Childhood memories: The Return of Batman Beyond. Written by Adam Beechen

Remember Batman Beyond? Yeah, we know it was a while ago. In 2010, our teenage years were returned to us. DC Comics and Adam Beechen, current writer of Batman Beyond, returned Terry McGinnis to his beloved fans. The last two years of comics have answered questions that many Batman Beyond fans have been waiting for. Besides Batman Beyond, Adam Beechen has written for plenty of fan favorite shows and comics. He's done cartoons such as Teen Titans, Ben 10, X-Men: Evolution and The Batman. In comics, he has written for Teen Titans, Robin and Countdown. In 2012, fanboys can't stop talking about Avengers vs X-Men and Batman's The Court of Owls. Add Batman Beyond to your list of must-reads in 2012.

After the success of the “New 52” did DC Comics ever consider rebooting Batman Beyond?

Not to my knowledge.  Our book and our characters don't have the decades of mainstream comics continuity to the point where rebooting us would be any kind of noteworthy event.  We'd only put out 8 issues of the monthly series...We'd just "booted!" 

How closely is Batman Beyond tied to the New DCU’s Batman continuity?

Not terribly, which I think is good for us.  Our timeline is a possible future for Batman, not necessarily the set-in-stone, this-is-how-it's-gonna-be continuity, so that allows us to take elements from Batman's comics history through the present day DCU and pick and choose the things we want to incorporate.  We've even gotten a little cheeky and thrown in things from Christopher Nolan's Batman movies.  Really, the only continuity we're beholden to is that of the Batman Beyond animated series.  After that, as long as we don't directly contradict something that's part of the Batman mythos, we've got a lot of room to play.

In the Batman Beyond miniseries of 2010, the reader was introduced to an older Dick Grayson. In Dick’s flashback, Bruce seemed rather cold towards him. In the New DCU, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Why did you characterize their relationship as such?

In the flashback, we saw that Bruce was responsible for Dick becoming gravely injured to the point where he decided to stop being a super-hero.  In my mind, that made Bruce feel incredibly guilty, probably even more so than when Jason died, because Bruce is a lot closer to Dick than he ever was to Jason.  I think when a character like Bruce feels guilty, rather than deal with it and express it, he'd shut down emotionally and just plow forward with "the mission."  Bruce has lived his entire life compartmentalizing his emotions, and he can't function as Batman if he's going to be sentimental and second-guess himself.  So he just stayed "same old Bruce" to Dick after the incident and, given what had happened, that seemed like he was being cold.  It cost him Dick's friendship and love.  I think that mindset cost Bruce a lot of relationships as he got older, and we see some of that in the book now.

In Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond fans are shocked when they learned that Terry McGinnis is actually Bruce Wayne’s clone. Will that be explored further in Batman Beyond?

I won't rule it out, but we're more concerned with exploring the time between the end of the Batman Beyond animated series and the Justice League Unlimited episode you mention.  There's a lot of stories to be told in there, and we can use that time to set the stage for the revelations delivered to Terry in JLU.  We've already established, in the miniseries, that Amanda Waller is determined to see that there's always a Batman.  We can drop even more hints as we go along.

Will we see any flashbacks that focus on Bruce's relationship with Alfred Pennyworth?

 You know, I have some vague ideas about that, but they haven't really jelled into a story yet.  But yes, at some point I want to incorporate Alfred into the book, whether it's explaining what became of him, or flashing back to a story that involves him.  He's a great character, and theirs is a fascinating relationship.




Vote for your favorite Superman and Lois sketch

Check out our Creator Owned Project