Terrence McGinnis (DCAU)

Terry McGinnis was the product of genetic engineering by Project Cadmus director Amanda Waller, who saw that her once-adversary and now ally Batman would need a replacement and that the world needs a Batman to continue the fight for justice. By using her old Cadmus connections, Amanda began "Project Batman Beyond" by taking Bruce Wayne's DNA from blood samples left behind during his cases and created from it in a nanotech solution that was able to rewrite a male human's reproductive material into an exact copy of Bruce Wayne's. Amanda looked for a suitable couple in Gotham City with a psychological profile that was nearly identical to Bruce's parents, and found the McGinnises as the target subject. Warren McGinnis thought he was getting a flu shot at a hospital, when in reality he was secretly given the injection with the nanotech solution so that his offspring would actually be that of Bruce's in the biological sense. A year later, Mary McGinnis gave birth to Terry, who possessed half his mother's genetic material and half of Bruce's.

With the genetic element accomplished, Amanda thought of making Terry's decision to become Batman (or at least a crimefigher) complete by having the same thing done to Terry's parents as it was done to Bruce's. After Terry and his parents left the theater on an evening of watching The Grey Ghost Strikes, Amanda had the Phantasm go after Terry's parents and kill them, thus sparking the same type of trauma that inspired Bruce Wayne to become Batman. However, as the Phantasm tried to accomplish this task, she ended up refusing to go along with the plan and allowed the McGinnises to continue on unaware of what might have happened. Amanda argued with her hired assassin about her failure, but she ended up realizing that the Phantasm was right, that though the Batman was obsessive in nature, that he would do anything to achieve his goals, yet he would never resort to murder. Amanda ended up honoring all that the original Batman stood for and allowed the Phantasm to simply walk away.

His Life

By his own admission, Terry was once a "bad kid." A member of a street gang run by youthful racketeer Charlie "Big Time" Bigelow, Terry had his fair share of run-ins with the GCPD while in his early teens, even serving a three-month stint in juvenile hall. Years after Batman was last seen, he found himself on the run from another street gang named the Jokerz, who had modeled themselves after the deceased Clown Prince of Crime. Terry fled onto the grounds of Wayne Manor, where an aged Bruce Wayne assisted him in defeating the Jokerz. The strain of the fight placed substantial stress on Bruce's heart and he collapsed. Terry helped Bruce into the mansion and in the process, stumbled upon the entrance to the Batcave.

Bruce kicked Terry out, but when the boy showed up later, saying that his father, Warren McGinnis, had been murdered and that Derek Powers — who had assumed leadership of a merged Wayne-Powers — was responsible, he softened his demeanor. Despite Terry's insistence, Bruce, still shaken from the ordeal of having relied on a gun for self-defense, maintained that he had given up the cowl.

As soon as Bruce's back was turned, Terry took matters into his own hands and stole the latest incarnation of the Batsuit. Bruce admonished him through the suit's communicator (their mentor-pupil banter would become a staple of subsequent Batman Beyond episodes), but Terry was adamant on confronting Powers. Powers had ordered Warren McGinnis' death after the latter discovered Powers' plan to mass-produce biological weapons.

The high-tech Batsuit turned Terry into a powerhouse; he disrupted Powers' covert operation, laying a beating on the security personnel, only to have Bruce shut the Batsuit down midway at the touch of a button. Terry pleaded with Bruce for a chance to prove himself and persuaded Bruce to reactivate the Batsuit and let him carry on as Batman for the time being. Bruce's decision resulted in the moratorium of Powers' operation; at the end, Powers, who had been exposed to his own hazardous chemicals, experienced the onset of his mutation into Blight.

Convinced that there was still a need for a Batman, Bruce hired Terry as his personal assistant and began secretly training the teenager for his new role as Batman.

McGinnis and Wayne would continue to develop a working relationship with Wayne tutoring and advising McGinnis as the Batman from his reactivated Batcave. It was Wayne who largely still doing the mental detective work while McGinnis did most of the actual battles in the enhanced armored suit. Wayne at times would become incapacitated due to his advanced age or prevented from directly helping Terry for other reasons. This would lead McGinnis to depending on his long time technically savvy friend Maxine Gibson as his detective partner. "Max" who would puzzle out McGinnis being the new Batman and Wayne as the former Batman would join McGinnis as his active partner. Max was originally thrilled by her discovery and even for a time fancied herself to become the next active crime fighting member of the reconstituted Batman Family. However both the elder Wayne and Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon largely tried to prevent that, knowing fully the dangers of active costumed crimefighting. But it was not until Max directly experienced first hand the intricate and explicit dangers that McGinnis was willing to endure as the new Batman where she was almost killed by the silent assassin Curaré did Max curb her childish enthusiasm about running around as a costumed crime-fighter. However this made Max merely more cautious and more determined not to let her friend go out alone as Batman as shown in later episodes. It was unrevealed if Max ever became the next Batgirl or an active costumed sidekick to McGinnis, though it was suggested that she did.

When the Joker made his mysterious reappearance in Gotham City, Bruce wanted Terry to give back the Batman costume, fearing for the young man's life as he did for his former partner Tim Drake (the second Robin), who was kidnapped by the Joker and was forced into a "makeover" into the Joker's "adopted son" nicknamed J.J. However, Terry discovered that the Joker had implanted a microchip onto Timothy Drake that caused him to physically transform between his older self as Drake and an exact copy of the Joker. During a fight between himself as Batman and the new Joker, Terry used the Joker's electrical joy buzzer to destroy the implanted microchip, thus restoring Drake to normal. Drake saw in McGinnis a person that Bruce Wayne had found worthy to bear the mantle of Batman.

In at least one possible future, McGinnis was shown to have continued on being Batman into his middle age where he would finally decide to marry his long term girlfriend Dana Tan.

Powers and Abilities

Strength level

Terry McGinnis possesses the strength level of a man his age, size and weight who engages in intensive regular exercise. As Batman, his Batsuit increases his natural strength by a factor of ten.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

State-of-the-art Batsuit which automatically conforms to his size. The Batsuit features new gadgets such as glider wings, thrusters on the boots and even a cloaking device. It also has a list of abilities:

Enhanced strength by a factor of ten.
Minimal reduction (or increase) in flexibility.
Enhanced visual assistance that allows him to see in the dark (visual from the Batsuit can be fed back to the main computer in the Batcave; it can also receive visual from the main computer, allowing for superior tactical planning). The visor can also serve as digital binoculars and an infra-red filter.
Personal communicator allows Terry to keep in constant contact with Bruce at the Batcave.
Enhanced ballistic protection.
Significantly resistant to heat, electricity, water, and vibrations, but only slightly resistant to radiation.
Built-in rebreather for underwater combat/exploration.
Dispensable Batarangs with a range of auxiliary functions, such as producing electric shocks. However, there is a limit to the amount of Batarangs the Batsuit can dispense; Batman has run out on at least one occasion.
Electrical discharges throughout the suit that can be activated by pushing the button on the belt.
Grappling guns built into the forearms.
Flashbang grenades.
Smoke pellets.
Flexicuffs.
Launchable tracers.
A retractable PIN or password decipherer in the form of a key on the right index finger.

Retractable wings under the arms to glide on.

Rocket boots enabling limited flight.
Electromagnetic pads in the soles of the boots enabling him to cling to walls and ceilings.
Sensitive touch microphone on index and middle fingers that permits eavesdropping through solid surfaces.
Drug identifier, utilized by dipping fingers into the substance.
Built-in cloaking device that enables almost complete camouflage (this function possibly consumes a good deal of the Batsuit's power, as Batman minimizes its usage). It allows camouflage extending into the visible light and infrared frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. A countermeasure used by Commissioner Barbara Gordon to this in one incident where she was hunting Batman down was through tracking him using an ultraviolet light to illuminate him. The origin of the cloaking device could be based on the failed light refractive polymer developed in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "See No Evil." The reason the invisibility plastic failed in the B:TAS episode was that sending electrical current through the material caused it to become toxic, affecting the mind as well as the body. This did not cause concern for an ex-con who made a suit and covered his car in the plastic, going on a crime spree and kidnapping his daughter. Regardless, the original Batman may have saved samples of the plastic and/or the research notes and resolved the toxicity issues, incorporating them into the Beyond Batsuit.

Retractable claws which can be used to slice or facilitate climbing.

Can uplink with the Batmobile for remote piloting.
A remote kill function that can externally deactivate the suit from the Batcave.
The belt buckle also serves as a buzz saw to get out of a room quickly or to cut through denser material.

Transportation

Flying Batmobile

Weapons

Dispensible Batarangs with auxilary features (shocks, smoke, freeze etc).

Notes

In the Batman Beyond animated series, actor Will Friedle provided the voice of Batman.

The "Justice League Unlimited" episode "Epilogue" was planned as the last of the "Batman Beyond" adventures to give some closure to this once popular set of characters. These characters as they were originally developed was used in a "Justice League Unlimited" mini-series time travel story entitled "the Once and Future Thing". In that story, McGinnis and other members of the future Justice League are all killed by the heavily overpowered street gangs known as the Jokerz. There have been no further adventures of these character published in its original animation form due to the elimination of the WB animation studio.

An alternate version of the Batman has appeared in the 52 multiverse operating on Earth-12. The Earth-12 Batman debuted in Countdown to Final Crisis #21.

Links and References

Footnotes

Batman Family member

This character is or was an incarnation of or an ally of Batman, and a member of the Batman Family. This template will automatically categorize articles that include it into the "Batman Family members" category.

Terrence McGinnis (DCAU)

From DC Database

Contents

History

The Beginning