| 1 | {{Headscratchers}} in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''. |
| 2 | |
| 3 | New entries on the bottom. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | [[folder: The Episode "Sneak Peek"]] |
| 8 | * In this episode Bruce Wayne claims that Peek isn't actually a criminal because being a reporter isn't against the law. I'm pretty sure trespassing is illegal and videotaping people without their permission violates a ton of privacy laws. Not to mention the fact that a lot of the information he reveals seems to put people directly in danger... or that he has been knocking out security guards and setting fire to buildings. Seriously, the guy's a supervillain, why is Bruce acting like its not their job to take him down? |
| 9 | ** It's because the guy is being portrayed as no different from any other papparazzi. He's just really good at it. Bruce at the very least thinks it's beneath Batman to go after the papparazzi. |
| 10 | ** In fact it's likely because paparazzi get away with so much that the writers may have misunderstood the legalities of it. People tend to think that being a member of the press endows you with special privileges that make you immune to certain laws... an impression shared by many members of the press. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | * At the end of the episode, Ian Peek sinks into the earth's core and begins to [[VillainousBreakdown go crazy.]] Okay... but then why exactly does he start [[LaughingMad laughing maniacally]] and then wave goodbye to Terry as he sinks to his doom? |
| 13 | ** He finally realized he was boned and just snapped. |
| 14 | ** Yup. You said it yourself, he starts to go crazy. Why be surprised that he acts crazy? |
| 15 | ** I'm pretty sure he was waving for help. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | * The big question: What will kill Ian second? The heat of the Earth’s inner layers (mantle, outer core, inner core)? Hunger/thirst? lack of bodily substance, hence lack of existence? |
| 18 | ** And to those wondering, I said "second," because he'll die from shortness of breath after a few short minutes, long before any of those other things. I'm just curious what would come next on the list. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | * The guy has a device that allows him to turn completely intangible and he uses it to... rake in profits by boosting the ratings of his tv show? [[CutLexLuthorACheck Villains who could make a fortune legally instead resorting to illegal means is nothing new]], but this is a whole new level of evil-inefficiency. Why doesn't he just walk into a bank vault and then settle down in a mansion on the Riviera? |
| 21 | ** Perhaps he cared more about the fame and media presence than he did about the money. Peek seems to be driven more by his ego than greed. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | * Why did he keep Taka's research? The statement that causes Bruce to realize that Peek murdered Taka is when he revealed that he kept all of Taka's research on his computer, as well as the belt. Why keep the research if he only used the belt? |
| 24 | ** So you're saying he should ''keep'' the highly experimental belt, but it's a good idea to get rid of what is, in effect, the operating manual? Yeah, you certainly wouldn't want to know how the thing you're staking your life on works, that'd just be nuts. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | * When Bruce realizes Peek has been going around intangible, why does it take him so long to realize that Peek murdered Taka? Did he honestly think a guy using previously unseen intangibility technology years after the inventor's death was a ''coincidence?'' |
| 27 | ** The device is based on science, not magic, so it's reasonable that someone else might have independently rediscovered how to make it work. The fact that years went by between the two events also helps to obscure the connection. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | * Why was Peek's disappearance so quickly forgotten? A famous journalist announces on television that he knows Batman's identity in what would quickly become global news and the day he is set to reveal it he mysteriously vanishes, never to be heard from again. All that time after no one becomes the slightest bit suspicious of Batman, who is already known as a dangerous (for criminals at least) vigilante who operates outside of the law? |
| 30 | ** Maybe there was a security camera on one of the floors he fell through that showed him falling through solid matter. People put 2 and 2 together and realized he wasn't coming back. |
| 31 | ** The Commissioner of the GCPD is Barbara Gordon. She's willing to trust Bruce's word that Terry didn't murder Peek (and even if she isn't Bruce can just show her the footage from Terry's helmet cam). With her on their side Bruce and Terry have nothing to fear from the cops. |
| 32 | ** And even if people did think that, it's only going to increase Batman's fearsome reputation in the underworld. People too often forget that while ''we'' know Batman doesn't kill, not every mugger and pursesnatcher should know too. |
| 33 | *** Especially since this is clearly not the Batman of the past. For all the crooks know, the new guy is entirely willing to kill in cold blood, more the Arkham Knight or Red Hood than classic Batman |
| 34 | ** Also, the disappearance of someone who surely isn't very popular with the wealthy and powerful is likely to draw a less than energetic investigation in any case, especially since he just finished putting a thumb in the eye of the very police department that would be doing the investigation by outing one of their sources. |
| 35 | ** Even if people believe that Peek ''was'' murdered, [[WhoMurderedTheAsshole it could be by any of the]] ''[[WhoMurderedTheAsshole many]]'' [[WhoMurderedTheAsshole enemies he's made]] (we saw just such an attempt during the episode). Maybe Batman is the most obvious suspect at the moment, but (as he said about Nelson Nash in "Golem") "The line starts with me and goes around the block... twice." |
| 36 | ** Maybe people think Peek just fled after Batman discovered he murdered someone and even the Dark Knight couldn't capture intangible criminals. |
| 37 | [[/folder]] |
| 38 | |
| 39 | [[folder: The Episode "Splicers"]] |
| 40 | * In Season 2, episode 1, there is a villain who can completely control his genetics to become a monster. When he pulls out all the stops to beat Batman and [[Main/OneWingedAngel becomes a huge monster]], he uses the legs of a snake. He can pick any legs in the animal kingdom, and he goes with one of the few animals that does not have any legs. |
| 41 | ** I'd come up with a good argument for this but you lost me at "the ''legs'' of a ''snake''". I know what you mean, but, [[ArtisticLicenseBiology um...]] |
| 42 | ** Well, he turns into a giant snake (I think with arms). He's admittedly a one-shot Batman villain, so it's pretty clear his grip on sanity was pretty lackluster in the first place, but that's still not something I'd consider my favorite option. It's probably just there to excuse his eventual hoist by own petard; as a reptile, he's a lot easier to count as non-human than the leonine or bovine splicers. It was still one of those big fridge logic moments in a series with more than its fair share of them. |
| 43 | ** He ''chose'' nothing. He grabbed a random handful of injectors and used whatever they had in them. The dice rolled up snake, among a zooful of other things. |
| 44 | ** Plus, y'know, [[ScaledUp Giant Snake]]... RuleOfCool |
| 45 | ** Giant Snake with a face like ''The Phantom of the Paradise'' even! |
| 46 | ** I seem to recall the villain proclaiming that he made himself a "true chimera", so it seems like he chose that form for fashion rather than functionability. |
| 47 | ** For what it's worth, he ''was'' winning, even with his odd choice of "legs." It could be that he found a way to fudge the physiology a bit and make it work. (According to the DCAU Wiki, a later episode reveals that he had a stint working for Kobra. Maybe Cuvier just liked snakes.) |
| 48 | ** Didn't he say that he turned himself into a "true" chimera? So it would make sense if he were modeling himself after something from mythology. Plus he also seems to have a god complex. |
| 49 | ** Chimeras do have a snake for a tail, after all. |
| 50 | ** The first form, giant snake man, was entirely intentional. He was dosing on specific gene cocktails and does make mention of having conscious control of the mutation (God only knows how). When Batman tried to overdose him, he loses control. |
| 51 | ** If he was working with Kobra, they probably pretty much ''demanded'' he provide them snake mutations. He'd probably done a lot of work in that genetic area. Work with what you got and what you know, and all. |
| 52 | * This episode's moral is pretty damn confused. Splicing is supposed to be a metaphor for body art/modification, but there are loads of other possibilities that are ''never'' touched upon. This guy figured out how to modify human/animal DNA without the side-effect of becoming a rampaging animal monster(in controlled doses). Imagine the deaf/blind gaining echolocation, amputees regrowing limbs, immunities of various animals curing terminal illness. So...why does the episode treat this as inherently evil!? Cuvier is pushing a scientific breakthrough that could ascend society as we know it, there's no reason for him to be a typical Card-carrying mad scientist. It's [[Franchise/TheIncredibles Syndrome's plan]] all over again, ten times more head-slapping. |
| 53 | ** Splicing has its benefits but also has its flaws. It has been stated that this particular splicing causes heightened aggression which was shown when two of Cuvier's cronies assaulted a train full of people. Whether or not the news about their condition got to them, the point is cemented. |
| 54 | [[/folder]] |
| 55 | |
| 56 | [[folder: Shriek]] |
| 57 | * Okay, it's nice to see an inversion of the typical mad scientist coming up with dozens of valuable inventions that could change the world with the intent of killing a punk in spandex. Still, we're talking a disk-sized object capable of blowing holes into walls, in a world where most handheld weapons can't even scratch the Batsuit or cement and even ship-born weapons not being much more capable, without the risks of uncontrolled fire or nasty side effects. You can FridgeBrilliance it -- Powers was pretty obviously taking the man to the cleaners -- but you'd think the man would be smart enough to call bull. |
| 58 | ** Not to mention his "Noise Canceler". I live in a loud apartment building, I'd pay good money for one of those. |
| 59 | ** Even more so, the "Pleasure Fork". It's like happy drug you never run out of, only have to pay for once, and doesn't seem to be addictive. They would probably sell faster than you could make them. Although to be fair, it seems like by the time he made that he was already on the road to crazy revenge-land. |
| 60 | ** An item that makes you happy whenever you want, requires no upkeep and has no negative side-effects... yeah, that's not going to be addictive at all. |
| 61 | ** Guy Shriek gives it too seems to be fine. While he probably ''is'' addicted to it, as there's almost no scene he's in that he doesn't use it, there don't seem to be any negative side effects. He can put it down at the drop of a hat and function as though he were just reading a funny book. |
| 62 | ** Re: "addictive." There are such things as chemical, physical and psychological addictions. I don't see your body becoming ''dependent'' on the sonic pleasure but your psyche might. Hence, non-addictive. Habit forming? Sure! |
| 63 | ** [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife Kind of like something else we all know?]] |
| 64 | ** I can see the human body becoming dependent on it. Shriek said it works by stimulating the "pleasure center" of your brain, presumably by stimulating the release of endorphins. Endorphins are basically naturally-occurring morphine. Your body may not become addicted to the endorphins themselves, but through frequent use it could become dependent on the pleasure fork to release endorphins. |
| 65 | ** Also: "addicted" ''means'' the psychological phenomenon. Drug addiction is compulsive drug-seeking behavior; drug dependence is the ''physiological'' need for the drug. You can be dependent without being addicted, or addicted without being dependent; just because something doesn't cause physiological dependency doesn't mean it's non-addictive. </soapbox> |
| 66 | ** Several things come to mind: |
| 67 | ** We have no idea how much it would cost to mass produce. Shriek making some working prototypes of the sonic weapons for his own use is one thing, but enough for an entire army? What is it made of? What energy source does it use and what are its power requirements? |
| 68 | ** As I recall, in the real world most types of sonic weapons (the kind that cause deafness at any rate) are banned by international treaty, and it's reasonable to assume they would also be banned in the DCAU. Derek Powers may be a pretty shady business man, but even he can only go so far. |
| 69 | ** The noise canceler thingy is not as cool as it seems. It doesn't just block out loud noises, it blocks out ALL noises. What happens if you turn on your noise canceler to block out your neighbor's loud music and the phone rings, someone knocks on the door, or the fire alarm goes off? Plus, hearing is one of the primary human senses. Blocking it out like that can't be good for you (remember, sensory deprivation is considered a form of torture). |
| 70 | ** It's tunable, though. Shriek was able to block all sounds except Batman's footsteps. No reason the tuning couldn't be set to block ''just'' the problem sounds. |
| 71 | ** Shriek doesn't tune it to block out all sounds but Batman's footsteps. He dramatically increases the sensitivity of his helmet speakers so he can just barely hear Batman's footsteps. And the end of that episode demonstrates a rather serious flaw in that design. If the sound blocker suddenly fails your ears are blasted with '''INCREDIBLY LOUD NOISE'''. Accidentally knock the sound blocker into the sink and you're instantly deafened. |
| 72 | ** ...software safeguards? If the sound output exceeds a certain threshold, stop amplifying anything (or stop doing anything at all). |
| 73 | ** Still not worth the risk. If the software glitches out or takes a second or two to register the loud noise and turn off the device (say if the machine has started overheating) then your eardrums will still get permanently blown out. Given that you could solve the problem by simply calling the cops on your loud neighbors or investing in a pair of earplugs, the risk isn't worth the hypothetical reward. |
| 74 | ** Shriek's weapons can hurt the Batsuit and whoever's inside it, but that's honestly not that unusual. Mad Stan ([[MemeticMutation Blow it all up!]]) can punch hard enough to knock Terry around, and carries dozens of explosives that would be implied to be very bad to take a direct hit from, without any particular military equipment. There's a ''place'' for them in demolitions, but the nature of that sort of work (blowing things up) means that the line-of-sight requirements combined with the costs of anything using a unique alloy really might leave the profitability very questionable. As Derek Powers pointed out, dynamite is cheaper. |
| 75 | ** Ah, the pleasure fork. As Shriek's assistant demonstrated, it IS addictive. Oh, and any one-off merchandise is no good merchandise, from the merchant's point of view: customers won't come back for more, and/or don't need maintenance on it? Where's the profit in this? |
| 76 | ** Lots of goods are a one of purchase. Most people will buy only one house, yes I know they are expensive but you buy it once off. Really if you could buy a drug that you only needed once I could imagine that it would immediately attract all drug users and be more attractive then crack. Heck why use alcohol when you can do this. |
| 77 | ** But they don't usually buy just one house. Pretty much every house (that's not a mansion) built in the last 50-60 years has been made of ply wood and sheet rock so that they're cheap and quick to put up. They last 10 years, maybe 20 on the outside. Then you move to a new house. And if you don't move, you put 2-3 times the cost of the house into repairing and replacing the broken or worn bits. The "One house for your whole life" brick and mortar houses went out of style when our grandparents were buying their homes, because they are a lot more expensive and take a lot longer to build and code. (and of course, they can't tear those down and rebuild new ones again.) |
| 78 | ** We never saw what the batteries looked like. Create a proprietary battery pack with a special amperage or whatever, it's not complicated. Give away the razor and sell the blades, people. |
| 79 | ** Big fan of Planned Obsolescence, eh? Just sell the damn things for 1000 bucks a pop. Or make them so they wear out after being flicked a few 100 times. Plenty of ways around this "flaw." |
| 80 | ** Even if they're not deliberately designed to fail, something probably will go wrong over the years (a switch wears out, a wire comes loose, etc.), creating a steady market for replacements (even today, most consumer electronics are cheaper to replace than repair). |
| 81 | |
| 82 | * Speaking of the Noise Canceler, how does Shriek use his sonic weapons, while using a device that cancels out all sound waves? I call shenanigans. |
| 83 | ** From a physics standpoint it would be impossible to literally "cancel out all sound waves". Sound is a wave of pressure traveling through air. In order to "cancel" it you would have to take away the air's ability to carry pressure waves. In other words, patently ridiculous. Clearly the noise canceler doesn't literally "cancel" noise, it just makes it impossible for the human ear to detect any noise. The sound is still there, but it's been converted to a frequency above or below the human hearing range (or something). |
| 84 | ** This idea is supported by the episode Shriek first appears in. He shows that his suit is able to tune into specific noises during the noise canceler, which means the sounds are still there, and Ace is shown reacting to the noises while in the Batmobile, while Bruce doesn't hear anything. |
| 85 | |
| 86 | * Why would isolating one sound mean increasing volume? Shriek was able to isolate Batman's footfalls inside a factory. If he was increasing the volume in his helmet, he wouldn't be able to eliminate ambient sounds. And the sound baffling creates a counter-wave to eliminate sound, so there shouldn't have been any sound waves for him to isolate for himself without Terry knowing. |
| 87 | ** The functions of his suit operate independently of each other and the suit is likely soundproof but feeds sound from outside into the helmet. The Noise Canceller analyzes all sound coming in and creates the buffer/counter waves to eliminate all frequencies in the human hearing range only, which is why Ace can hear everything, and Shriek's sonic weapons still function. Shriek then adjusts the canceller to pass through the frequency of Terry's footsteps to the suit. He then amplifies the sounds being allowed through the suit, which is only Terry's footsteps so that he can hear it from any distance. When Terry breaks the Noise Canceller, the first two functions cease, but the suit is still amplifying the frequencies allowed through, which is now everything. |
| 88 | |
| 89 | * If, as he claims, Bruce suspected that Shriek's voice in his head didn't come from his own mind, then why was he doing what it told him to? Conceding the point that it would be difficult to completely tune out a voice like that, there was nothing actually compelling him to obey. |
| 90 | ** He might have suspected that he was being watched, and played along to avoid tipping off whoever was behind the ploy. |
| 91 | ** Makes sense, except the only way he could have played along any more was to actually jump. He was right at the open window when the nurse came in to stop him. What was the plan if that didn't happen? Him not jumping would have rendered the ruse completely pointless. |
| 92 | ** Bruce made a lot of noise while playing along, so basically it seems like his plan was to noisily "resist" while appearing on the brink until someone in the hospital noticed the ruckus and came to see what was up and "rescue" him. |
| 93 | * Why's Shriek so upset about losing his hearing if he can reverse the effect with a pair of goddamn cheap headphones? |
| 94 | ** What makes you think they're "a pair of goddamn cheap headphones"? They're probably technology that he had to develop personally just to get over the loss of hearing. He was upset about it because when he lost it, he ''couldn't'' reverse the effect. |
| 95 | ** Suppose you lost your leg (prosthetic legs for the Olympics are said to help you run faster than real legs now). No matter how good the replacement is, even if it's better, it's still just a replacement. Wouldn't you rather have your real leg, than a replacement? |
| 96 | [[/folder]] |
| 97 | |
| 98 | [[folder:The Brain Trust]] |
| 99 | * Specifically, the guy whose psychic power was basically invulnerability, which Bruce explains as psychic because of "shamans who walk on coals mentally conditioning themselves to ignore pain." First off all, that's not a mental thing, it's a conductivity thing. Second, how does "ignoring pain" allow you to fall 50 stories, leave a crater, and walk away like nothing happened? The only way to reconcile this is that Bruce was wrong... but that's ''also'' impossible! |
| 100 | ** Perhaps he knows of a group of psychic shamans who use powers to walk across ''miles'' of coals ''slowly''. |
| 101 | ** He was probably just simplifying for Terry's benefit. Alternatively, when he said "shamans" he might have been referring to guys like those Shaolin monks who can have bamboo sticks and concrete blocks broken over their backs with no apparent injury, among other impressive feats (I once saw a demonstration of a Shaolin ''glass-eating'' technique). So Bruce wasn't "wrong", just... not correct. |
| 102 | ** He read [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/09/08/episode-1170-happy-landings/ this]] and realized what a good idea it was. |
| 103 | ** Batman eats lunch with magicians and Martians, and goes to the circus with Superman. It's not like he hasn't met plenty of people who can fall off buildings. |
| 104 | *** Yes, and none of those "fall off buildings" people he met had an explanation as ridiculous as "I feel no pain so I can't be hurt!" for their invulnerability. |
| 105 | ** So his abilities don't work like "mind over matter" in ''our'' world but in a different way in a world where people truly have magic powers. I can buy someone with psychic powers being able to stop their nerves from transmitting pain and their body from being injured... in the ''Batman'' universe, not our own. |
| 106 | *** The whole explanation given by Bruce was that his psychic powers making him unable to feel pain was what made him invulnerable. That's like saying that because someone can't sense heat, they can survive submerging in lava. You can HandWave it all you want, it's still a poorly thought out explanation that makes no sense, fictional universe or not. |
| 107 | [[/folder]] |
| 108 | |
| 109 | [[folder:Terry's pay check]] |
| 110 | * How much does Bruce pay Terry, if he pays him at all? From what I've seen after re-watching some of the series, Mrs. [=McGinnis=] seems to have occasional trouble making ends meet before and after Terry starts taking his job "seriously". My memory is shot to hell but didn't somebody say that Terry was the breadwinner of the family? |
| 111 | ** Bruce probably pay Terry enough to make it looks like he has small job of taking care of the old man house and giving him his meds... yeah, Bruce probably make it looks like Terry got late Alfred's job. So he is probably not paid much. Of course, Terry isn't paid for the being-Batman stuff, else he should probably make a few thousand of bucks a night. Bruce would probably step in if money became a real issue for the [=McGinnises=]. |
| 112 | ** I believe Word of God said that Bruce has almost run out of his big fortune by this point in the future, so he probably can't pay Terry that much anyway. |
| 113 | ** The quote you're thinking of was delivered by Derek Powers when Bruce came to visit the office once with Terry in tow. "Well, I guess with your father gone that makes you the breadwinner." He was most likely just being a snide jerk to Terry. |
| 114 | ** Terry's also said it to Dana in defense of him missing dates because if he neglected his job, he wouldn't be able to support his family. |
| 115 | ** Lots of teenage boys who've lost their fathers say that. Doesn't mean they actually provide the family's main source of income. |
| 116 | ** Money in the family may be "a little tight", but they don't seem to be in any danger of losing their apartment. Terry's pay most likely takes pressure off of his mother by providing his own basic necessities(like clothing, toothpaste, etc) and maybe help out with groceries here and there. The family seems comfortably lower-middle-class. As for how much? Bruce has no doubt calculated "enough to keep him honest, but not enough to make him greedy". |
| 117 | ** Also Terry's mother presumably recieves full death benefits from his Wayne/Powers, since denying her that would just make people suspicious of Derek Powers. |
| 118 | ** Also, Bruce may be subtly manipulating that payout in order to make sure she's well taken care of. In all their interactions it seems like he's genuinely fond of her. |
| 119 | ** This is probably the case. [[spoiler: After all, she is the mother of his children.]] |
| 120 | ** Was he ever even ''aware'' of that? |
| 121 | ** Actually yes, though not at first. WordOfGod said that Bruce is too good of a detective not to have worked out that Terry (and by extension, Matt) are his children, but he never said anything because he wanted Warren to be his own man. |
| 122 | ** This seems to stretch belief a little beyond it's breaking point. Bruce for all his intelligence and paranoia is far from perfect. Why would he suspect that Warren had his DNA overwritten and that Terry was biologically his sorta son? Terry doesn't seem to look like anybody in Bruce's family and aside from that there is no connection early on. It seems to be implied that he figured it out before Terry did, probably following up on something Waller said or did at some point but it seems unlikely that he knew from the start of the series instead of learning it at some point during the time skip. |
| 123 | ** Are you kidding? This is ''Bruce'' we're talking about. He probably found out back when Project Beyond was still in operation, before Warren was even married. If he had any delays in finding out, it would be purely in connecting "Terry" to "that guy Cadmus modified to father my kids". |
| 124 | ** I can understand and believe Bruce finding out ''after'' his first encounter with Terry. But if he found before, then he's freaking omniscient. Something which, by the way, he's clearly not in this continuity. |
| 125 | ** Bruce would have collected and DNA tested Terry's blood at some point, if for no other reason than to have something to check against in the future. (If Terry got genetically altered, a doppelganger replaced him, or they needed to identify the badly-burned body, all risks in Batman's line of work.) The computer would presumably have noted "Oh, hey, this guy's your son" at that point. That's if Bruce didn't notice the physical similarities even before that. |
| 126 | ** Bruce might have figured something odd about Terry's [=DNA=] upon checking his body for traces of slappers. |
| 127 | [[/folder]] |
| 128 | |
| 129 | [[folder: Meltdown--Gotham's Weather Patterns]] |
| 130 | * Okay, I love the episode ''Meltdown'', it was a fitting ending for Mister Freeze. However, there's one thing that's iffy about it for me. Attempting to cure Blight, an evil scientist lady cloned Mister Freeze in an apparently normal body, then they find out his condition is reversing itself and try to kill him. The scene where he escapes shows him walking out into a snowstorm. The next scene is them apparently conferring about Freeze's escape, only shortly after the fact. The doctor mentions that Gotham's having a heat wave, and it reached 70 degrees, so Freeze has to be dead. Anyways, Freeze later (as in the very same day) blasts Blight halfway across Gotham, causing him to land in a frozen over pond (with very thick ice), surrounded by snow-covered trees. Then, later (as in, still in the same day), Blight's mooks find him, apparently not to far from where he landed... and there's no snow (and the trees have leaves). Just irks me that somehow, Gotham flips from winter to spring, back to winter, and then back to spring again, all in the span of 24 hours. |
| 131 | ** Global warming? |
| 132 | ** Or maybe Freeze froze the pond and the trees on his way to confront Powers, to make sure his new suit was working properly. |
| 133 | ** While I hate to say this about what is essentially an WMG ... that actually makes perfect sense. |
| 134 | ** In certain areas, weather patterns like that are not completely uncommon. I have worn shorts and shoveled snow in the same week. |
| 135 | ** While I can't say anything for certain about why the ice was there in the first place, the reason for it being gone later is obvious: Powers was emitting so much radiation that it all melted by the time they got there. |
| 136 | ** I was under the impression that the snowstorm was Freeze's fault -- it's probably not coincidence that the first time we see snow in that episode is when his powers start reverting and he feels too hot. |
| 137 | [[/folder]] |
| 138 | |
| 139 | [[folder: Meltdown--Killing Mister Freeze]] |
| 140 | * Why did they decide to kill Mister Freeze instead of offering another body? They did the process before, why can't they do it again? They'd have Freeze's body, and a (for now) willing guinea pig. |
| 141 | ** It was implied that something was going wrong with the experiment, and Powers mentions wanting to study Freeze's organs at their present stage in order to figure out what the issue was. Presumably they couldn't pick his organs apart without killing him first, and Powers was clearly willing to sacrifice Freeze in order to get results for himself. |
| 142 | ** They do not care about him as anything but a lab rat and making a new body to transfer him into then dissecting his present one was just not worth the time and money. |
| 143 | ** The bigger question is why did the Doctor try to kill Freeze in such a slow manner? Simply tell him they need to do some kind of corrective surgery and kill him while he's under. It's possible they were trying to {{Make It Look Like An Accident}} but it's not like the surgery couldn't be made to look like an accident either. |
| 144 | ** Actually they weren't trying to kill him. They said they would biopsy his organs to find the problem, and a biopsy requires living organs, which indicates that they were just trying to knock him unconscious. But the question is why didn't Dr. Lake TELL Freeze that? It would have prevented a lot if Freeze actually knew he was only going to be knocked unconscious. |
| 145 | ** Biopsies can be dangerous even when you're trying to keep the patient alive -- which likely wasn't a priority for them. Basically, they were using a more PG word for "vivisect." |
| 146 | ** Dr. Lake was trying to impress Powers so she could climb the corporate ladder. Having correctly pegged him as a ruthless SOB, she did what she thought he'd want her to do, even though a bit of thought would have shown that it wasn't the smart option (the smart option would be, as stated above, to tell Freeze they were trying to cure what was wrong with him and keep him cooperative). |
| 147 | ** Derek Powers is shown to be unhinged even before his Blight condition causes his mental degradation. In Ascension, he tells Batman he has killed so many people that "You Killed My Father" gives him absolutely no hint as to who is under the mask. In Rebirth, he tests his biological weapons on his own employee and seems pretty proud of it, and shows actual pleasure when he is shooting at Batman and his Batarangs. Being given a reason to kill Mister Freeze may have simply been a bonus for him. |
| 148 | ** They were definitely trying to kill him. If they only wanted to make him unconscious, they wouldn't have resorted to turning up his cubicle's temperature to clearly lethal levels, which was a good way of murdering him while making it look like he simply died from his disease. As stated above, Powers was probably asking for an autopsy, and used the word biopsy because it sounded less strong. |
| 149 | [[/folder]] |
| 150 | |
| 151 | [[folder: Nightwing]] |
| 152 | * Seriously, what happens to Nightwing in this continuity? He doesn't even appear in "Return of the Joker" and, if I remember correctly, is mentioned once over the course of the series. So, where is he? |
| 153 | ** Nightwing is still active in Bludhaven. Barb mentions him in "Return of the Joker" |
| 154 | ** There's no indication, that he still active as Nightwing. Barb has the line, "Look up Nightwing some day. Boy, has he got stories to tell," but that doesn't mean he's active. There's been no real indication that Terry knows Dick Grayson was Nightwing. He didn't know Barb was Batgirl till she casually walked into the Batcave. Anyhoo, the long and the short of it; all we know is that Nightwing eventually split up with Batman on very bad terms. |
| 155 | ** Why would she tell him to look up "Nightwing" if he wasn't still operating? She would just say "Look Up Dick Grayson" if he was actually retired. |
| 156 | ** There's an episode, I think second season, where Terry mentions Grayson in relation to other Bat-family members. So he is aware of who Dick is/was. |
| 157 | ** Unless Terry wasn't paying attention, he ''does'' know Dick Grayson is Nightwing. Barbara flat out tells him at the beginning of the flashback in [[WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker ROTJ]] |
| 158 | ** Don't forget she mentions it outside of ROTJ too. In season 1, when Curare first attacks, she treats Terry to coffee and donuts and mentions that Nightwing had moved on and was hurt when she picked Bruce over him. |
| 159 | ** This is a continuity where Bruce and Dick ''never'' reconcile. The biggest middle finger Dick could give him is to keep operating even after he forced Tim and Barbara to quit. |
| 160 | *** That would be a little odd, since the ending of [[Recap/TheNewBatmanAdventuresE17OldWounds Old Wounds]] pretty clearly implied that Dick was willing to move past his grudges against Bruce. Also, Barbara stated that retiring Batgirl was her own decision. |
| 161 | ** Plus, this is ''Nightwing'' we're talking about, not Robin (not anymore). He's always been a solo act who comes home to help if they need him. |
| 162 | ** There's an episode where Terry digs an old tux out of Bruce's attic, reads the initials on the tag, and asks "Who's 'DG'?" Bruce immediately tells him to drop the subject. |
| 163 | ** Not sure if it's canon with the show or not, but Dick's fate is revealed in the "Hush Beyond" comic. [[spoiler: He gets ripped to shreds by machine gun fire from the Joker, losing an eye and almost his life. He retires from crimefighting, apparently moving on to teach gymnastics.]] |
| 164 | ** Almost certainly not canon. If Dick was machinegunned by the Joker, you'd think something about it would have been brought up in ''Return of the Joker'', and Barbara wouldn't be so blase about saying things like, "Look up Nightwing some time. He's got some stories." |
| 165 | ** Even if you forgot about the straight contradiction in ROTJ, the Batman Beyond comics seem to follow some weird mishmash of the DCAU continuity and normal DCU continuity, so anything that the Beyond comics bring to the table may not matter here. |
| 166 | ** In what ways does do the comics contradict with the DCAU? |
| 167 | ** The whole story with Dick in the first place, seeing as it took place after what happened to Tim--which resulted in the Joker's death. |
| 168 | [[/folder]] |
| 169 | |
| 170 | [[folder: "The Last Resort"]] |
| 171 | * Remember the episode with all Terri's friends being brainwashed in what was supposed to be a program for troubled teens? Why exactly was this being done? The episode never mentions a motive, just focuses on the horrors of "the ranch" and all the [[ShownTheirWork disturbingly accurate]] methods used to break the kids down. |
| 172 | ** Evidently, some combination of WellIntentionedExtremist and ForTheEvulz |
| 173 | ** The episode mentions something about "parental liability laws" or somesuch. It's possible the director is just a quack trying to scam nervous parents out of their money. |
| 174 | ** The effed-up thing is that it ''did'' work -- after a fashion. "Sleep deprivation, endless harangues; it's classic brainwashing." It's also basic '''military training'''. Meaning that the kids who came back were obedient and unobtrusive for the foreseeable future. A decade or so down the line they'll probably beat their '''''own''''' kids into comas, [[SarcasmMode but so what? They're out of their own parents' hair forever.]] |
| 175 | ** Erm, there's a bit more to military training than sleep deprivation and emotional abuse. The whole point of breaking down new recruits is ''building them back up again'' afterward to be better than they ever were before. But we never saw any indication that the program included anything like that. Not to mention that you can always voluntarily wash out of military training (at least in the US). |
| 176 | ** He's not a WellIntentionedExtremist -- he doesn't really believe he's helping anyone or serving a greater good. His motive is to make money -- see his ad at the beginning of the episode where he assures parents his services are worth the high fees. Why he resorted to such methods to make money, only he knows. Maybe he just hates teenagers. Maybe he just likes torturing people. |
| 177 | ** Like the Sneak Peak and Brain Trust entries above, this may qualify as a general misunderstanding on the part of the writers. All most people hear about military training is how horrible the harangues and sleep deprivation is, so that's all they think it consists of. In-universe, it worked, because if it didn't, why would any parent send there kid some place that has a flawless track record of doing nothing but driving children insane. If you want to torture your child for being bad, you can do it in your own basement for free. |
| 178 | * How were they able to keep their horrific treatment of the inmates a secret? We see that parents get to visit and talk with their children. |
| 179 | ** Most likely part of the conditioning was "don't tell anyone", probably backed up by threats of further punishment. It's a pretty standard tactic for abusers. All the parents saw was what they wanted: quiet, obedient kids. |
| 180 | [[/folder]] |
| 181 | |
| 182 | [[folder: Terry's tactics]] |
| 183 | * I get in the first episode that he's new to the hero scene, so his first fight isn't elegant. But then in the second episode, he goes to holding his own against one of the most badass characters in the series. Still fresh, but quite competent given the situation. He continues to show an increasing degree of competency in dealing with villains, even handling Mr. Freeze and Blight at the same time. Once again, characters who are not to be trifled with. Of course, he doesn't deal out any real damage, but he does do amazing control. Then he goes against the guy selling venom like steroids. And he literally only wins because he overdoses the character. This is all fine and dandy up until the first season finale, in which someone overloads Blight. Once again, he beats a character through overdose on power. Then in the next episode he overdoses another character. Doesn't he have any other tactics? |
| 184 | ** Hey, what works, works. If I had to deal with superpowered villains every night of my life, I'd spring for an easy OHKO. |
| 185 | ** It's not really that Terry is intentionally overloading his opponents, so much as it is that Terry is pretty consistently depicted as a CombatPragmatist. He uses whatever's at hand. That this often leads to villain overload is mostly coincidental, and often a result of fighting villains in places where they have their stuff lying around (such as the nerve agent, Venom skin patches, and Cuvier's mutagen syringes). |
| 186 | ** Terry has a few fixed tactics. He prefers to fly up more than anything else both as an opener and as his standard evasive maneuver. |
| 187 | ** To the point when it backfires on him sometimes, even. Remember in "Mind Games," when he tries to fly up evasively, only to smash headfirst into the ceiling? |
| 188 | ** I wouldn't say he handled his first few villains with a great deal of competence, either. In "Black Out" Inque trashes him repeatedly, and even comments that he's "not a very fast learner" when his attempts to tackle and squish the lady made out of pure liquid inevitably fail. |
| 189 | ** Not to mention that old Bruce has to bail him out at the end of the episode due to a number of failures on Terry's part that almost cost him his life... and while initially it seems pretty clever of him to use Mr. Freeze's gun to beat Inque, keep in mind that earlier in the episode, and DIRECTLY after using the gun, he implies he didn't even know what it did... so it wasn't really planning ahead on his part. Definitely another case of CombatPragmatist. |
| 190 | ** There is actually a small amount of FridgeBrilliance attached to this. If you think about it, the first two seasons of the show have him fighting like he did before he became Batman, just basic punching and kicking and, as the OP originally pointed out, using the same tactic over and over. This is due to the fact that he is a new hero on the scene and the fact that he has to rely on the suits powers most of the time in order to win. It isn't until the third season do we start to see Terry actually fighting like Batman, thinking tactically and relying less on the suit. |
| 191 | [[/folder]] |
| 192 | |
| 193 | [[folder: The Cadmus Paradox]] |
| 194 | * I love the idea that Terry is technically Bruce's son. But what was Cadmus trying to accomplish in creating a person who would only become a hero if the hero he was modeled after had to ultimately fail? Bruce Wayne's parents die because at the time, Gotham was a pretty nasty city and crooks ran amuck. For Terry to go under the same circumstances and for it to be believable, Batman would have to fail as a hero. Crime would have to continue to run rampant in the same matter. If you need the hero to fail in the first place to create a v2.0 hero, why is your hopes any higher for this secondary hero? |
| 195 | ** Waller explicitly sated that Batman was getting old. Any man even Batman, is still just a man. She knew that The bat was the only thing keeping Gotham from going (back) to Hell. And she was right. Terry was meant as a "Back-Up" to ensure that Batman would live forever on. |
| 196 | ** Consider that in between Batmans shit got incredibly worse, at first rumours of the Batman kept criminals off the streets but then they returned in droves like the Jokers and T's these were just gangs and they were murderous! Bruce was the Dark Knight because he brought Justice to the dark of Gotham's streets, Terry was the Tomorrow Knight because he brought the light back to Gotham, the city was a dystopia and he saved it, it's like the opening text crawl says "Apathy, Greed, Corruption, Hope." |
| 197 | ** Secondly was for the Justice League, a 'Batman' will always be needed in the JLA to supply it with integrity and keep it grounded on earth so they don't get big headed, there are things only "Batman could do". Finally, you can never defeat crime forever, Waller knew that, but she also knew that without a Batman no one would do anything for Gotham City, think about it before Terry took up the cape who was dealing with the crime? Just the police; there were no capes. |
| 198 | ** And crime was somewhat bad people like Powers were going around uncontested, the Jokerz were becoming a big issue, and all the of the weird future crime. |
| 199 | ** Cadmus wasn't trying to create another Batman. Waller was trying to create a new Batman. Cadmus was trying to create weapons powerful enough to defeat the Justice League, should they ever turn against the US like the Justice Lords did on their Earth. As poorly as they are portrayed in the show, I don't think it's a bad idea to have a back up plan for either the Justice League turning against you or worse. Something sufficiently powerful to defeat the Justice League arriving and you being stuck with absolutely nothing you can do. |
| 200 | [[/folder]] |
| 201 | |
| 202 | [[folder: The Fact That Bane Is Still Alive At All]] |
| 203 | * Whether the show is forty or fifty years in the future (I prefer the former, 'cause "Epilogue" pushes it another ten years), Bane should be dead. Not near comatose attached to life support machines, ''dead.'' Venom appears to (at least in part) increase hormone levels and blood circulation to increase strength. This would wear out his internal organs much faster than a normal man. Outside of cryogenics, there's no reason to think that his possible life span should be equal to Bruce Wayne, who engaged in intense physical activity without chemical or mechanical augmentation for the majority of his life. |
| 204 | ** Ahh but the reason Bruce is so crippled at his advanced age is because he pushed his body beyond its limits and his body degraded quicker, also keep in mind that with life support systems literally doing everything, supposedly being very rich, and advanced medicine (Static says that despite being a 50+ year old man he looks and feels 30ish). |
| 205 | ** Bruce continually engaged in intense physical training for his entire adult life. One might even wonder if he pushed himself too far, and that weakened his heart to cause his current condition. Bane relied on Venom to give him his strength. Too much of it mutated his body with extra muscles such that his cardiovascular system became dependent on the Venom to keep things working. As for Static's postmodern medicine, he started getting the life-extending treatments of the future at an age at least thirty years younger than Bruce. Starting younger means his body adapted to it. |
| 206 | ** There's no telling what kind of medical breakthroughs were made in the intervening years between Batman:TAS and Batman Beyond. It's possible some sort of treatment was discovered that would allow Bane to ''just barely hang on'' despite multiple organ failures. And it's not like Bane is doing jumping jacks or anything. He's obviously much worse off than Bruce and could kick the bucket any day now. In which case his lifespan ''wouldn't'' be equal to Bruce Wayne's. |
| 207 | ** Exactly. When we see Bane, he's a decrepit, near-comatose vegetable who's barely even aware of his surroundings and basically confined to a wheelchair and has tons of machines hooked up to him just to keep him alive. It's actually rather disturbing. It's clear that the Venom has wreaked horrific damage on his body, and that he likely doesn't have much longer to live after that episode. So yeah, Bruce outlives Bane by a long shot. |
| 208 | ** It's possible the Venom is the ''only'' thing keeping him alive. |
| 209 | ** It's ''explicitly stated in the episode'' that Venom is the only thing keeping him alive. (FridgeLogic: by putting Jackson Chappell - Bane's caretaker, and the only one Bane trusted with the Venom formula - out of commission, Terry has effectively killed Bane.) |
| 210 | ** I'm one hundred percent positive that Bruce Wayne has had the Venom formula for decades. If he wanted he could whip some more up for Bane. Whether he would is another question. |
| 211 | *** Not that this really matters in regards to this matter, but Post-Crisis (1993) Bruce actually used Venom himself, briefly. Venom was introduced before Bane was. After an injury prevented him from rescuing a little girl being held for ransom from drowning, Bruce began to use Venom, which the girl's father had developed. So I can fully believe Bruce having the formula. |
| 212 | ** I somehow picture him visiting Bane and trying to communicate with him, seeing if there's anything in there... and trying to decide whether living or dying would be a greater mercy to Bane, and whether he wants to be merciful. Even the idea of it is a powerful scene. |
| 213 | ** The slappers seem to have only entered circulation recently, implying Bane has not been in his current condition for long. He could have delayed the addiction and decay for quite a long time through careful use -- after all, it is shown that while he ''used'' Venom, he doesn't tend to rely on it too much, unlike certain schoolboys. |
| 214 | ** The slappers weren't put in circulation by Bane, they were Chappell's invention, thus when they entered circulation has no reflection on how long Bane's been like he is. Chappell could have gotten the formula years ago, when Bane (still horribly sick and unable to do much) had some new organ fail and could no longer even mix chemicals together by pushing buttons, and had to give the formula over to his nurse. Chappell would then have needed time to analyze the formula to turn it into a distributable form and build up the resources and network to do so. |
| 215 | ** The exact details vary from one continuity to another, but it's usually said that Bane's body tolerates Venom far better than the average person. In some versions, he was the first test subject to even ''survive'' exposure. Also, in at least one continuity he came to view Venom as a crutch and stopped using it entirely in favor of his natural strength and skills as a fighter and strategist. Either of these, or both, might explain why it took so long for the effects of Venom use to catch up to him. |
| 216 | [[/folder]] |
| 217 | |
| 218 | [[folder: Ink?]] |
| 219 | * In "Lost Soul" Bobby is seen at his desk doodling on a piece of paper with a fountain pen. On the desk next to him in an inkwell. Paper itself is a rarity in the series' futuristic setting, but why would he need an inkwell? |
| 220 | ** The same reason people in the present still like to use quills to write sometimes. |
| 221 | ** Plus, he's the heir to a huge and powerful megacorporation. He can afford the luxury of paper and ink. |
| 222 | ** Traditional dip-pen calligraphy is an artistic skill, which Bobby might've been trying to acquire. |
| 223 | [[/folder]] |
| 224 | |
| 225 | [[folder: The Wayne Fortune]] |
| 226 | * Okay, given that the Wayne fortune is, by this time, all factors considered, probably large enough to make Bill Gates look like a pauper, how much does Terry stand to inherit when Bruce joins the choir invisible? I mean, sure, various charities will probably take their due (Bruce having been a philanthropist for most of his life) and his living proteges will probably get a decent amount, but Bruce relies on Terry in ways that he never had to back in the day, not to mention the whole DNA-transplant thing with Warren [=McGinnis=] that makes Terry his son. |
| 227 | ** They've never put a number on the Wayne Fortune, probably so that it won't be seen as a ridiculous number one way or the other. Terry could probably expect to get Wayne Manor itself, since he's Batman and that's where the Batcave is (and since he technically [[spoiler: ''is'' the youngest member of the Wayne family]], and a solid share of Wayne Enterprises. Both of those will probably be shared at least partly by Dick, since he was, for all intents and purposes, Bruce's adopted kid. |
| 228 | ** In the comics Dick has his own small fortune that started out as a trust fund his parents had set up for him before they died. Thanks to Lucius Fox it may not be nearly as big as Bruce Wayne's multi-billion dollar company, but it was enough to buy and save his old circus from financial ruin (which Dick then also made into a success, thus earning him even ''more'' money) and allows him to finance his crimefighting career as Nightwing. |
| 229 | ** According to ''Old Wounds'' in ''The New Batman Adventures'', Dick has a trust fund his circus friends set up for him, from the insurance money collected when his parents died. Even before he formally quits being Robin, he resolves he's not going to live off Bruce's money anymore. |
| 230 | ** As well as Tim, most likely, since he was similar. |
| 231 | ** Tim will '''definitely''' have a huge chunk set aside for him, as Bruce to this day is tormented by guilt over what happened to Tim at the Joker's hands. I'm willing to bet that from the end of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker'' onwards, Bruce is probably already paying the bills for whatever psychiatric care that Tim requires. |
| 232 | ** I'd imagine Barbara will probably get a chunk of Bruce's fortune too. |
| 233 | ** It's BATMAN. He's taking it all with him. |
| 234 | ** WordOfGod is that the Wayne Fortune ''isn't'' a fortune. DVD commentary reveals that Bruce has essentially lost it all with the loss of control of Wayne Enterprises and the ensuing years. His stock options still give him influence over the company and a reasonable income, but stock wealth is all on paper. To turn that into actual cash he would need to sell his stock and, though that would probably get him quite a little nest egg, he would likewise lose what little influence of WE he has, and he would never do ''that.'' The writers actually said that they regretted not making this more explicit in the series, but they accepted it amongst themselves. |
| 235 | ** But he probably still has quite a substantial personal fortune given the fact that he can afford to pay the property taxes for Wayne Manor (which are probably quite substantial, considering the fact that it's a huge estate). Bruce also has the use of limousines for personal non-company-related affairs too apparently. |
| 236 | ** Although during the series proper Bruce's fortune and control of the company was diminished, at the beginning of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker'', which seems to take place maybe a few months to a year after the end of the series proper, Bruce has apparently ''regained'' control of Wayne Enterprises. Remember the line where Bruce tells Terry "I've worked long and hard to regain my family's company," and that he's quite happy that it's back under Wayne family control instead of under the control of the {{CorruptCorporateExecutive}}s that Derek Powers had brought in. Chances are, Bruce has secretly edited his will to give control of the company to Terry one day. |
| 237 | [[/folder]] |
| 238 | |
| 239 | [[folder: What was the rest of Amanda Waller's plan?]] |
| 240 | * Bat-genes or not, Terry wasn't going to just turn into Batman when his parents were killed. The [=McGinnis=] family seems to be reasonably well-off and middle class, but Terry couldn't possibly have had all the resources Bruce needed to travel the world and be trained by experts. He would likely just have been sent to live with relatives or put into foster care. If Waller overtly stepped in to help, she wouldn't have wound up with the kind of hero she wanted because Batman's a loner by nature. |
| 241 | ** She could've tried to manipulate it so that he found a mentor but it wouldn't have been easy. The only member of the Bat family still (possibly) operating would've been Nightwing and he wouldn't have gone along with it if he knew what she'd done to him. She also must have realised that she'd get found out eventually, at which point she'd have one very angry Batman on her hands. Possibly even two, if Terry had run into Bruce before figuring it out. |
| 242 | ** Nightwing just may possibly have decided to train Terry even if he knew the circumstances (keep in mind that this isn't the Dick that got to hang out with the Teen Titans every weekend, but he did have a brotherly relationship with Tim Drake), if it was what Terry wanted. Bruce pointed out to Barbara that every single one of his allies came willingly, all he did was teach them now not to die. However if Dick was in charge from the time he was very young it's possible that Terry may have ended up as a ''very'' different kind of Batman, if he became Batman at all. |
| 243 | ** My take on it is that Waller's plan was more involved, but she didn't tell Terry about any of the steps past parent-murder because that's where the plan stopped, and the rest of it was irrelevant. Also, keep in mind Bruce has a history of taking in recently-orphaned youngsters, even if there's barely any connection to them -- Warren worked for Wayne Enterprises, which puts him a bit closer than, say, Tim was. I figure Waller planned to use her Cadmus contacts to nudge/guide Terry toward Batmanism, either by letting him "find" equipment, or by hooking him up with Bruce directly. |
| 244 | ** Actually I think you're forgetting what Batman is. He isn't the gadgets, he isn't the suit, nor is he the batcave or the Batmobile. Batman is nothing more than an iron hard sense of justice wrapped in a squishy human shell. You strip him naked and toss him into a ring with Bane he'll still be the fucking Batman. If Terry would ever be the Batman he needed to be he would find a way to fight crime and bring hope to Gotham. |
| 245 | ** Granted, but the gadgets, suit, and support certainly help. |
| 246 | ** He's also the [[Film/KickAss pushups]]. |
| 247 | ** Perhaps that's the real reason Waller didn't try again with a different assassin after the first one got cold feet. She realized it was a stupid idea that would never work. |
| 248 | ** I think we all know what step three [[WesternAnimation/SouthPark is...]] |
| 249 | ** It's possible that Waller was planning to either arrange for social services to ask Bruce if he'd be willing to take in the orphaned Terry, or that Waller was planning to ask Bruce herself, thus guaranteeing that Terry would end up in Bruce's care from a young age. Of course, Waller obviously wouldn't tell Bruce that she herself had caused Terry to be orphaned. But even if Bruce found out, it's very possible that the now-elderly [[IDidWhatIHadToDo Waller would be perfectly fine with that, knowing that even if she was punished, Terry would already be under Bruce's tutelage and on the way to becoming Batman.]] |
| 250 | ** On a different yet still Project Batman Beyond-related note, wouldn't overwriting someone's DNA eventually cause them to start looking like the person whose DNA overwrote theirs, as the cells containing the new DNA began to replace the cells containing the old DNA? |
| 251 | ** I believe Amanda Waller's technique only targeted Warren [=McGinnis'=] sperm cells, probably somehow replacing Warren's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermatogonium spermatogonia]] so that they are carrying Bruce's DNA not his but leaving the rest of Warren's DNA alone. Of course this would be impossible in real life (aside from the sheer impracticality of the thing even if it did work Warren's immune system should recognise the different DNA and start attack it making him very ill indeed) but as this is the DCAU and crazier stuff has happened (e.g. diseases that effect all male sentient life for example) I'm willing to let it slide. |
| 252 | ** Not really, if the nanobots rewrote parts of DNA it just made Warren a chimera, two sets of DNA in one human. If it can happen naturally one would assume advanced tech can make it happen on purpose. |
| 253 | ** [[VideoGame/MetalGear Nanomachines]], they explain everything! |
| 254 | ** Waller may have thought that Bruce was genetically predisposed to the behaviors and thought patterns that led him to becoming Batman due to the trauma of losing his parents. Waller probably would have manipulated events to make sure a substantial windfall came Terry (or adopted him herself) to give him the resources he needed, but she may have been trusting genetics to take their course in guiding Terry to knowing what to do. Since he ''did'' become Batman after the eventual murder of his father, such an idea wouldn't exactly be unsupported. |
| 255 | ** While the initial aspect of Waller's was to transform Terry into Bruce's "son" and shape his psychological state to mirror that of Bruce after he lost his parents, I think that she prepared the training aspect after the first part was a success. So she might have used her vast connection to get in touch with various people who are skilled in areas of what would make Batman a formidable crimefighter (martial arts, technological prowess and vast areas of knowledge). And who is to say that she didn't present the idea of "Batman Beyond" to some government officials? I'm sure that a lot of them would be interested to have a Batman working for the government. This would also explain where Terry was supposed to get the money for his gadgets should Waller's plan worked. |
| 256 | [[/folder]] |
| 257 | |
| 258 | [[folder: Talking is a REALLY free action]] |
| 259 | * If anyone goes into a fight with Terry expecting Spider-Man type banter, they must think he's completely insane. His half of the conversations with Wayne seem to go completely unnoticed by villains, what gives? |
| 260 | ** He may not be talking as loud as he seems. He could be whispering through a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone throat microphone]] and they just show him talking at a normal volume for the benefit of the audience. |
| 261 | ** And it's not entirely unnoticed. At least two or three villains (Inque comes to mind) have remarked that he seemed to be talking to someone else during a fight. |
| 262 | ** Which would make sense. When emotions get high and your adrenaline starts pumping you raise your voice. |
| 263 | ** I don't think it would be much of a stretch to assume his opponents see a guy who seems to be talking to someone who's not there, so they conclude, "He's talking to someone back in his MissionControl on a radio or phone." It's not exactly a rare thing in their world. Hey, it's not even all that rare in our world -- we've all seen someone in a café or on the subway who seemed to be talking to himself, only for him to turn and reveal the Bluetooth stuck in his ear. If I were a villain, I would see nothing odd about Batman communicating with some home base during battle. (It's what plenty of regular soldiers do in battle, after all.) |
| 264 | [[/folder]] |
| 265 | |
| 266 | [[folder: Why does being attached to Superman make Starro invulnerable?]] |
| 267 | * This one hit me when I saw Batman hitting them with a missile during the second part of "The Call." Seriously, he hits Superman right in the chest, where Starro is, and Starro is completely unharmed. This is believable for Superman. A space starfish? Not so much. Considering that a brief burstt of heat vision is enough to put one down for the count... Does Superman just exude some aura of invulnerability or something? |
| 268 | ** Yes. In response to the age old question "Why isn't Superman naked after he walks through acid/the sun/nuclear explosions?" some writers have explained Supermans indestructibility as a forcefield he projects a few millimeters thick around his body (and thus also protecting his costume), others gave him some sort of telekineses power over everything he touches (that's why airplanes he lifts don't break) instead of just saying "the censors wouldn't let us print it otherwise". If I remember correctly (not a big Superman fan) both explanations were used in the golden age were Superman got new powers on a weekly basis and were ignored since then. |
| 269 | ** The "Superman's strength is telekinetic" explanation covers a lot of ground. Assume his strength is actually telekinetic control over things he touches. This includes conferring a telekinetic barrier, protecting his costume and anything that he subconsciously considers part of himself, like the Starro. This would also make the Starro seem to be super strong while attached. It also explains how he flies, and how he protects other people from the damage of supersonic flight. Also the leverage issues in some of the couple's flights he takes with Lois. Also Ice Breath (control over the air temp in his lungs or across his lips), and maybe even Heat Vision if you really work at it. |
| 270 | ** Alternatively, Starro could have shifted around Superman's body to protect himself. The Starro aliens can control people no matter where they're attached. We know this because the boss Starro was attached to Superman's chest but the smaller Starros were face-hugging Aquagirl and the other Leaguers, yet neither had trouble controlling the host. Maybe when Batman hit him in the chest with a missile Starro was hiding on Superman's back or something. |
| 271 | ** Starro does move around on Superman's body we see it shortly after they figure out Superman is the traitor, Aquagirl tried to put her hand on his chest when Starro's eye pops out and then scurries around to Superman's back. |
| 272 | ** Assuming Starro doesn't gain mind control just by being in physical contact with Superman but instead by biting or otherwise penetrating his skin to reach the nervous system, Starro would have to be made of some pretty hardy stuff to begin with. |
| 273 | ** Starro sprouted some nasty spikes during the fight with Micron. Admittedly, we don't know how tough Micron is, but it suggests at least a possibility that Starro is fairly tough in its own right. |
| 274 | [[/folder]] |
| 275 | |
| 276 | [[folder: What did Tim Drake do after his recovery?]] |
| 277 | * He grew up, got married, got a really good technical geek job, yes, but he was awfully young when he quit being Robin, and the implication is that once he quit, he and Bruce cut contact. Did he run off and live with Dick or Barbara or Superman until he was eighteen? |
| 278 | ** The thing with that viewpoint is, due to a confusing mix of ComicBookTime and {{Retcon}}s, he more or less ''would'' have been eighteen by the time the flashback in ROTJ would have taken place. WordOfGod says that it takes place after the end of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited''. Batman was with the League for at least a period of five years (judging by references to the passing of time within the series) and Tim was thirteen years old during ''[[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries The New Batman Adventures]]''. So... by the time Tim left Bruce, he would have been legally an adult. Heck, Tim was even made to look and sound older in appearances after the production of ROTJ (for example, he was supposedly the same age as [[WesternAnimation/StaticShock Static/Virgil Hawkins]] during their crossover episodes together). Barbara does mention that he went out on his own as soon as left... perhaps he tried solo crime-fighting for a little while, or maybe he even went straight ahead with working on a career. Who knows? |
| 279 | [[/folder]] |
| 280 | |
| 281 | [[folder: Why didn't she just tell them?]] |
| 282 | * In the Eyewitness episode, Terry accidentally ruins a police sting operation because he didn't know it was a set-up. Barbara knew there was a risk that Batman would see a "weapons deal" and intervene. So why didn't she contact Bruce and tell him not to let Terry get involved in that specific weapons deal at that time/ignore that specific vehicle and anything going on near it, or even to only intervene in the unlikely situation of one of the perps getting away. The failure of that sting operation is as much her fault, for keeping it to herself, as it was Terry's. |
| 283 | ** She already made it clear from the getgo she isn't her father. She still didn't completely trust Terry. Error in judgement obviously on her part. But she still doesn't trust the kid, it's that simple. |
| 284 | ** That doesn't excuse that lapse in judgement. She does trust Bruce for example and there is no good reason not to have told Bruce. She might not have completely trusted Terry, that would be wise on her half but not trusting him is about not revealing who your undercover agents are or your long term plans. Telling Terry I want you here tonight or I don't want you here tonight isn't the kind of thing logical people keep from their allies or even fairly neutral parties. |
| 285 | ** The answer to this is simple: she was doing her job. The police don't answer to Batman, period. The outcome of that decision was bad, obviously, but hindsight is 20/20. She was doing her job as police commissioner and she set up a sting operation acting in that capacity. The fact that a criminal (vigilantism is illegal, after all) screwed up her operation doesn't change the fact that, legally speaking, she made the proper call. Plus, there's the aforementioned "I'm not my father" stuff and the fact that she still harbors resentment toward Bruce over what happed to him in [=RotJ=]. |
| 286 | *** ...Sooooo, since she won't inform Bruce and Terry about sting operations, how does she expect them to know the next time so that he doesn't interfere? And how did she and Bruce expect Terry to know the first time? |
| 287 | [[/folder]] |
| 288 | |
| 289 | [[folder: Terry's cracked ribs]] |
| 290 | * In Curse Of The Kobra, Terry falls quite a fair distance, probably several hundred yards, and gets his wings torn off in the process. He breaks part of his fall with the boosters, but he still hits the ground hard enough to crack four ribs. Understandable. However, he's been shown falling before from long distances (the bit right before the final fight scene in Plague comes to mind), and doesn't seem that hurt (in Plague, even, he says he's okay). I know the show is inconsistent about the power of the suit, but this bit did stand out to me, since Terry didn't quite receive the blunt force of those several hundred yards. |
| 291 | ** The suit's weakness seems to be electricity. Maybe the guy with the electric nunchucks who jumped him shorted it out? Or the sensor that activates the impact protection was damaged when the wings were ripped off. Although seeing as how the Hunter once dropped one of Terry's classmates off a building and onto a car and the kid wasn't dead, Batman getting cracked ribs is even more problematic. |
| 292 | [[/folder]] |
| 293 | |
| 294 | [[folder: Barbara Gordon]] |
| 295 | * I'm just curious, she's married but... she goes by her maiden name? Why? She's happily married, and it's not like she's a celebrity (a police commissioner sure, but not like some celebrities in the real world who still go by their maiden names even when after married). I just don't see the reason, other than fans knowing who she is off the bat, plus just so we can have a commissioner with the name of Gordon, for Batman traditions' sake. |
| 296 | ** Celebrity has nothing to do with it. Some women just keep their maiden names for any number of reasons. Possibly she went into her career well before she got married, and wanted to keep her name for the sake of professional continuity. |
| 297 | ** Depending on the concerned country's law, married women are not forced to change their family name, and some country's laws features inversion with the man being able to take his wife name, like that guy, Gendo Ikari, born as Gendo Rokubungi. |
| 298 | ** She also might be trying to cash in on the name Gordon in-universe as well. Sure, she's great on her own merits, but it doesn't hurt to associate yourself with the best commissioner Gotham ever had. It's shallow, but some people probably find her more trustworthy and capable for that reason alone. |
| 299 | [[/folder]] |
| 300 | |
| 301 | [[folder: Why splice only animal DNA?]] |
| 302 | * This question rose up in my head when Bruce said to Superman that he "could use some of that Kryptonian DNA" in regards to aging. So considering how advanced gene splicing seems to have become, why ''doesn't'' Bruce just get spliced with some super genes? What's more, this is still the DCU where meta humans are pretty abundant. Heroes may have some moral qualms with gene splicing, but the villains probably don't, so why don't we see them making private armies of meta powered henchmen? |
| 303 | ** Well, it ''has'' been tried a couple times, as I recall -- but usually whoever's behind it takes a Batman to the face before they can really get the ball rolling. Also, there's the Ultimen, remember.\ |
| 304 | As for Bruce, I'd say he was probably joking when he said that to Superman. Bruce is even initially against using the Lazarus Pit to be young again, remember, and he's seen what happens to people who go after power like that, and he might not trust himself to not go crazy with it. |
| 305 | ** Bruce would likely see cheating death in any questionable manner as taking a step closer to becoming like Ra's Al Ghul, a frightening thought in his mind, since Ra's initially chose him to be his successor. |
| 306 | ** Splice superpowers into your private army of henchmen, and they're not likely to remain your henchmen for very long. It's not in the supervillains' best interest to upgrade their Mooks too far in a way that can't be taken away from them if they mutiny or desert. |
| 307 | *** Just save the best upgrades for yourself. |
| 308 | ** It may be explicitly illegal. If the Gotham Attorney General was up in arms about kids giving themselves cat's eyes or leopard spots, imagine the uproar if people could splice themselves up with superpowers. |
| 309 | ** Doubtful for two reasons. The first is that the kids are doing it on such a scale that it's clear splicing is supposed to be like getting a tattoo. Perhaps a little dumb since it's something permanent and most of the people getting them are too young to be making permanent decisions but not inherently bad or illegal. Second Kryptonians are physically indistinguishable from humans and Tamarians just have green eyes. There doesn't appear to be a side effect of being the Flash or an Amazonian. So even if splicing was illegal it would be easier to hide a splice of Kryptonian than cat's eyes. My guess is the writers simply weren't thinking about that possibility or perhaps as similar as we look to Kryptonians perhaps the fact that we do share a common ancestor with the earth born slug but presumably don't share a common ancestor with Kryptonians. Look they failed biology. They aren't the first writers to have that problem! |
| 310 | ** Actually being physically indistinguishable from normals makes it even more likely that splicing up with superpowers is completely illegal. A street thug spliced up with bull genes is easy to spot. The horns and the cow nose are a dead giveaway. So it's no surprise when he turns out to be super-strong. But how do you spot someone spliced up with Kryptonian DNA? You can't. Not until they've already punched your head off at a quarter the speed of light. |
| 311 | ** Well that's all very well and good but that in no way changes the problem. Why don't Super villains splice up with more superpowers? It's not like they care if it's illegal, They are ALREADY breaking the law. Is the theory that super villains will be scared of more jail time? Because honestly most of them seem pretty blasé about the jail time that they currently have, and that assumes that they think they will be beaten which doesn't seem to be the case for most of them. |
| 312 | ** I'm sure they would if they could (and it would explain more than a few of the one-shot villains, like Ma Mayhem). The trick is getting their hands on some DNA to splice themselves with. For instance, where are they going to get Kryptonian DNA from? It's not like Superman donates at the local blood bank. |
| 313 | ** In universe, probably because of how rare Kryptonian DNA is, hard to explain where he got it if Bruce Wayne has no personal relation to Superman, and the fact that Bruce seems to be the kind of person who isn't interested in splicing himself, like how some people aren't interested in getting tattoos. Out of universe speculation, in the comics Kryptonian DNA is notoriously difficult to get a good sample of, and even harder to use in genetic engineering projects, and scientists just can't manipulate it well enough to splice into organisms past the embryonic stage at this point in the history of the DCAU. |
| 314 | ** When Cadmus used Kryptonian DNA and Argonian DNA to make clones, they ended up with an uncontrollable monster, and a murderous clone of Supergirl that ignored orders if they interfered with personal goals. If Amanda Waller hadn't had the source material destroyed at that point, she probably did after that. |
| 315 | ** As far as this troper recalls, each time someone actually GETS a sample of Kryptonian DNA they usually spend a lot of time talking about how hard it is just to get the stuff to bond with the human DNA they're trying to splice it with. In other words: just because Kryptonians LOOK like humans, does not mean they are in any way a genetic match for us. |
| 316 | [[/folder]] |
| 317 | |
| 318 | [[folder:What happened to the heroes?]] |
| 319 | * Aside from Batman we have ''six'' confirmed heroes in the entire ''world''. Considering that ''JLU'' was all about a veritable army of super heroes, one must wonder; where the hell did they all go? Even the ending of ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'' had more heroes, and that's after they were fucking ''nuked''. Now that I think about it, where did all the villains go too? |
| 320 | ** Obviously the real reason is because JLU was barely a twinkle in the creators' eyes back then. That said, just because we don't see more than six or so heroes doesn't mean there aren't more running around out there. The better question would be what happened to the Justice League in between JLU and BB. They went from dozens (hundreds?) of members down to a small handful. How did that happen? |
| 321 | ** Presumably it was decided at some point that having a completely united and organized group of heroes posed as many problems as it solved, especially regarding god complexes and corruptibility. That was, after all, a major theme of Justice League, Who Watches the Watchmen and all that, particularly the season with Cadmus and the comparisons to the Justice Lords dimension. Presumably they decided at some point that they'd be safer if most of the heroes worked independently and simply teamed up on occasion, so they could more effectively act as checks on any potential corruption among their ranks... |
| 322 | ** Or maybe everyone else was just busy elsewhere at the time, like the JLU episode "Patriot Act". |
| 323 | ** It's Gotham. Bruce is typically very strict about keeping non-BatFam capes out of his town. (Under the Red Hood, No Man's Land) Even when it goes all to Hell in his absence, Superman would respect those wishes. When Terry semi-joins the JLU, (their only appearance in the series ever) he's in Metropolis chasing down Inque. |
| 324 | ** The same thing that happened to the space based Watchtower. The ground based base they are using is called The Watchtower so obviously something REALLY bad happened to the heroes between the end of JLU and BB. Like really really bad... |
| 325 | ** The episode ''Once and Future Thing'' mentioned the space based Watchtower was destroyed with substantial loss of life, maybe that wasn't solely down to tinkering with time and just the time tinkering exacerbated the original incident and raised an already existing death toll. |
| 326 | ** In the episode "Out of the Past", the "Near Apocalypse of '09" is mentioned, but [[NoodleIncident never explained]], other than that Batman and Talia joined forces and Ra's al Ghul perished in it. It's quite possible that many other heroes died in this cataclysmic event. Another explanation is that the fate of Robin at the hands of the Joker discouraged heroes from taking on young sidekicks, which in turn led to the general decline of BadassNormal heroes like ComicBook/GreenArrow, ComicBook/{{Huntress}}, ComicBook/TheQuestion, etc., or any other heroes where the legacy was non-genetic. It may even be a combination of these two factors which led to the downfall of the age of heroes. |
| 327 | ** Another possibility -- Superman has been possessed by Starro for years; his attempts to kill Micron, Aquagirl, and Warhawk may be only the latest steps in a long-range plan to eliminate threats to Starro's plan. This also provides an explanation for bringing in Batman to find the "traitor" -- it was a setup to exacerbate tensions among the remaining heroes and possibly start a fight that would get Batman and/or some of the others killed. |
| 328 | [[/folder]] |
| 329 | |
| 330 | [[folder:Max]] |
| 331 | * Where did Max come from, in universe, and how did she become Terry's best friend so quickly? Or, if she was a pre-existing friend, where was she during the first season, and why didn't she know about Terry's time in juvie? |
| 332 | ** It's RememberTheNewGuy. She was created to add a major black character to the show and supposed to be an AscendedExtra. |
| 333 | ** If you have to justify it, just assume Max and Terry always attended the same school but never actually had a class together until after the first season. |
| 334 | ** Max and Terry ''weren't'' particularly good friends until Max learned Terry's secret. Up until that point, Max seemed similar to Jackie, one of DANA's friends who Terry hung out with because he was hanging out with Dana. Not everyone in school necessarily knows about Terry's record -- the school officials obviously do, and I would imagine that some of the more popular kids know because Dana probably confided in Chelsea, her best friend, who is also close friends with Blade, and both of them have dated Nelson Nash at various times -- but there seems to be a lot going on at Hamilton Hill High (think about the dead athlete who Terry didn't even know about), and the fact that Terry did a turn at juvie may not rank very high in the rumor mill. |
| 335 | [[/folder]] |
| 336 | |
| 337 | [[folder:The Episode "Revenant"]] |
| 338 | * Since Willie's powers apparently allowed him to psychically "see" what was going on in the outside world, couldn't he have used them to spy on Batman as he returned to the Batcave, and learn his and Bruce Wayne's secret? |
| 339 | ** He clearly cared more about scoring with Blade and getting revenge on Nelson. |
| 340 | ** And it's unclear what properties his "psychic sight" has. Assuming he happened to spot Batman through his psychic sight, he might not be able to "move" fast enough to follow him. |
| 341 | |
| 342 | [[/folder]] |
| 343 | |
| 344 | [[folder: Vision Doesn't Just Correct Itself]] |
| 345 | * In the episode "Meltdown", when Victor is restored to an old body, supposedly the one he had before the accident, I noticed two pretty key differences from what we saw in the original animated series. The first is that he's still bald (though it's possible his hair would have grown back in time). The second is that he never recovers his glasses. This was a problem before, too. Did getting frozen alter the lenses inside his eyes or something? And why wasn't it reversed when they cloned him? Also, Stephanie starts the episode wearing glasses, takes them off when talking to Powers, and never puts them back on again. |
| 346 | ** They might have been reading glasses that he had only needed for scientific stuff, which he wasn't doing much of in the future. Or his new body just had better eyes -- bad eyes isn't necessarily genetic, after all. Or maybe he just got contacts. As for Stephanie, maybe she just wears contacts most of the time. |
| 347 | ** That wasn't his original body. His ''head'' was all that was left of his original body. The new body was presumably cloned. |
| 348 | ** Right, OP here, sorry -- I totally worded that wrong. I meant that the new body was cloned to be identical to the body he had before the accident. |
| 349 | ** Tweaking the new eyes to have 20/20 vision would be fairly trivial for the kind of medical technology that could grow a whole new body -- we can do that ''now'' with laser surgery in many cases. |
| 350 | [[/folder]] |
| 351 | |
| 352 | [[folder: The Batsuit Magically Changed Size]] |
| 353 | * Notice the batsuit looks smaller when Terri wears it. I don't believe the suit has stretching abilities. If that's the case, wouldn't the suit shrink to a smaller size if a big guy like Bruce takes it off? When we see the suit for the first time, it's bigger. |
| 354 | ** I actually noticed this while rewatching BB on Netflix. However I just assumed the material is stretchable, and that the nanomachines that possibly help control the increased physical abilities also control the fabric size. So it's already a partially small suit stretching to form fit the taller and larger Bruce in the opening of the series. And then when Terry slips it on the machines make micro stitches to form fit him. |
| 355 | [[/folder]] |
| 356 | |
| 357 | [[folder: Was Ira Billings the first and only Spellbinder]] |
| 358 | * Is he the son of Delbert Billings, the Spellbinder in the comics? Maybe the original Batman fought Delbert off-screen and his son took over the "family Business". |
| 359 | ** I think it's just a nod at Batman comic history. If they meant to have a legacy villain they would have had Bruce mention something even if it was new to fans of BTAS. They did the same thing with the Royal Flush Gang, which they corrected in the later JL series. |
| 360 | [[/folder]] |
| 361 | |
| 362 | [[folder: The Episode "Hooked Up"]] |
| 363 | * What can police arrest Spellbinder for? Yes, he created addicting virtual reality machines, but is it really illegal? The kids were the ones stealing money. They can't prove Spellbinder told them to steal, he can lie. It's like a guy opening an addicting arcade store across the street. Police wouldn't arrest the store owner because a bunch of desperate kids stole quarters in order to play his arcade games. |
| 364 | ** The virtual reality machines were basically drugs, even if they couldn't get him as the ring leader of a crime cartel I doubt getting children addicted is legal. |
| 365 | ** There's only a certain number of teenagers telling the cops Spellbinder told them to steal before they no longer dismiss the kids as liars. Especially with Billings' criminal record. Also, did Spellbinder really pay his previous debt to society or is he a fugitive who'd have to stay hidden from cops even if there's no proof to link him to any new crimes? |
| 366 | ** He let customers use a dangerous device that he knew physically harmed its users. Worse, said customers were minors. It's analogous both to selling a new drug without approval from the FDA and failing to get parental consent for a dangerous procedure on minors (even piercing a minor's ear without parental consent is against the law). |
| 367 | [[/folder]] |
| 368 | |
| 369 | [[folder: Max's reason for identifying Batman]] |
| 370 | * Exactly what it says on the folder heading. What ''was'' Max's reason for trying to identify Batman? It's never really made clear, she just wants to. |
| 371 | ** Everybody presumably in the world wants to. Back in the classic series, it's clear that Lois Lane wants to know (and eventually finds out). Max simply thinks (correctly) that she's got enough clues to put it all together and discover who Batman really is. |
| 372 | ** But Lois Lane had a personal connection with Superman; she was attracted to him, and he'd rescued her. Max, however, is never seen interacting with Batman before she's shown trying to identify him, and she's the only person who isn't a villain or gossip-monger to try. So it's not like everyone in the world wants to identify Batman, it's more like only people who want to kill him, people who want a good story- and Max. |
| 373 | ** It was an accident. Max had a run in with a Jokerz gang leader that lead her to believe he was a classmate but she couldn't tell who. She wrote software to run against school records that would tell her who was living a double life. It correctly identified the fact that Terry was living a double life, however Max then made the incorrect assumption that he was a Jokerz leader based on his past. She tried to confront him about it and he showed up as Batman. |
| 374 | ** No, even before she started getting harassed by Jokerz, Max was running an algorithm to identify Batman. She only repurposed it to identify Jokerz after she realized they were targeting her for something. The real question is: since the program was looking for double lives, why would she expect a different list for each purpose? |
| 375 | ** Max states her motive as "I needed a hobby, and it beats macramé." Personally, I think she must have been attracted to Batman on some level for this to occur to her as an interesting hobby, but that's neither canonical nor necessary. She thought searching for Batman's identity would be fun -- no further explanation is needed. |
| 376 | [[/folder]] |
| 377 | |
| 378 | [[folder: Bruce watching.]] |
| 379 | * It's established in the pilot and confirmed several times throughout the series that Bruce can see everything Terry can in addition to reading various outputs from the biosensors in the suit. It's implied heavily that he does so if not all the time certainly a heavy majority of the time. Out-of-Universe it makes sense for tensions sake that Bruce always seems to wander away from the monitor at inopportune moments but In-Universe it just seems terribly contrived. Unmasked is a great example as twice in one episode situations occurred that Bruce either could have prevented outright or at least advised on and alleviated. The first being when Terry unmasks for so a child won't be afraid of him. Bruce says there were other choices, it's really unfortunate for all involved he chose right then to go to the bathroom instead of remaining in Terry's head! Later in the same episode Kobra operatives masquerade as cops. Terry assumes that Bruce and Barbara worked things out behind the scenes, Bruce however was unable to get through to Barbara who was in a meeting. Terry shouldn't have assumed but Bruce should have been there! There are plenty of other examples throughout the series and it's especially egregious because battles vs Inque and Joker highlight the just how devastating their combined intellect is. Not just Bruce's experience and intelligence but the addition of him being safe in the Batcave and able to bring up Batipedia while Terry worries about staying alive. |
| 380 | ** Bruce is like 70 years old. He has to take a piss once in a while, just like any other geriatric. |
| 381 | ** Terry may regularly go out on a scheduled patrol with Bruce as mission control. But any time that Terry spontaneously puts on the cowl, it would be easy to assume that Bruce isn't just sitting in the basement waiting for Terry to suit up. Also, it would not be difficult to imagine that Bruce goes out every once in a while for a nice dinner or some other activity while Terry is batmanning. |
| 382 | *** Actually, ''Return of the Joker'' suggests that Bruce ''doesn't'' normally go out nights (Terry quickly realizes that something is wrong when Bruce doesn't answer the phone -- "Where does he go?"). That said, he probably doesn't sit around in the Batcave unless he has a pre-existing reason to be there. |
| 383 | ** There are a few instances where Terry has to tell Bruce to hook into the visor. The implication I got was that Bruce may usually be sitting behind the Bat Computer most of the time Terry's on patrol, but he doesn't keep the live feed running. The show never explains why this is, but there are a few possible explanations. 1. Bruce wants Terry to be effective without him, and so refrains from backseat driving so he can learn. 2. Verbal communication can be sent in radio bursts. A live video feed would require a constant signal and might be something a villain might notice and could hack into or use to locate him. 3. Bruce caught Terry jacking it in the Batsuit early on, and since then has discretely refrained from eavesdropping. 4. The live feed might be energy or computer intensive, and reduce the suit's other capabilities. 5. Narrative rules without a good in-show justification, since it still doesn't explain why everything seen the visor isn't at least recorded by the suit for later use as evidence. |
| 384 | [[/folder]] |
| 385 | |
| 386 | [[folder: Why is there a Royal Flush Gang in the future?]] |
| 387 | * Ace from Justice league Unlimited is dead (not the dog). Also, how did the RFG get from being meta-humans to being a wealthy british family? |
| 388 | ** The RFG in "Epilogue" was implied to be made of normal humans empowered by Ace, and they lost their powers when she died. She meant for them to be her family, but they turned to crime like the first incarnation did. It's not unlikely that, even after they lost their powers, a couple (most likely BB!Queen's parents) thought that the idea of a crime family was good and formed their own Royal Flush Gang. |
| 389 | *** That still feels iffy. Bruce talks about the Gang like they've been around for awhile, a couple generations at least. Given the ages of the Walker Family, they can't be more than one generation removed from Ace's Gang. |
| 390 | ** This is explained in the first appearance of the Royal Flush Gang. They are both a family and a club gaining new members by marriage and apparently birth. So there are lots of groups that have called themselves the Royal Flush Gang. |
| 391 | [[/folder]] |
| 392 | |
| 393 | [[folder: Royal Flush Gang familial ties]] |
| 394 | * In "Dead Man's Hand", Queen takes her daughter Melanie aside and warns her not to leave the family, because they'd "been good to us", seemingly implying that she married into the gang and that Melanie may not even be a biological relative. By "King's Ransom", the implications are a complete 180, with Queen suggesting her father used to run the gang (and Melanie's biological connection is all but confirmed given her closeness with Jack). Anyone able to account for this? |
| 395 | ** It's exactly what she meant. Queen was born and practically raised by the family, hence this was the only good thing that she had. Also, Bruce did say that there has been dozens of versions of the Royal Flush Gang that has passed their titles from Fathers to Sons and/or Mothers to Daughters and so on. Whether Queen's father was already in the gang or recruited, he worked from either as Jack or Ace or Ten and then got promoted to King. |
| 396 | [[/folder]] |
| 397 | |
| 398 | [[folder: Terry and Ten's relationship]] |
| 399 | * Terry doesn't think it's wrong to have 2 girlfriends? In "Once Burned", he kisses Ten while still dating Dana. Was he planning to tell Dana if the relationship with Ten work out? |
| 400 | ** It's infidelity and Terry having trouble turning down a girl. He might have thought that he could date Melanie while broken up with Dana, or he might not have thought that far ahead. |
| 401 | ** Maybe Tim and Dana are [[{{Polyamory}} poly]], or at least not exclusive. |
| 402 | ** No, they're pretty clearly exclusive, and Max calls Terry out on him cheating on Dana with Melanie. |
| 403 | ** He kissed Melanie twice in that episode, but he didn't start a relationship with her again. In fact, she seems to want to, and he tells her that's not an option anymore. Still cheating, but not as bad as carrying on 2 relationships at once. Still wrong, but he's a teenager -- not exactly uncommon. |
| 404 | ** He wasn't going to have 2 girlfriends; he was considering starting a relationship with Melanie and presumably dump Dana, but as he told Max, he wasn't sure about the whole matter yet, so he didn't burn his bridge with Dana yet. As Melanie ended up betraying him, it was a wise (if morally questionable) choice on his part. |
| 405 | [[/folder]] |
| 406 | |
| 407 | [[folder: The Stalker]] |
| 408 | * Ok, I can't believe no one questioned this earlier... I love the Stalker. I really do. But how the HELL could he have survived that train crash at the end of "Bloodsport"!? |
| 409 | ** He's still a master hunter. Probably that experience with the train caused him to face his fears which is why he is relatively normal. |
| 410 | [[/folder]] |
| 411 | |
| 412 | [[folder: Batman couldn't tell Blight and Powers are the same guy??]] |
| 413 | * Before the Ascension episode, Terry didn't know Blight was Powers. Blight is wearing Powers's clothes and he sounds JUST like him. Seriously, Terry couldn't put two and two together? |
| 414 | ** Powers's clothes are noticably disheveled and torn as Blight. As for the voice, Blight also sounds much crazier and more raspy than in his civilian guise. Derek Powers tries to sound civil and in control. Blight's all "I shall be a blight upon the land. All I touch shall wither and die!" And Terry's probably too busy trying not to be nuked to wonder why Blight's clothes and voice seem so familiar. |
| 415 | ** Also Remember that the clothes being the same are more representative, no one in the real world wears the same clothes every single day of their life, it's just that in a cartoon it makes it easier to recognize the character. So what Terry saw was a glowing skeleton in a suit, not a guy in the exact suit Derek Powers wears every single day. |
| 416 | [[/folder]] |
| 417 | |
| 418 | [[folder: Why Andrea Beaumont didn't have a picture?]] |
| 419 | * In the "Out of the Past" episode, it's shown that Bruce has files with pictures of all the women he ever loved. While the woman in the last two pictures is Barbara Gordon, fans initially speculated that it was [[WesternAnimation/BatmanMaskOfThePhantasm Andrea Beaumont]]. WordOfGod thus stated that Andrea wasn't included in the files because she murdered people. However, taking into account that Bruce's relationship with Talia is the focus of the episode, [[StrawHypocrite then why Talia has a picture if she as part of the Society of Shadows killed people (and possibly more) as well]]? Also the fact that Andrea murdered bad people while Talia possibly killed innocents... |
| 420 | ** Well, let's take into account that while Andrea [[FreudianExcuse turned to villainy]] for [[CynicismCatalyst her father's death]], Talia was raised since she was born to serve the Society of Shadows, her father's organization, and likely had a rough childhood whereas Andrea had all she could have due her father's ties to the mob. From this point of view, [[HypocriteHasAPoint maybe Bruce thought Talia was just misguided due her upbringing while he deemed Andrea beyond saving just like Alfred told him]]? |
| 421 | ** It probably has a lot to do with the fact that Talia did the things she did under her father's orders out of loyalty to him, while Andrea did it of her own accord. |
| 422 | [[/folder]] |
| 423 | |
| 424 | [[folder: Spellbinder's motive doesn't really work]] |
| 425 | * Why is he a psychologist working in a school? This guy is smart enough to create holograms and other devices. It's like if I discovered a cure for cancer, but decided to work as a garbage man. He could have been a billionaire. For him to be mad at the school for being underpaid is silly. Why didn't he quit his job and sell his inventions? |
| 426 | ** Why doesn't The Shocker just sell his gauntlets and shock absorbant cloth for military use? Its CutLexLuthorACheck in full swing. Villains who are only in crime for the money dont sell their ideas or skills because if they did there'd be no story. |
| 427 | [[/folder]] |
| 428 | |
| 429 | [[folder: Possibly a predestination paradox?]] |
| 430 | * Young Bruce enters the future and sees his older self and a new Batman. The new Batman's suit probably inspired Bruce to make a high tech suit. As an old man, he encounters a teen who later steals the high tech suit. |
| 431 | ** To quote Old Bruce from the particular episode: "Flawless logic, except that I have no memory of ever going into the future and meeting my older self or of anything else that's happening today." It's safe to assume that anything that episode dealt with was largely irrelevant due to time manipulation (It could even been wiped from his memory the same as the entire experience was wiped from her memory) It's more likely that the development of the suit was more about Bruce needing to augment his abilities as he aged than any precognitive thoughts. After all, Old Bruce never did tell his younger self how or even who the new Batman is. |
| 432 | ** Batman and Green Lantern Stewart do remember that story because they were still around when Batman restored reality. Aside from this, the Beyond future will be the same it was before Clinton messed it up. |
| 433 | ** Batman may be following his own advice ("Leave it be. You don't want to know too much of your future.") and putting the whole matter out of mind, reminding himself that it's ''a'' possible future, not ''the'' future. For one thing, he doesn't want to get the idea that he's somehow predestined to survive into old age -- the prudent thing is to assume that every fight might be his last if he isn't careful. |
| 434 | [[/folder]] |
| 435 | |
| 436 | [[folder:"Ascension"]] |
| 437 | * So, Blight masked his radiation signature by hiding somewhere that was already radioactive. My question is: how many of those places exist in Gotham City to make it necessary to follow his assistant to find his hiding spot? |
| 438 | ** Probably quite a few. The chemicals that created the Earth Mover are implied to be radioactive, and the containers in Rats! that likely led to Patrick's mutation and the giant sewer Rats have radioactive warnings on them. Also, at the beginning of Meltdown, Derek Powers has his goons illegally dispose of radioactive waste. He's likely been doing this for years, but this is the first time there's a Batman to stop him. There are most likely radioactive hot spots all over Gotham. |
| 439 | [[/folder]] |
| 440 | |
| 441 | [[folder:"Eyewitness"]] |
| 442 | * When Barbara went to the [=McGinnis=] household to look for Terry, did the cops with her know the reason? Since she was ready to let the world know she was Batgirl and Bruce was the original Batman after Terry's arrest, has she already told anyone in the force about Terry being Batman? |
| 443 | [[/folder]] |
| 444 | |
| 445 | [[folder:Terry in the Static Shock Crossover]] |
| 446 | * Why is Terry so mean and angry in Static Shock? The Terry in that crossover acts nothing like the Terry in Batman Beyond. He would constantly fuss at Static whenever he messes up. You could say he was hanging around Bruce too long, but he doesn't have to act EXACTLY like Bruce. You can still crack jokes and save the world. It works for Spider-man. |
| 447 | ** Well, the Future Static has been missing for quite some time. Probably Bruce had Terry went out and search for the missing hero 24/7 which can build up a lot of stress. Also, to have Bruce have Terry do that meant that Bruce respects Static on the same level as Super Man which makes it a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}}. |
| 448 | [[/folder]] |
| 449 | |
| 450 | [[folder: The Episode "Splicers" Redux]] |
| 451 | I have various questions about this episode: |
| 452 | * What was up with Terry trying to talk into Dana to get spliced? Why on earth would he do that? If he was looking for an excuse to get into the institute, he could simply have said that ''he'' wanted to get spliced. |
| 453 | ** Two reasons: Dana was already considering while Terry wasn't. The change in attitude toward her getting spliced would not be as suspicious as if he changed and wanted to get spliced himself. Second, because the focus isn't on Terry in the lab, it allows him to have a more critical eye without attracting suspicion. |
| 454 | * What was Terry trying to accomplish by injecting Cuvier with everything he found? Did he think that making him freakier would make him an easier foe? And don't his actions strike anyone as too excessive for a good guy? "In order to stop him, I'm going to make mincemeat of his DNA and turn him into a deformed abomination that needs to be put out of his misery". I'm really surprised Terry didn't get called out for it by Bruce or Barbara. |
| 455 | ** Terry's a combat pragmatist and he was in a bad spot. He was counting on a feral reaction or something similar and it didn't pan out. As for not having any reprimand, Cuvier wasn't well liked by either of them so reprimanding Terry for doing so is counterproductive. |
| 456 | *** Counterproductive? Terry just condemned Cuvier to a FateWorseThanDeath! When Barbara thought he had killed Mad Stan, she put the whole police force on his ass, and this was arguably ''worse'' than that. |
| 457 | * Similarly, what was Cuvier trying to accomplish by splicing Batman into a Man-bat? All he did was make him stronger and deadlier, making it easier for him to stop his cronies. And what was he going to do if Man-bat Batman turned against him right there? It's like the writers felt that since splicing was the episode's theme, they just had to flesh out the idea to its full extent by giving us a spliced Man-bat Batman and an over-spliced monster, even if it didn't make much sense. |
| 458 | ** Cuvier knew how long the splicing was going to take and the results. He knew Batman wasn't going to keep up the fight (and he was prepared to fight back if the spliced Batman did attack him) and he was counting on Batman either helping his goon squad or finishing the job for them. The only thing he didn't count on was that Batman was going to break free of the restraints before the injection took effect, but that was a suit function, not the splicing. |
| 459 | * How did the D.A. know that the attackers were sent by Dr. Cuvier? For all he knew, they may have decided to take matters into their own hands, working independently. |
| 460 | ** The attackers outright said they were with Cuvier just before Batman showed up. |
| 461 | * How is Dr. Cuvier able to tell the contents of each syringe? They all look the same and don't have any labels! |
| 462 | ** For simplicity sake the animators don't typically show small writing. The labeling most likely was on the solid parts of the injectors. |
| 463 | * How did Ace know when to break into the place to save Terry? |
| 464 | ** Ace heard a lot of grunts from Terry then stopped hearing them. Considering he was trained to fight and heard his, for lack of a better term "friend", in trouble, he came in. |
| 465 | [[/folder]] |
| 466 | |
| 467 | [[folder: Derek Powers' eyes]] |
| 468 | * How did Powers disguise his radioactive eyes when he wore his fake skin? His fake "normal" eyes couldn't possibly be part of the skin, as he was able to move them. |
| 469 | [[/folder]] |
| 470 | |
| 471 | [[folder: About Bruce's wealth]] |
| 472 | * If Bruce no longer has his wealth like the producers said, how did he repair the Batsuit on the few occasions it was torn or damaged, and repair or replace the Batmobile when it was destroyed in Joyride and The Call? |
| 473 | ** Well, he is Batman. He must have had a secret fortune stacked somewhere in case he couldn't access his own wealth the normal way. |
| 474 | [[/folder]] |
| 475 | |
| 476 | [[folder: Once Burned]] |
| 477 | * Why was Terry so opposed to Ten stealing to save her family? The people she was trying to steal from were criminals, so they deserved it, and she was only doing it to get her family back (or so she thought). By contrast, Superman and the rest of the Justice League were okay with Wonder Woman stealing priceless artifacts to save her people in the JL cartoon; they even helped her! |
| 478 | ** Possibly because she ''was'' stealing from criminals, a lot of very powerful criminals. He might've thought that the last thing the hostage situation needed was pissing off all the rich career criminals in the city at once. |
| 479 | [[/folder]] |
| 480 | |
| 481 | [[folder: Barbara's treatment of Bruce in Eyewitness]] |
| 482 | * What's up with the way she treats him when he tries to tell her that Spellbinder tricked her? He says "Barbara, you have to listen to me", and she cuts him off and refuses to listen, saying "Wrong. Those days are long gone, Bruce". What's with her rudeness? He ''does'' listen to her when she goes to talk with him. Does she believe that she has the exclusive privilege of being listened to by him since she's the commissioner/knows his secret, but he's not owed the courtesy and respect of being heard in return? |
| 483 | ** It was already clear that Barbara has developed resentment towards Bruce. And after Bruce chose to help Terry over her, that could hurt. |
| 484 | [[/folder]] |
| 485 | |
| 486 | [[folder: April Moon]] |
| 487 | * When the bad guys discovered him, why did Terry hide Dr. Corso in that cellar? He was his greatest weapon against them, as he was the only one who knew the password to deactivate their powers. And by that point, he no longer had any reason not to use it, given that he just found out that April wasn't in danger, and was in fact with them. |
| 488 | ** Terry probably thought Corso was too distraught to fight back after seeing his wife kiss Bullwhip. |
| 489 | ** Terry was probably trying (successfully) to get Corso out of danger and (unsuccessfully) quiet him down before the gang was alerted. |
| 490 | * Was April already dating Bullwhip before meeting Corso, or did she fall for him while being held hostage (stockholm syndrome)? Let's assume April is really a sleazy person, wouldn't being married to a successful doctor be better than being a thug's girlfriend? Not saying it's okay to use men for money, but I'm curious about her sudden switch of sides. |
| 491 | ** The former. IIRC, the episode heavily implies that the entire scheme was concocted ahead of time, and that April was a willing participant from the outset. |
| 492 | [[/folder]] |
| 493 | |
| 494 | [[folder: The Egg Baby]] |
| 495 | * Why didn't Terry ask the teacher to be paired up with Dana, his actual girlfriend instead of Blade Sommer? Things would have been less complicated for him in that episode. |
| 496 | ** Like the teacher would spoon fed you. She probably wants her students to undergo situations where your spouse is less than stellar. |
| 497 | [[/folder]] |
| 498 | |
| 499 | [[folder: No super villain decided to attack Gotham during Batman's 20-year absent?]] |
| 500 | * During those 20 years, no super villain thought about taking over the city? How is Gotham still in one piece? |
| 501 | ** Bruce is old now, why not the super villains? |
| 502 | ** Maybe Derek Powers paid off all the would-be supervillains. |
| 503 | ** Maybe they did, and one of the 8,000 other super heroes saved the day? Clark's still fond of Bruce, so there isn't a reason he wouldn't save Gotham, or any city for that matter, if it was necessary. |
| 504 | ** [[CardboardPrison Arkham]] finally removed their revolving door? |
| 505 | ** Many of the villains seem pretty obsessed with Batman. They'll immediately drop their latest scheme to go after him. Plus, dressing up in colorful costumes and employing themed henchmen seems designed to draw attention, while keeping a lower profile might let them actually get away with their crimes. So maybe once Bats stopped showing up they got bored and retired or found some other hero to mess with. In ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns the Joker spent ten years sitting around Arkham nearly catatonic after Bruce hung up the cape. |
| 506 | [[/folder]] |
| 507 | |
| 508 | [[folder: One Blurry Photo]] |
| 509 | * So despite assassinating someone in an airport, only a single blurry photo of Curaré exists? |
| 510 | ** She's a master of stealth. Of course, the only evidence of her existence is just a blurry photo. |
| 511 | [[/folder]] |
| 512 | |
| 513 | [[folder: the episode Disappearing Inque]] |
| 514 | * I get Aaron was fired for talking to and kissing the block of ice (because he was being unknown to him monitored) that Inque was frozen in. But near the end when Aaron himself becomes sorta like Inque but not completely how was the attendant that was already caring him for months not fired as she was being (unbeknownst to her) monitored. |
| 515 | ** I presume the difference was the fact that Aaron also kind of kissed Inque's frozen form a few times and stuff while said employee wasn't doing that. |
| 516 | [[/folder]] |
| 517 | |
| 518 | [[folder: Why doesn't the Batsuit provide some protection against electrical attacks?]] |
| 519 | * Seriously, everyone in Gotham seems to have a taser and Terry gets lit up about every other episode. You'd really think that at some point Bruce and Terry would modify the suit to provide at least some protection. |
| 520 | [[/folder]] |
| 521 | |
| 522 | [[folder: Out of the Past: What was the plan for Young Bruce]] |
| 523 | * I know Ra's plan was to pass young Bruce off as his and Talia's son but what was the plan before that? Was Bruce really going to go back to Gotham looking decades younger? |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Headscratchers / BatManBeyond
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
