Characters / DCAU: Terry McGinnis

Batman Beyond character index
Main Characters (Terry McGinnis, Bruce Wayne) | McGinnis Family | Villains (One Shot Villains, The Joker) | Recurring Characters | Justice League Unlimited (Superman) | Comic-Only Characters

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Batman II (Terry McGinnis)

"This is UNBEARABLY cool!"

^{Click here to see him as Terry McGinnis}

^{Click here to see him in "Epilogue"}

^{Click here to see adult Terry McGinnis in "Epilogue"}

Voiced by: Will Friedle

Voiced by (Latin American Spanish): Kaihiamal Martínez (Batman Beyond Seasons 1 and 2), Paul Silvestre Gillman (Batman Beyond Seasons 3 and 4 and Justice League), Luis Alfonso Mendoza (Static Shock)

Voiced by (German): Christian Stark

Voiced by (Italian): Nicola Carrassi

Voiced by (European French): Didier Cherbuy

Voiced by (Portuguese): Clecio Souto

Appearances: Batman Beyond | Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker | Static Shock | The Zeta Project | Justice League Unlimited | Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Two

"I'm trying to make up for past sins. The state says my three months in juvie wiped me clean, but my soul tells me different. Every time I put on that suit, it's my chance to help people who are in trouble. I guess, on a personal level, it's a chance to look like a worthwhile human being again; in my eyes, if no one else's. It's what I want, Bruce."

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

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

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#-H

• 10-Minute Retirement: In Return of the Joker, Bruce demands Terry give back the batsuit because he doesn't want Terry to face the Joker and dismisses Terry's motivations as Batman. A stunned and angered Terry retorts by throwing the Batsuit at Bruce's feet and leaving. It doesn't last long when it turns out the Joker knows Terry's secret identity.
  Terry: It's what I want, Bruce.
  Bruce: Stupid kid. You don't know what you want. None of you ever did.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: His batarangs are as sharp as the plot demands, and they could theoretically cut through anything.
• Action Hero: Just like the Batman before.
• Adventure Rebuff: Bruce refuses to help Terry at first. Once Terry steals the batsuit, Bruce shuts it down remotely, but eventually decides to let him become the next Batman.
• Alternate Company Equivalent:
  • He is DC's counterpart to Peter Parker. A kid burdened with the guilt of losing his parental figure, living with his maternal figure and constantly making excuses to her, his girlfriend and others for missing engagements while being a high school student overworked with trouble. The Batman Beyond outfit is In the Style of Spider-Man, full body face-covering without a cape albeit extendable wings. Likewise, just like Peter, Terry is often misunderstood by authority and society, and often has to deal with the ingratitude of the people he saves. He's also a quipster just like webhead.
  • His characteristics, however— a rebellious young man, the successor of a famous animal-themed superhero, living in a dystopian cyberpunk future, and possessing an advanced suit (completed with Absurdly Sharp Claws, selective Wall Crawl, and arm blades) as well as an anti-heroic personality—make him more similar to Miguel O'Hara than Peter Parker. Humorously, Miguel's second costume in Spider-Man 2099 Vol 3 #1 (2015-2017) of the All-New, All-Different Marvel event shares similarities with Terry's advanced suit.
• Alternate Self: In JLU's "The Once and Future Thing Part Two: Time, Warped", where Chronos creates an alternate timeline, Terry is shot by a group of soldiers appearing from a time shift. He is injured and captured by four clones of Dee Dee. They proceed to electrocute him and he screams in agony. Bruce calls out to Terry, only to hear Terry become silent; Bruce is devastated and mourns the loss of Terry. The timeline is restored once the younger Batman and Green Lantern stop Chronos, and Terry's death is averted.
• Always Save the Girl: He often puts Max's safety above everything else. Usually averted with his girlfriend Dana, as she's rarely in danger in a way that conflicts with his duties.
• Animal Motif: The Bat(man).
• Anti-Hero Substitute: While he has most of the heroic qualities of the original, the series' premise of a hot-headed Snark Knight and former juvenile delinquent stepping into Bruce's place after the latter's retirement is in line with this trope.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In Return of the Joker, he asks a question while discussing the Joker that results in Bruce asking him to return the bat suit.
  Terry: So how is it possible he could still be around after all this time?
  Bruce: It's not possible. He died years ago.
  Terry: You're sure?
  Bruce: I was there. (begins to walk away)
  Terry: …You killed him, didn't you?
  (Bruce stops and hangs his head, but still doesn't look at him)
  Terry: He was gonna do something so terrible that you had no other choice.
  Bruce: Terry…
  Terry: That was it, wasn't it?
• Asleep in Class: Terry is shown to fall asleep in class due to the pressures of balancing his normal life with the responsibilities of being Batman.
• The Atoner: Terry had an argument with his father and left the house in a huff the night his father died, leaving him to wonder if things would have been different if he'd stayed home that night. In Return of the Joker, he explains to Bruce that he's also kept up the role as Batman because he feels like he still needs to atone for his criminal record.
  Terry: Hey, I was the one who broke in and swiped the suit, remember? Yes, there was my dad's murder, but we come from two different worlds, Mr. Wayne. I wasn't like you, or the kids you took in. I was a pretty bad kid once, ran with a rough crowd, broke a lot of laws to say nothing to my folks' hearts. The kind of punk you wouldn't have wasted a second punch on back in the day.
  Bruce: Your point?
  Terry: I'm trying to make up for past sins. The state says my three months in juvie wiped me clean, but my soul tells me different. Every time I put on that suit, it's my chance to help people who are in trouble, I guess on a personal level. It's a chance to look like a worthwhile human being again, in my eyes, if no one else's. It's what I want, Bruce.
• Attack Reflector: Did it to one of Blight's radiation blasts once, but it didn't work out too well for either of them.
• Badass Boast:
  • Belts one out during his first foray in the new Batsuit in "Rebirth".
    Mr. Fixx: You're pretty strong for some clown who thinks he's Batman.
    Terry: I am Batman!
  • In "Shriek"
    Bruce: The voice kept calling me "Bruce". In my mind, that's not what I call myself.
    Terry: What do you call yourself? ...Oh yeah, I suppose you would. (deepens voice) But that's my name now.
• Badass in Distress:
  • Briefly at two points in the series. Once in "Disappearing Inque," when Inque captures him alive instead of killing him in order to lure Bruce into a trap. The second time is unrelated to his double life as Batman: Big Time decides that he wants someone he knows to watch his back now that he's been established in the criminal underground, so he has Terry kidnapped and brought to him.
  • There's also "Where's Terry", in which lost in the subways and being hunted by Shriek.
• Badass Longcoat: In "Epilogue", an older Terry now sports one. Other than the length, it's virtually identical to his brown jacket he wore in the series.
• Badass Normal: Before stealing the suit, and whenever he's not wearing it, he can still handle supervillains. In the Pilot, before becoming Batman and still just a regular high schooler, he handled the Jokerz with impressive ability. His abilities only sharpen as he gains crime-fighting experience.
• Badbutt: This being the DC Animated Universe, Terry is as delinquent and foul-mouthed as is appropriate for little kids.
• Bash Brothers: He fights alongside a rejuvenated Bruce in "Out of the Past".
• Barehanded Blade Block: Does this against Talia, or rather Ra's. Possibly justified by the Batsuit, but then again, the sword's strikes were tearing through it like nothing and it was against a rather nasty leap attack. For bonus points, having grabbed the blade, he then slams it into some Explosive Instrumentation.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Outmatched by the Joker in a physical fight, Terry instead plays mind games with the clown, mocking his fixation with Batman and calling him a pathetic comedian whose gags are too lame. The psychological attacks that Joker has never suffered from the previously silent Batman send him into a crazed rage. The clown always wanted to make Batman laugh, but when Batman finally laughs, he's laughing at how he failed to break the Bat.
• Boring Insult: He calls Joker a piss-poor comedian who failed to break the Bat. It works spectacularly.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: In "Curse of the Kobra", Terry received further training from Kairi Tanaga, who commented that one of his weaknesses was a tendency to lower his guard on the left side.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: His Batsuit is technically a museum piece in the Batcave, though he said, "This suit may be old, but it's still cutting-edge." He uses other artifacts from Bruce's crime-fighting days in the series as well (e.g. Nightwing's domino mask for ID obfuscation when the Batsuit was taken over by Vance's consciousness, along with some old-style Batarangs and one of Bruce's old utility belts).
• Break Them by Talking: In contrast to Bruce, Terry is much more of a chatterbox as Batman and often uses taunts to keep his enemies off balance, especially Joker.
• Bring It: When he defeats every grunt but one, he decides to smile and beckon him with a finger.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • One of the few people who thinks Freeze is a changed man, and was clearly distraught when Victor returned to his old ways.
    Terry: Guess you were right about Freeze all along.
    Bruce: We both were.
  • Terry had a hard time believing that there's a traitor in the Justice League, let alone that it was Superman, the one who recruited Terry in the first place.
  • In the Static Shock episode "Future Shock", Terry is cold, aloof, and critical toward Virgil largely because the future Static is one of the most powerful and beloved members of the Justice League. The idea that this flippant, immature time-traveling Virgil becomes one of the world's greatest heroes is a huge source of cognitive dissonance for Terry. It's only after they successfully free the future Static that Terry says he's starting to see the resemblance.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The Brooding Boy to Dana's Gentle Girl. He's ashamed of his delinquent past and his father's death, and she gives him nothing but comfort and empathy.
• Brought Down to Badass: "Lost Soul" has the Batsuit taken over by a hostile AI. Terry goes up against it equipped only with one of Bruce's old utility belts and Nightwing's old mask to conceal his identity, and wins.
• Bully Hunter: In his Establishing Character Moment, Terry protects a fellow passenger from being extorted by a Jokerz. While at school, Terry is the one who stands up to bullies (usually Jerk Jock Nelson) from trodding on his schoolmates.
• Byronic Hero: Terry is physically attractive. He is motivated to become Batman to seek justice against his father's murderers. He remains as Batman to make up for his delinquent past. As Batman he is intelligent, perceptive, cunning and adaptable in situations. Terry is determined to live up to the title of Batman, often against Bruce's and Max's assistance. Terry's greatest shock was learning he was the son of Bruce and contemplating if his life was a result of the curse of Batman, only to settle on the good things in his life despite the fabricated circumstances of his life.
• Calling the Old Man Out: A Fantasy Sequence in "Epilogue" shows Terry chewing Bruce out when he believes Bruce overwrote his DNA and manipulated his life to make Terry become Batman. Terry now thinks that the whole legacy is a curse and blames it all on Bruce.
  • He even notes how this isn't the first time somebody became disillusioned with Bruce and gave up the cape and cowl.
    Terry: Dick, Barbara, Tim, Selena...they all loved you, but eventually every single one of them left you. Ever wonder why?
    Bruce: Not for an instant.
  • The last jab in the argument...
    Terry: You know what, old man? All those years it turns out everyone was right: You're insane. Being Batman's no honor...it's a ''curse''.
• Canon Foreigner: He is an original character who was created for the series and the entire DCAU.
• Cassandra Truth: "Sneak Peek" has a Jerkass reporter who can pass through walls managing to get video of Bruce Wayne working with his protege, Neo Gotham's new Batman, Terry McGinnis. When Terry sees their pixelated faces on the news and his family excitedly gathering around the TV to find out just who Batman is, he feels that it would be better if they hear it from him rather than some gossip news reporter who got lucky. They laugh in his face.
• Changing of the Guard: He's the new Batman, while Bruce is now Mission Control. We fully see this is the case in the episode "Epilogue" where Bruce tells Terry that Superman called asking for Terry's opinion on something instead of Bruce's.
• Character Development: Terry begins the series as a cocky but slippery superhero who tends to overuse cheesy lines. As the show progresses, he finds his physical and mental abilities growing to the point where he can fight crime at several points without Bruce's help, in addition to developing a darker, more deadpan sense of humor. His final fight with Joker shows that Terry has arguably surpassed Bruce by developing his own style of taking down baddies.
• Cheap Costume: In "Lost Soul", he has to fight his own suit, now controlled by a malevolent AI. His costume? Nightwing's mask.
• Chocolate Baby: His and his brother's black hair makes it somewhat unlikely that their biological father could be the auburn Warren McGinnis, given their mother's red hair. Fans attribute the McGinnis parents' divorce to this, in part. The Justice League episode "Epilogue" explains this; Warren unknowingly had his reproductive DNA replaced by Cadmus with that of Bruce Wayne's in order to create a replacement Batman. Terry and his little brother are, on a hereditary biological level, Bruce's sons.
• Clothes Make the Superman: While already an extremely capable street fighter at the beginning of the series, his inexperience battling supervillains meant that Terry was, initially, almost entirely reliant on the Batsuit to see him through each battle. He expresses concern over this in the episode "Lost Soul". By the end, he proves that he's Batman even without the suit.
• Cool Car: With flight capabilities, the main transportation for the new Batman. This new Batmobile would incorporate similar gadgetry as previous Batmobiles and given the fact it's already airborne, precluded the need for the Batwing. Can pilot itself and can be summoned to Terry automatically when called. It could project a hologram of an ordinary vehicle over itself to avoid suspicion, camouflage itself in similar fashion to his Batsuit, for longer periods of time to deter vandals and tampering. The vehicle is operated through the suit's electronics reducing the amount of effort needed to pilot it. Its top speed is said to be Mach 3. The Batmobile also has a floor-embedded hatch, permitting Batman to drop straight down. The car carries an array of weapons and gadgets. Rear grappling hooks to tow or snag vehicles, bottom mounted magnetic grapples to catch and slow down vehicles. It's also armed with missiles.
• Combat Pragmatist: While Bruce makes a point to have Terry instructed in martial arts like he was, Terry has no qualms about fighting as dirty as he needs to to win. Something the Joker never anticipated. He also likes to belittle his opponents into making mistakes. Again, something the Joker never anticipated.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: With Bruce, in spades, starting with their backgrounds. Bruce was born into one of the richest families in Gotham, while Terry's the son of a struggling middle-class family. Bruce fights crime because, when he was young, he was a victim of it; Terry fights crime because when he was younger, he was a criminal. Bruce was also a ladies' man while Terry prefers being in committed relationships, and mostly settles with Dana. In the end, Bruce pushed everyone he cared about away and ended up mostly alone while Terry tries to keep those he cares about in his life so he doesn't end up like Bruce to the point we see that he plans to propose to Dana.
• The Cowl: Continuing the codified Batman.
• Create Your Own Villain: Downplayed. First, Blight was already the corrupt exec Derek Powers that set himself against Terry by ordering Terry's father killed. Secondly, he's unintentionally exposed to nerve gas which would have killed him had he not gotten a cure (extreme radiation, in this case), and the combination of them mutated him. Upon learning that he created Blight, Terry's reaction was to note that Powers was always a monster, all his transformation did was make that obvious.
• Dark Is Not Evil: A staple of Batman, Terry wears a dark costume as Batman.
• Dating Catwoman: His relationship with Ten/Melanie.
• Deadpan Snarker: Terry's much more chatty than Bruce. In fact, he's so wily with his words that he makes The Joker himself succumb to a Villainous Breakdown.
• Decoy Getaway: In "Blood Sport", he gives his jacket to a homeless man as he leaves the subway in order to distract Stalker.
• Delinquents: Downplayed. Sometime after his parents divorced, Terry turned into a juvenile delinquent and then became a member of a street gang, and had his fair share of run-ins with the Gotham Police Department in his early teens, even serving a three-month stint in juvenile hall. The writers made sure to establish his character arc before giving too much information on Terry's delinquent past, to keep it from taking over his characterization and make him more sympathetic. It was also foreshadowed from the opening episode. The tight restrictions Terry's father places on him, his style of combat and his tendency to taunt others and recognize their fighting style.
• Delivery Guy Infiltration: In "Shriek" he poses as a pizza delivery boy to infiltrate Richard Shreeve's lab.
• Determinator: Has endured beat-downs just as bad as, if not worse, than his mentor. He once jumped up to become Batman with four cracked ribs.
  Terry: I'll breathe on the weekend.
• Disappointed by the Motive: Once Bruce tells him that Joker is an Attention Whore who loves to gloat, Terry verbally pisses the clown for his pathetic attempts to make Batman laugh and motivations for villainy. Joker doesn't take this insult lightly.
• Domino Mask: When he had to fight his own Batsuit, he decided to put on the domino mask from Nightwing's display case to disguise himself. The old Batsuits had a few tears and rips in them.
• Dramatic Unmask: "Unmasked" had him pull off his mask during a rescue attempt in order to convince a kid named Miguel that it was okay to trust him. Bruce is understandably livid, explaining that because: a) Miguel knows what Terry looks like and b) he said he saw Batman's face when he was interviewed afterwards, every villain in the city will be after him for that information. It gets subverted when, subjected to a mental probe, Miguel has already replaced Terry's face with the face of his favorite cartoon hero.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Subverted in "Babel". Terry doesn't expect Gotham to be thankful for what he's done as Batman.
• Empowered Badass Normal: While not on the level of Bruce, he still has decent agility and is a good street-fighter without the Bat-suit, putting up a good fight against thugs before he ever had access to the Beyond Batsuit. With the Beyond Bat-suit, the criminals are in for a futuristic nightmare.
• Establishing Character Moment: In Terry's first scene, he expresses annoyance at the Jokerz in the train and then defends a woman when they try to snatch her purse, showing that he's a fairly decent kid.
• Et Tu, Brute?: In "Betrayal", Terry listens to Big Time's pleas for help only to discover that he's been betrayed.
• Evil Laugh: While taunting the Joker of all people. The clown has a spectacular breakdown when he finds himself out-trolled.
• Expy: Personality-wise, Terry has more in common with Peter Parker than with most other versions of Batman; he's an Ordinary High-School Student who becomes a superhero following the death of his paternal figure, struggles to balance his personal life with the demands of his crime-fighting career, and has a strong sarcastic streak. Even some of his supporting characters ^note  Dana = Mary Jane, Nelson Nash = Flash Thompson and Rogues Gallery ^note  Derek Powers = Norman Osborn, Stalker = Kraven The Hunter, etc. mirror Peter's.
• Fight Fire with Fire: A first-rate narcissist, Joker loves to hear himself laugh even if others don't, so Batman tells Terry to ignore it. Terry realizes he to loves to Trash Talk via the Boring Insult. It works.
• Flying Brick: One of the more notable departures from the original Batman, an iconic Badass Normal. Terry’s batsuit is a Powered Armor that makes him inhumanly strong and durable, and it can fly rather than simply glide thanks to its wings and rocket boots. And yes, his suit having superpowers he doesn’t does end up giving Terry a bit of a complex that he needs to work past.
• Foil: Terry was different from Bruce in many ways. Unlike his mentor, he had a normal childhood, and also faced the demands of a normal youth his age: a school career, his girlfriend Dana, and the responsibilities of an eldest son in a family which included his mother and his kid brother. In Amanda Waller's assessment, Terry may not be as smart as the old Batman, but he is every bit as devoted to helping others. A similarity between them is Bruce also had a mentor in Alfred to help guide him as well. The other difference being that while Bruce wasn't exactly gentle, he at least fought with certain rules. Terry on the other hand is completely willing to fight dirty much to the Joker's disgust. Overall, while Terry keeps the no killing rule, he is much more pragmatic.
• Forgot About His Powers: More often than not in missions that necessitate stealth, Terry forgets about the Batsuit's cloaking tech until it was too late.
• Frame-Up: In "Eyewitness" Batman makes an enemy of Commissioner Barbara Gordon when she believes she saw him murder Mad Stan in cold blood.
• Friend to All Children: Matt quickly became a fan of the new Batman protecting Gotham City and idolized the second Dark Knight, not knowing that the older brother he sought constantly to irritate and the hero he admired were one and the same. Even in "Heroes" during the Terrific Trio's time as government-approved superheroes did nothing to detract Matt's idolization, as he insisted that the three heroes were "twips" and that Batman "rips". In "Where's Terry?", when Batman was trapped in the tunnels, he met an orphan named Dak, and together they took down Shriek. In "Mind Games", he saves a young girl with psychic powers. There's also the boy in "Unmasked" who learned his secret identity and kept his secret.
• The Gadfly: He riles the Joker in a manner Bruce never did: diss the clown for his fixation with the original Batman and call his clown-themed gags lame. This was done so Joker would lower his guard and allow Terry to take him down with his joy buzzer, thus frying the DNA chip that was controlling Tim.
• Good Is Not Soft: While he's much nicer than his mentor, he makes up for it by being much less ready to rescue villains from their own fate.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Terry uses these over a formal fighting style his predecessor used, having first learned to fight on the streets. It later proves very useful against the Joker, who had acquired the original Batman's and Robin's fighting styles, but couldn't deal with Terry's style.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: More times than you'd expect.
  • In "Black Out", after his first encounter with Inque.
    Batman: What the heck was that?!
  • In "Eyewitness", when he is confronted by the police.
    Batman: Oh, I'm fragged!
• Great Detective:
  • As a successor to Batman of course and discussed in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
    Terry: If I was the Batman I was supposed to be I would have cracked this by now...would've punched exactly the right data into the computer or remembered that one little clue that everyone else overlooked.
    Bruce: It's rarely that simple.
  • Terry has not one, but two Eureka Moments in the movie itself:
    • "Nothing against your old partners, but I'm a completely different Batman. I was never a Robin, I never—" Terry notices the Robin costume is the only one out of all the other suits that was trashed.
    • When Bruce advises Terry to ignore the Joker's taunts and not respond, Terry realizes he's not Bruce. He has his own style.
    Terry: He's tough. Any suggestions, boss?
    Bruce: Joker's vain and likes to talk. He'll try to distract you, but don't listen. Block it out and power on through!
    Terry: Wait... I like to talk, too.
  • In "Epilogue", it's shown he also serves as a consultant to Superman with investigations. Amanda Waller, however, says that of the two, Bruce is still smarter.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Terry does lose his temper easily. This is what causes his fight with Nash in a school wrestling match in the first episode. His father grounding him and their subsequent fight before Terry storms out.
  Terry: Mom would hear me out.
  Warren: You're not living with your mom.
  Terry: [punches a wall] Don't remind me!
  Warren: That's your problem right there. You can't control your temper, and you better if you expect to get anywhere in life.
  Terry: Yeah, I'll be a big success just like you. [storms out of the house] I'm bailing.
• The Heckler: He ridicules Joker's clown-themed MO for villainy and fixation with the original Batman. Joker doesn't take this insult lightly. After all, hecklers are a comedian's worst nightmare.
• Heroic Bastard: "Epilogue" reveals that Terry is the biological son of Bruce when Warren McGinnis's DNA was overridden with Bruce's genetic code. And while Terry may be angsty he's a hero.
• Heroic Build: Lampshaded in "Epilogue".
  Waller: Why are superheroes always... so good-looking?
• Heroic Lineage: Cadmus leader Amanda Waller believed that Batman would always be needed. Collecting genetic samples that Bruce Wayne left around the city due to the various scrapes and bumps he takes in his line of work, Amanda picked out a target couple to inject these samples into, Warren and Mary McGinnis, overwriting Warren's reproductive DNA with Bruce Wayne's. Terry is then born as the biological offspring of Bruce Wayne. In order to bring this full circle, Waller attempts to have Terry's parents murdered to invoke the same feelings in Terry but the assassin doesn't go through with it. The project was thought to be over and done with until Terry's father is murdered... at which point he stumbles on the Batcave and dons the Batsuit... thus becoming Batman.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Discussed in "Babel". Hearing a story from Bruce, Terry asks how Bruce knew he would survive if Robin didn't show up, Bruce doesn't answer. Shreik then holds Gotham's sound vibrations for ransom unless Batman turns himself in. Batman instead is able to find Shriek and stop him. At the end, Bruce asks Terry if he didn't find Shriek if he would have turned himself in, Terry doesn't answer.
• Heroic Vow: At the end of "Epilogue".
  Bruce: I was worried about Gotham. If Batman's not around—
  Terry: I've got it covered. Always.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: In "Babel", Shriek shut off sound vibrations in the city. Gotham would rather have Batman turn himself in to Shriek to save their own selves because Batman was a menace anyway. Terry himself says he's not Batman for recognition, and at the end of the episode having survived a building collapse, he turns down aid from the medics on the scene.
• He Is All Grown Up: In "Epilogue", Terry is no longer a skinny teenager; he has a Heroic Build and a cool hairstyle.
• High-School Sweethearts: Has been dating Dana since they were both fourteen and "Epilogue" reveals he's planning to propose to her.
• Hope Bringer: For both Gotham in the future and on a personal level the retired Bat-Family members Bruce and Barbara, who were initially completely disillusioned with their past superhero work and had zero faith in the effectiveness of the very idea of vigilantism after having Seen It All and how Gotham still remains a crime-ridden cesspool up to forty years that nothing can be done about it. At first, they both vehemently refused Terry's efforts and demanded him to leave things be as it would change nothing, but Terry manages to get their thought-to-be impotent righteous beliefs renewed.
• Hot-Blooded: He's much more emotional than Bruce and even stole the Batsuit just to get revenge.

I-N

• Icy Blue Eyes: Of the piercing variety, though they're usually covered by the mask when he's at work. Also a hint as to his biological relationship with Bruce.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: His father's death was Terry's big motivation for super-heroics.
• Instant Expert: Though a little clumsy, Terry is able to figure out many of the Batsuit's functions and gadgets when he put it on the first time.
• I Regret Nothing: When he discovers his role in turning Derek Powers into Blight, Terry doesn't regret it for a second, since it means that everyone can now see Powers for the monster he really is.
  Terry: You mean, I made him that?
  Bruce: You may have. In part.
  Terry: Good. (Beat) Hey, this guy had my father murdered and all he's done since is hide from the law! Well, no more hiding for Mr. Derek Powers. Now everyone can see him for what he is... even in the dark.
• I Shall Taunt You: Outmatched by the Joker in a physical fight, Terry instead plays mind games with the clown, taunting him about his obsession with Batman and his sloppiness as a comedian, insisting, like the Joker told Bruce decades ago, that he's "pathetic", imitating the Joker's laugh at the ridiculousness of the "Clown Prince of Crime", saying that isn't funny or frightening. The psychological attacks which Joker has never suffered from the previously silent Batman send him into a crazed rage.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: A Fantasy Sequence in "Epilogue" shows Terry refusing to marry his lifelong love, Dana, out of fear his enemies will target her, and he ends their relationship. After talking with Waller and learning the truth about his heritage, he decides to defy this trope instead and ask her to marry him.
• I Work Alone: In "The Call", the Justice League finally accept Batman. Barda reminds him that joining full-time will put him one up on the first Batman, who wasn't always a team player, to which Terry coolly replies that maybe he and Bruce have something in common after all.
• Kid Hero: He takes over as Batman at age 17, and the series shows him balancing high school with his superhero duties.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: Just ask his girlfriend Dana.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": In "The Call", Terry is awestruck by Superman's appearance in Gotham, and later admits he's considered the Justice League as heroes his entire life.
• Legacy Character: A Decon-Recon Switch. Terry believes at first he's been cursed to be Batman against his will, only to realize everything in his life, including the choice to be Batman, is entirely under his control.
  Terry: How can anyone be their own man living someone else's dream?
• Likes Older Women: His attraction to Dr. Price in "Joyride" and (initially) Talia al Ghul.
• Love Interests: Dana Tan is his official girlfriend and he has an on-and-off thing with Melanie Walker (a.k.a. Ten of the Royal Flush Gang).
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Dana got really sick of being perpetually Stood Up, and his foray into other prospects got him into a Dating Catwoman mess. Luckily for him, Dana eventually comes around, as seen in the Distant Finale.
• Mentor's New Hope: At the end of "Babel", Bruce thanks Terry for reminding him why he became Batman in the first place, for saving Gotham City and being the hero able to make the Heroic Sacrifice. He also serves as this for the older and still active Superman, who considers him Justice League material, even after his mind control wears off.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Terry wears Bruce's final Batsuit, a black suit with a red Bat-symbol and grey compartments for the belt.
• Mr. Fanservice: He's a younger, initially cocky, Troubled, but Cute Batman, not to mention a supreme Pretty Boy, is Troubled, but Cute and gets quite a few Shirtless Scenes. If the writers were trying to get more female viewers, it worked.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Downplayed because Terry is quite muscular, but given his batsuit enhances his strength, he is capable of going against bigger opponents with ease. Even without the batsuit, he is capable of fighting bigger guys. In the pilot, he beats up a member of the Jokerz, twice his size, then punches out Nelson Nash, who is taller and bigger than Terry and then picks a fight with the Jokerz gang.
• My Greatest Failure: As Batman, letting Inque follow him back to the Batcave in "Black Out". So much that in "Disappearing Inque", he spends hours fortifying the Batcave with steel plates so she couldn't break in. In "Inqueling", he tells Max that Inque is a villain he has to deal with because by allowing her to follow him back to the Batcave that one time, he put Bruce's life in danger.
• Nice Guy: He's more than willing to fight against the Jokerz to defend people, and that's before he became Batman. Also, he stands up to bullies who pick on others at school.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero; He revealed his identity to a small child to save them. While this was noble and not much else could be done in the circumstances it still risked endangering Terry's family and made the boy a target.

O-Y

• Offhand Backhand: Terry is being mentored by the master after all.
  • Lampshaded in the episode "Payback". Terry gets knocked out from behind and later gets a scolding from Bruce:
    Bruce: Why weren't you watching your back?
    Terry: I was too busy watching my front! Am I supposed to have eyes everywhere?
    Bruce: Only if you want to live to a ripe old age.
    Terry: You don't make it sound too inviting.
  • In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Terry manages to pull this off himself, which is part of his claiming/growing into the role.
• Official Couple: He is in a committed relationship with Dana throughout the series (with a brief dalliance with Ten/Melanie).
• One of the Girls: Most of his high school associates are girls, specifically his girlfriend Dana, Max and Chelsea.
• Ordinary High-School Student: But then he met Bruce and became the new Batman.
• Part-Time Hero: As a Foil to Bruce. He resents the loss of his free time to fighting villains, and there's considerable friction between him and Bruce, who treats normal life as just a cover for crime-fighting, since he became the mask long ago and never took it off despite never physically putting it on for twenty years. Unlike his mentor, Terry faced the demands of a normal youth his age: a school career, his girlfriend Dana, and the responsibilities of an eldest son in a family which included his mother and his kid brother. Although it was often a greater strain for him to maintain his secret life with Mary, Matt and Dana, Terry was able find a source of solace with Bruce, Barbara, Max and Ace.
• Parting-Words Regret: He bitterly regrets his last conversation with his father.
  Terry: "I yelled at him, Mom. He grounded me and I wouldn't listen. The things I said—!"
• Pretty Boy: One thing that immediately stood out to fans was just how pretty he was! Even amongst Batmen who are supposed to be Chick Magnets.
  • Many years after the main events of Batman Beyond in "Epilogue", he's shown to have developed a Heroic Build like Bruce before him, but still manages to be as pretty as ever.
• Powered Armor: The high-tech Batsuit was developed to compensate for Bruce's advancing age, and eventually passed on to Terry when he became Gotham's new savior. Despite being 30 years old, its technology was so advanced that the Suit was still considered state of the art by the time Terry discovered it.
  • Chest Insignia: Wouldn't be a batsuit without one.
  • Super-Strength: The Batsuit's neuromuscular amplification gave Terry superhuman strength, agility, and endurance by amplifying his physical abilities at least tenfold.
  • Super-Toughness: The suit granted significant resistance to water, electricity, heat and radiation. In "Unmasked", he walked through fire to save Miguel Diaz. In a Static Shock episode "Future Shock", he was shocked by Static's power. In "Meltdown", the suit protected Terry against Blight's radiation bolts, but Bruce pointed out its protection is limited.
  • Super-Senses: Enhanced visual assistance that allowed him to see in the dark. The visor could also serve as digital binoculars and an infrared filter. Visual from the Batsuit could be fed back to the main computer in the Batcave; it could also receive visual from the main computer, allowing for superior tactical planning.
  • Battle Boomerang: Batarangs in different varieties: Regular, Electric, Explosive, and batarangs specially designed for restraining and/or reeling in.
  • Comm Links: Allowed Terry to keep in constant contact with Bruce at the Batcave.
  • Rocket Boots: Enabling thrust for Flight.
  • Invisibility Cloak: Built-in cloaking device that enables almost complete camouflage. Its only weakness is that he becomes visible if UV light is shined on him.
  • Deadly Disc: Discs that can be fired from the top of the hands to disarm, cut or stun.
  • Wall Crawl: Electromagnetic pads in the soles of the boots for adhesion to certain surfaces. Terry could stand upside-down from the ceiling.
  • Absurdly Sharp Claws: Retractable claws which could be used to cut or facilitate climbing.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: Grappling guns built into the forearms along with a regular old-fashioned grappling gun.
  • Laser Cutter: Wrist-mounted laser shooter capable of melting metal and stunning his opponents.
• Protagonist Title: In a retroactive, and roundabout, way, the project that Amanda Waller initially performed that was meant to turn him into a new Batman, by both genetically engineering him to be Bruce's son, and attempting to create the same scenario that caused Bruce to become Batman, was called Project Batman Beyond.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Inverted. His suit is all black with the bat insignia being red. And, he's The Hero.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Bruce's Blue because he is more youthfully foolhardy and lacks Bruce's stoicism.
• Save the Villain: He's tried, at least:
  • In "Meltdown", he tries his best to save Freeze, but Freeze doesn't want to be saved, and blocks Terry out of the building to ensure he doesn't go down with him.
    Terry: You've gotta get out of here, Freeze! This whole place is gonna go!
    Freeze: Believe me, you're the only one who cares.
  • In "Sneak Peek", despite Peek being a sleazy gossip-monger who wanted to expose his Secret Identity and killed one of Bruce's associates at Wayne-Powers for his intangibility belt, Terry tries to save him, but Peek can't stay solid long enough. By contrast, Bruce couldn't care less about what happens to Peek.
  • He saves one of the Dee Dee sisters from falling during their heist in the beginning of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
  • He saves the Repeller from being pulled into a giant turbine.
  • He tried to save Ra's al Ghul-in-Talia's-body, only for Bruce himself to stop him. One, because it was hopeless. Two, because whatever Terry was trying to save had died a long time ago.
• Secret Identity: He has a harder time keeping his identity secret than Bruce ever did because of his family and girlfriend. In "Hidden Agenda", Max figures it out and becomes his Sidekick.
• Small Steps Hero: In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
  Terry: I know what you're thinking... I messed up. I let the clown go in order to save those people.
  Bruce: You did the right thing.
• Spider-Man Send-Up: Though not a true Expy, many of the ways he differs from the original Batman show a lot of inspiration from Peter Parker: he's a teenage hero, his outfit is a full bodysuit with a facemask rather than a cowl, his fighting style focuses on Super-Strength and agility over martial arts, he has a family but lost his father figure, and he's fond of snarking in battle. It's not uncommon to see the series as a whole described as "what if Batman trained Spider-Man?" Several villains have direct counterparts as well, in powers and/or personality, such as:
  • Derek and Paxton Powers = Norman and Harry Osborn.
  • Dr. Abel Cuvier = Dr. Curt Connors.
  • False Face = Chameleon.
  • Inque = Venom, Carnage, Hydro-Man, Sandman.
  • Shriek = Shocker.
  • Spellbinder = Mysterio.
  • Stalker = Kraven.
• Stay Frosty: Terry tells Chelsea, who is being brainwashed and tortured at a "tough love ranch," to "stay schway" until he can save her.
• Stealth Expert: Although he starts out rusty getting caught in the pilot "Rebirth" by Blight's security. His suit also has invisibility, so that helps.
• Super Hero Origin: A Decon-Recon Switch in "Epilogue", when Terry finds out he is genetically Bruce's child, he feels like the story of his path to become Batman is a lie. Waller admits to trying to recreate the events that created the original Batman, titled Project Batman Beyond, only to back out because killing a boy's parents to do so is a mockery of what actually happened to Bruce and the complexities that made him become Batman. The Central Theme of the episode is that it really doesn't matter what set Terry to become Batman, he has control of his destiny.
• Superior Successor: Zigzagged. His outfit and equipment are far superior to the original Batman, but he lacks the experience that Bruce Wayne had and is more cocky. However, by the time of Return of the Joker and "Epilogue" from Justice League, Terry has, in several respects arguably surpassed Bruce. He's able to keep those he loves close to him without giving up Batman, and he accomplishes something else that Bruce never could as Batman: break the Joker by talking and end his reign of terror for good.
• Supporting Protagonist: Terry often serves as this in stories dealing with Bruce's past such as "Out of the Past" (which deals with Bruce losing the love of his life) and Return of the Joker where much of the drama focuses on Batman's former career and how it ended.
• Surpassed the Teacher: By the time of Return of the Joker and the epilogue episode of Justice League, Terry has proven his mettle as the new Batman by keeping close to those he loves without abandoning his role and doing something Bruce never did as the OG Batman: defeating the Joker permanently by making him the punchline.
• Sympathy for the Devil:
  • In "Meltdown", Terry mourns the apparent death of Mr. Freeze, believing he was a changed man, and decides that Bruce was right about Freeze being evil. However, Bruce admits that Terry was also right about Fries being a good man.
  • He has a downplayed instance of this at the end of "Inqueling". While Terry has no reason to be sad about Inque's apparent demise, given she tried to torture and kill both him and Bruce, he nonetheless makes it clear he's disgusted and angry that she was "killed" for money by her own daughter. He coldly warns Deanna that Inque is still out there and leaves her to her fear.
• Teen Genius: Terry extensively studied Bruce's old files to develop his skills at medicine, mechanics, and investigation. Though he was not formally trained as a detective, he was intelligent and often made intuitive leaps that surprised his mentor. Terry was also very street-smart, which enabled him to go undercover in many situations and often talk his way out of a tight fix.
• Terror Hero: Like Bruce before him, Terry scares the everloving crap out of his foes in order to create the larger-than-life persona of Batman and frighten Gotham's criminals into submission. It works against him in the episode "Unmasked", where a boy named Miguel is trapped in the middle of a building fire but runs away from Terry due to how frightening the Batman suit is.
• That Man Is Dead: A Fantasy Sequence in "Epilogue" shows Terry quitting the Justice League and claiming Batman is dead.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Terry takes a somewhat more loose approach to this than Bruce did. He won't personally kill, but he won't go out of his way to save criminals, either. He indirectly killed one person in the pilot alone, and it would have been two if Powers didn't have good doctors. Also, he's willing to use deadly force in life-or-death combat.
  • He very frequently ends up killing one-shot villains, mostly because the fights are set up in such a way that he has no choice but to or they cause their own demise.
  • Threw one of Ra's al Ghul's lackeys to a pit of ravenous crocodiles. And then just walked away.
  • He tried his best to save Freeze, but Victor wouldn't have it.
  • Violated this rule when he killed the Terrific Trio in personal combat, though they refused to be talked down, outnumbered Terry, were far more powerful than Terry's Batsuit, and intended to cause a nuclear meltdown in the middle of Gotham, making this more understandable.
  • Both Barbra and Bruce call him out for seemingly killing Mad Stan with a disarmed bomb. Terry clarifies that he only elbowed him, and Bruce discovered that Terry really was telling the truth. Spellbinder made it looked like Terry killed Stan so the authorities would go after him.
  • In Return Of The Joker, Terry does what his predecessor couldn't do on his own and puts down the resurrected Joker once and for all, zapping the chip containing his consciousness that allowed him to come back in the first place and rendering him Deader than Dead.
• Took a Level in Badass: He starts out a street thug, then learns how to use the Beyond Batsuit, and then to fight supervillians even without the Bat Suit and finally, Terry was able to finish the Joker once and for all, which is something that Bruce never accomplished. He also held his own against alien threats like Starro, doing well in the high stakes world of the Justice League showing potential to be a big scale hero.
• Tragic Hero: Defied in "Epilogue", Terry plans to propose to Dana and is proud to be the son of Bruce Wayne.
  Amanda Waller: You're not Bruce's clone, you're his son. There are similarities, mind you, but more than a few differences too. You don't quite have his magnificent brain, for instance. You do have his heart, though, and for all that fierce exterior, I've never met anyone who cared as deeply about his fellow man as Bruce Wayne, except maybe you. You want to have a little better life than the old man's? Take care of the people who love you. Or don't. It's your choice.
• Trash Talk: One big difference between Bruce and Terry is that Terry regularly taunts his enemies. This proved to be Terry’s ace in the hole against the Joker, as Terry did something Bruce never did; he got under Joker’s skin.
• Triple Shifter: He's a regular high school student and Batman and finds it hard to balance them at the same time.
• Troll: Besides King Barlowe^note who posthumously tricked the clown with his Unexpected Inheritance scam in a Spiteful Will, Terry is one of the few people who piss off Joker. The Monster Clown has a spectacular freak out when Terry calls his jokes clichéd, leaving only the monster behind the Smug Snake façade.
• Troubled, but Cute: Seems to be in the first couple of episodes before he opens up and reveals that he's actually a responsible, altruistic young man. He was a straight example in his Back Story, which included a stint in juvie.
• Tyke-Bomb: He's technically biologically Bruce's son due to Amanda Waller trying to create a second Batman. His parents were also almost killed by an older Phantasm hired by Waller to create another Batman. Phantasm decided against killing his parents, but his father was murdered by Derek Powers' men, prompting Terry to become Batman anyways.
• Underestimating Badassery: Joker dismisses this "Bat-Fake" as a "rank amateur" reliant on advice from his elderly predecessor. While Joker knows Bruce, Terry makes it a point to let Joker know that he doesn't know much about himself while kneeing the clown with a Groin Attack. More than that, Terry had an outsiders' perspective on Joker with in-depth knowledge from studying Bruce's old files, which meant he could more objectively exploit Joker's flaws without the OG Batman's history with the clown. Since most of Joker's plans revolve around goading Batman and making it personal to cloud Bruce's judgement and lure him into traps, this is utterly ineffective against Terry, who just sees Joker as a clown. Joker doesn't take Terry's lack of respect well. Ironically, the villain isn't entirely wrong when he furiously shouts that Terry isn't Batman; Terry is his own Batman.
• Visual Pun: In "Rebirth", Batman eavesdropping on a conversation from outside a window of a building and getting caught...
  Security guard: A little early for Halloween?
  Batman: ...But just in time for fall. (jumps off building)
• Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Lampshaded often.
  • Terry very cleverly Lampshades this:
    Terry: (reading a note his Mom left him on the fridge) "Terry: Today was Beach Day. Where were you?" Oh, just out saving the world, Ma.
  • It is also lampshaded in one of the commercials, in which Terry describes his typical day. "Wake Up", "Go To School" and "Save World" were listed in the agenda.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Batsuit might enhance his strength compared to a normal human, but considering the sort of opponents he tends to go toe-to-toe with, he still is usually outmatched in terms of sheer physical force.
• Weaponized Exhaust: In one episode, he didn't use his jet boots directly as a weapon, but he did use them to propel a crate at someone.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Terry wanted to please both Warren McGinnis (father) and Bruce Wayne (mentor).
• What the Hell, Hero?: In "Babel," Bruce openly suggested that Terry just give up on the ingrates of Gotham who called for Batman to turn himself in to Shriek (including people who Terry had saved earlier). Terry calls him out for this and rebukes him sharply:
  Terry: I didn't do this for gratitude, and I have a feeling you didn't either.
• Would Hit a Girl: Downplayed. Almost every time he meets female supervillains, he will instead choose more indirext approaches instead of actually striking them. For example, in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker; when he fights the Dee Dee Twins, though he may just have been having fun making them knock each other out as his grin seems to imply.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Bruce says this to Terry at the end of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
  Bruce: Terry, I've been thinking about something you once told me, and you were wrong. It's not Batman that makes you worthwhile, it's the other way around. Never tell yourself anything different.
• You Fight Like a Cow: The key difference between him and Bruce is that he likes to trash talk. This serves him well in his fight against the Joker.
• You Killed My Father: Said to Blight/Derek Powers word-for-word. Also his origin story, as it is true for the original Batman.
  Blight: You have the slightest possible idea how little that narrows it down?!
  Batman: Too bad. That's all you'll get for me.