Had the pitch sold, Kids’ WB! would have sent Terry McGinnis to the Red Planet. But would it have worked?
As discussed in previous essays, Batman Beyond was the creative team making the best of a bad situation. Pushed by Kids’ WB! and its head, Jamie Kellner, to create an animated series featuring a teenaged Batman, they had to create a brand new animated series in less than a year’s time while, simultaneously, finish production on the remaining order of episodes for STAS and TNBA, effectively forcing them to work on three shows at the same time (Nolan-Weathington). All the while, their primary focus was to create a younger, more approachable Batman. One the kids—specifically the 6-11 year-old market—could understand and relate to. Also, in reaction to the alleged violence of the previous Batman shows (qtd. in Allstetter, “Question”), this series was supposed to be less violent, less intense, but still packed with enough action for the kiddies.
In the end, the network got half of what they wanted. They got their teenaged Batman, but—if anything—Batman Beyond was darker and more violent than either Batman: The Animated Series or The New Batman Adventures.
The network tried. Oh, they tried. On the website World’s Finest, guest columnist the Old Maid posted an excellent assortment of essays dissecting and critiquing Batman Beyond better than I ever will (I recommend starting with “The Cons of Batman Beyond”). Overall, they detail how the series, presumably due to network interference, went from “The Wayne and Terry Show”—the angry, young apprentice being trained by the world’s most dangerous man in a cyberpunk city controlled by Derek Powers—to a teen drama primarily focused on Batman playing hall monitor at his high school. Premises shifted drastically, plot lines were dropped with no explanation, and Terry himself changed from a dangerous James Dean to a goofy James Van Der Beek. A “Mary Sue” character was introduced—the polarizing Max Gibson—who emerged as a “loose-cannon version of the damsel-in-distress” who seemed poised to replace Bruce Wayne as Terry’s primary point of contact (The Old Maid). But, overall, the series adapted, and it provided content that would have never passed censors in the old days, including a staggering body count.
Top row, left to right: Terry discovering his father’s murder in “Rebirth,” Inque attempting to suffocate Batman by shoving herself down his throat in “Black Out,” Shriek attempting to coax Bruce Wayne to commit suicide in “Shriek,” Dr. Abel Cuvier experiencing Cronenberg body horror in “Splicers,” and the toxic waste-infused remains of Tony Maychek in “Earth Mover.” Bottom row, left to right: the intangible Ian Peek sinks to the center of the Earth in “Sneak Peek,” the implied murder of Bullwhip in “April Moon,” the revelation of R’as al Ghul murdering Talia to possess her body in “Out of the Past,” the torture of Robin at the hands of the Joker in Return of the Joker, and the death of the Joker in Return of the Joker.
Of the mature subject matter, Producer Alan Burnett said that “[t]he show was supposed to be a lighter show, but it couldn’t quite get that light,” according to a 2019 interview with SyFy (qtd. in Weiss). Added James Tucker, director and storyboard artist for Beyond, “We never made these shows for kids. Yeah, kids were watching, but the discussions we had amongst ourselves were, decidedly, not kid-friendly” (qtd. in Weiss).
By the end, Batman Beyond—which Producer Bruce Timm later referred to as “probably our most uneven series,” in an August 3, 2022 Anime Superhero post (b.t.)—ended not with a bang, but a whimper. By Fall / Winter 2000, Batman Beyond reached 52 episodes and production largely ceased, and the big direct-to-video feature Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker that was, according to writer and producer Paul Dini, to be a major media event, was pulled from release and heavily edited for content before being released to little fanfare in December 2000 (Pollard). At this crossroads, it seems like the network was content to let the series die of inertia, as they refused to cancel the show (Allstetter, “Batman Beyond to Return”) or order new episodes (Allstetter, “Batman Beyond’s Future?”). Perhaps they were finished trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
Anyway, around this time, the creative team once again found themselves in the offices of Kids’ WB!, where they—once again—were trying to pitch the network on a new animated series. One was Justice League (which we’ve discussed previously), one was Batanime (one that is discussed here), and the final one was intended to be a second spin-off of Batman Beyond (the first being The Zeta Project [2001]), one that would, in the words of The Simpsons’ Troy McClure, transplant an already-popular character into new locales and situations. Ones that were, presumably, more kid-friendly.
Terry McGinnis of Mars
The third series pitch would have featured the new Batman, Terry McGinnis, move from Neo-Gotham to a new city on a terraformed Mars. The proposal was created by Alan Burnett and Hilary Bader, who was an acclaimed writer who not only wrote scripts for STAS, TNBA, Batman Beyond, and The Zeta Project, but also for multiple Star Trek series. In a February 12, 2005 post on Toon Zone (later Anime Superhero), Bruce Timm had this to say about the potential show:
When [Batman Beyond] was originally coming to a close, Kids’ WB! asked us if we had any ideas on how to do a more “kid-friendly” Batman show. Alan Burnett and Hilary Bader worked up a (I kid you not) “Batman on Mars” pitch, which was basically just a continuation of [Batman Beyond]—Terry moves to a colony on a terraformed Mars and has kid-friendly adventures there. I was really relieved when [Kids’ WB!] showed no interest in it, as I just hated the concept. (b.t.)
Later that day, he continued in an additional post:
It wasn’t the “kiddie” aspect of [Batman on Mars] that bugged me; it was that it seemed to me to be just a random change of locale for no very good reason (leave alone the fact that I had serious qualms about Mars being completely terraformed just 50 years from now). It was both too much of a change in the [Batman Beyond] paradigm and also not enough of one, if that makes any sense.
I couldn’t see any appeal in it. If the Mars colony architecture were still in the “frontier” stage (think Aliens’ pre-fab shack town), it just sounded drab and depressing. What kind of crime would Terry fight there? Rousting drunken settlers on Saturday night? And if the colony were much more civilized and advanced, what makes it all that different from [Batman Beyond’s] Neo-Gotham? Seemed kinda pointless to me.
If felt to me like a general degradation of the [Batman Beyond] concept with “desperation” scrawled over it. I would have preferred going the Batman Anime route, if only because it would have been a whole new fresh start, with barely a tangential connection to the other series. Yes, more than likely, it wouldn’t have been a very good show. And it certainly wasn’t aimed at our old audience, we knew they’d pretty much reject it out of hand. But remember, we were honestly trying to do a genuinely “kid-friendly” Batman show, aimed squarely at the 6-11-year-old demo, we were trying (for once) to create a show that didn’t skew older (unlike [Batman Beyond] itself, which was supposed to be more “kid-friendly,” but we knew from the get-go that it wasn’t; b.t.).
After passing on the series (which, for now, I’m just going to refer to as Batman on Mars in lieu of an official title), Timm called Cartoon Network the following day (b.t.), and they immediately picked up the option on the Justice League series we still remember fondly. Aside from the above anecdote, the information faded into memory … until Paul Rivoche, a writer and artist who “created background design and storyboard art” for Batman Beyond (Rivoche), posted a piece of concept art for the series on X (formerly Twitter) this past July 3rd:
And, in response, Bruce Timm once again commented on the proposed series in a July 4, 2024 post on Anime Superhero:
I have just the vaguest memories of the Batman on Mars pitch. I think Alan said it was going to be on a terraformed Mars with an already fairly well-developed (but very grubby) urban environment. In retrospect, yes, kinda like Total Recall, though I didn’t make that connection at the time. My response was along the lines of “So, Terry’s still going to be fighting bad guys in a futuristic urban environment only on Mars instead of Earth?” It seemed to me at the time that it really wasn’t different enough from the basic Batman Beyond set-up, but designing Martian Gotham would be a massive design challenge on a TV budget and schedule. In other words, a huge amount of work for very little payoff.
I don’t remember ever seeing that nice Paul Rivoche concept art, but I suppose I might have and just forgotten it. (b.t.)
Now, after revisiting this bit of DCAU trivia, I became curious as to the potential for this series and its story. Like Timm, I think the spin-off probably would have been a dud, much in the same way that Disney’s Gargoyles spin-off The Goliath Chronicles was considered inferior to the original 65-episode run. I also doubt that the planet Mars could be completely terraformed in half a century’s time, although I do concede that the world of the DCAU is much different, technology-wise, from our own.
The science fictional, superhero world of the DCAU is, as previously stated, an alternate history contemporary one with technology far beyond what we currently have today. Ignoring the “indeterminately 20th century” BTAS, the world starting with Superman featured not only advanced tech from LexCorp and Wayne Enterprises, but also access to alien technology, including Kryptonian (which Superman shared with S.T.A.R. Labs), Apokoliptian and Thanagarian (the weaponry Darkseid shared with Intergang, all the tech left behind from failed alien invasions), and probably Martian and a few others as well. By the beginning of Justice League, Batman already has a fancy space station (the Watchtower) and access to faster-than-light travel (the Javelin-7), most likely thanks to his interactions with Brainiac in the Superman episode “Knight Time.” Hell, in this alternate history, the United States was able to successfully do a manned landing on Mars, as well as a return to Earth, fifty years prior to Batman Beyond in the Justice League pilot, “Secret Origins.” Wait a minute…
Could there be a connection? After all, the Batman on Mars pitch was developed around the same time that the creative team was beginning to work on Justice League, and while Alan Burnett and Hilary Bader did not work on Justice League, it’s possible that there might have been some overlap in terms of the writers and artists involved. Unfortunately, in the same 2024 Anime Superhero post from above, Bruce Timm refuted my theory:
In any case, Batman on Mars pitch didn’t influence “Secret Origins.” The basic idea of using the [Alien Invaders] as the villains came directly from one of Grant Morrison’s first JLA story arcs. And the look of the [Invaders] and their gear was heavily inspired by the work of avant-garde science fiction illustrator Richard Powers. (b.t.)
Sadly, it appears to have been a coincidence. In truth, had they picked up the Mars angle, Burnett and Bader (who sadly passed away in November 2002) would have at least received some kind of story credit for their part in development.
That said, I must confess that even after twenty years, even with the acknowledgement that the show probably wouldn’t have worked, I still find the concept strangely compelling, especially after Justice League, JLU, and (most notably) 2019’s Justice League vs. The Fatal Five. Please humor me as I walk through this…
War of the Worlds
For this thought experiment, let’s say that it’s the present day, and Batman on Mars has been picked up as a ten or twenty episode sequel series to Batman Beyond at Prime Video, since Warner Bros. Discovery apparently has no faith in Batman animated programs anymore. Of course, the elderly Bruce Wayne would have to be recast, as Kevin Conroy sadly passed in November 2022, but he would only play a minor role in this reboot. Also, keeping with the timeline of the DCAU (since the JLU episode “Epilogue” shows an adult Terry still in Gotham City as Batman another fifteen-ish years after Beyond), this takes place after he has graduated high school, and he is preparing for college, presumably so he can get a business degree so he can work at Wayne Enterprises in a capacity other than as Wayne’s gofer.
Now, the one thing that would make or break this hypothetical series would be the younger Batman’s motivations. Considering how intrinsically tied Batman is to Gotham City, what motivation would be needed for Terry to leave his home base? Would he still even be Batman if he abandoned Gotham City? Short of a planetary evacuation, there is only one reason I can think of for McGinnis to travel to Mars.
For whatever reason, Blight—the Tomorrow Knight’s arch-nemesis, who had disappeared from the original series after “Ascension”—turns up on Mars, presumably in a position of power. Suddenly, Terry has a strong motivation to leave Earth at least temporarily to bring his father’s killer back to Earth to face justice. His actions might cause a rift between him and Bruce Wayne (which the series could mine for conflict), but in the end he would have to understand. Besides, they might realize that perhaps it’s time that the adult Terry travel as the younger Bruce did to learn additional skills from other masters. After all, as knowledgeable as Wayne is, he doesn’t know everything, and things have changed greatly since young Bruce's original world tour.
Anyway, after a brief conflict, Terry travels to Mars under the pretense of Wayne Enterprises setting up shop there to pursue new business opportunities. Along for the ride is Dana Tan, who elects to spend a semester studying abroad on Mars to be with Terry (considering how her voice actor is Lauren Tom, whose character on Futurama was also a Martian college student, it’s too good to pass up). With faster-than-light travel reverse engineered from Kryptonian technology, it only takes a few hours to travel between Earth and Mars via space plane, depending on planetary placement in relation to their orbit around the Sun. They arrive and land in the planet’s only major colony—a domed outpost the size of a city.
For those of you wondering where I got the interior and exterior pictures of domed cities I’ve doctored for this article, they are production art from Green Lantern: The Animated Series, specifically the alien city of Desolonia, from the episode “Babel.” For convenience, let's suppose that the colony is on or near the Cydonia region of Mars, thus earning it the name “Cydonia City.”
The largest human outpost on Mars, Cydonia City is a domed colony allowing its sizable human population (scientists, miners, academics, drifters, etc.) to live in a hostile environment. You see, the terraforming of Mars hasn’t happened yet, but that’s the plan. Until then, the humans have to live under the dome until the air, atmosphere, and climate has been adjusted to human standards.
Anyway, Batman takes care of Blight, but then he discovers that he was brought there by a black-ops team created to wipe out an “infestation.” Batman investigates, only to discover that in the time since Justice League Unlimited, several small pockets of Martian survivors have been discovered around the planet, encased in cocoons created by the Imperium’s forces (this would explain the presence of M’gann M’orzz, aka Miss Martian, in the Justice League vs. The Fatal Five movie). He uncovers a secret population of Martian survivors—some of them willing to live with humans in peace, some wanting them to get the hell off their planet. And, at the center of it all, are two familiar faces:
J’onn J’onzz and the aforementioned Miss Martian, who disappeared decades ago from Earth, have spent their time on Mars uncovering survivors and organizing them into a new civilization. Over time, they discover that Mars (or Ma’aleca’andra, in their language) was in a state of inert hibernation like they were for over a thousand years, but now it too is waking up and becoming more livable to Martians. Together, they intend to stop the human colonists from terraforming the planet to suit human needs, and Batman is caught in the middle.
It's a little John Carter of Mars, a little Total Recall, and a little Secret Invasion, what with the colony suddenly finding themselves hosting a number of shapeshifting Martians hiding out as humans. With two former members of the Justice League, Batman must attempt to get the two groups to live in peace. A tall order, if you consider current events. Meanwhile, he has to struggle with keeping his identity secret, which is difficult surrounded by a race of telepaths. And finally, perhaps a complication occurs in Terry and Dana's relationship, with Miss Martian engaging them in a love triangle. Maybe she likes Terry. Maybe she likes Dana. Maybe she likes both of them.
At first, Terry is definitely out of his element, but he begins to acclimate to his new surroundings and games things to his advantage, like Batman is supposed to do. And, of course, Bruce Wayne is able to provide support remotely from Earth (depending on how good the communication is at the moment), and—eventually—sets him up with a souped-up, spacefaring Batmobile complete with warp drive.
Of course, any number of Batman Beyond’s Rogues’ Gallery would be welcome to come back, most likely as candidates for Blight’s Task Force X / Injustice Gang Beyond team created to fight the Martians. I’d be particularly interested to see Dr. Abel Cuvier return, as it raises the possibility if Martian DNA could be spliced into humans. In addition, the show could also introduce new foes for Terry, such as a certain rogue Martian:
Debuting in Martian Manhunter #0 (October 1998), Ma’alefa’ak was created with the intent to create a nemesis for Martian Manhunter. Already appearing in Justice League: Doom and Young Justice, I see no reason why we couldn’t have this character become a recurring adversary for both J’onn and Terry by attempting to kill all the humans in the Martian colonies.
Finally, the show could feature a visit by one or more members of the Lantern Corps. Note how I didn't specify which one.
Mars Attacks!
Will this series ever happen? Not a chance in hell. Still, it was a fun creative exercise, and I successfully proved that while the series probably wouldn’t be a full 65 or 52-episode run, I’ll bet we could get a good twenty or so out of it before Terry and Dana fix things and return to Earth and Gotham City. Besides, it would be nice to have a Batman Beyond show without Max Gibson or Kids’ WB! mucking it up now, wouldn't it?
Works Cited
Allstetter, Rob. “Batman Beyond’s Future?” Comics Continuum. Comics Continuum. 11 May 2001. Web. 20 Dec. 2022. <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0105/11/index.htm>.
---. “Batman Beyond to Return; X-Men Excels.” Comics Continuum. Comics Continuum. 07 Dec. 2000. Web. 18 Dec. 2022. <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0012/07/index.htm>.
---. “Question and Answer: Boyd Kirkland.” Comics Continuum. Comics Continuum. 1 Nov. 2000. Web. 28 Jul. 2023. <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0011/01/kirkland.htm>.
b.t. Comment on “Justice League Kids: The DCAU Show That Could Have Replaced Justice League.” Anime Superhero. XenForo Ltd. 12 Feb. 2005. <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/justice-league-kids-the-dcau-show-that-could-have-replaced-justice-league.3815571/#post-57116401>. Accessed 19 Sept. 2023.
---. Comment on “Justice League Kids: The DCAU Show That Could Have Replaced Justice League.” Anime Superhero. XenForo Ltd. 12 Feb. 2005. <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/justice-league-kids-the-dcau-show-that-could-have-replaced-justice-league.3815571/page-2#post-57116521>. Accessed 19 Sept. 2023.
---. Comment on “Which DCAU Season is Considered the Best and Which DCAU Season is Considered the Worst?” Anime Superhero. XenForo Ltd. 3 Aug. 2022. <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/which-dcau-season-is-considered-the-best-and-which-dcau-season-is-considered-the-worst.5795423/#post-87876011>. Accessed 9 Oct. 2023.
---. Comment on “Rejected DC Comics Designs and Show Pitches, Part 2.” Anime Superhero. XenForo Ltd. 4 Jul. 2024. <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/rejected-dc-comics-designs-and-show-pitches-part-2.5797189/page-6#post-87955226>. Accessed 11 Jul. 2024.
Nolen-Weathington, Eric. Modern Masters, Vol. 3: Bruce Timm. Raleigh: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2004. Print.
Pollard, Andrew. “Paul Dini | Batman: The Animated Series.” Starburst Magazine. Starburst Magazine. n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.starburstmagazine.com/features/paul-dini-batman-animated-series/>.
Rivoche, Paul. “About.” Rocketfiction: The Art of Paul Rivoche. Paul Rivoche. n.d. Web. 15 Jul. 2024. <https://www.rocketfiction.com/bio>.
@rocketfiction. “Did you know that Warner Brothers TV Animation at one point contemplated doing a # BatmanBeyond series set in the futurey-future? This was a piece of art I made for one of the proposals. It was set on Mars—if memory serves…” Twitter. 3 Jul. 2024. 6:30 p.m. <https://x.com/rocketfiction/status/1808629364352770325>. Accessed 11 Jul. 2024.
The Old Maid. “Max Gibson of Batman Beyond.” The World’s Finest. The World’s Finest. n.d. Web. 2022 Sept. 11. <https://dcanimated.com/WF/sections/fanworks/edits/editorials/procon1.php>.
Weiss, Josh. “NYCC 2019: Batman Beyond Celebrates 20 Years of Influencing DC Animation.” SyFy. SYFY Media, LLC. 6 Oct. 2019. Web. 14 Jun. 2024. <https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/nycc-2019-batman-beyond-20th-anniversary>.
Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, DC Comics, and Paul Rivoche.
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