyone know anything about it? Let me know, I'm genuinely curious.