Batman Beyond Season 1 DVD
Batman Beyond (known as Batman of the Future in Europe, Australia, Japan, and Mexico) is an American animated television series created by Warner Bros. Animation in collaboration with DC Comics as a continuation of the Batman legacy.Depicting the teenager Terry McGinnis as a new Batman in a futuristic Gotham City under the tutelage of an elderly Bruce Wayne, the series began airing on January 10, 1999, and ended its run on December 18, 2001. After 52 episodes spanning three seasons and one direct-to-video film, the series was put on hold for the new Justice League animated series despite the network having announced plans for a fourth season.However, there was a short-lived spin-off, The Zeta Project. In The Zeta Project's first season episode "Shadows", there is a crossover with Batman Beyond; in this continuity, the story takes place between the episode "Countdown" and the series finale "Unmasked." The continuity of Batman Beyond has made various crossovers into comic books published by DC Comics, including an ongoing series beginning in 2011.
Batman Beyond is set in the chronological future of the DC animated universe, although it was released before Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, and Static Shock. Some characters from the series appeared two years later in "Future Shock", an episode of Static Shock, and then again in "The Once and Future Thing", episodes of Justice League Unlimited. The character of Terry McGinnis was revisited a final time in the JLU episode "Epilogue", which tells much about the future of Batman.
Batman Beyond is said to explore the darker side of many Batman projects, playing on key elements such as emotions, personal relations, the fear of the unknown, technological malfunctions, and the disturbing psychological elements of the character of Bruce Wayne. As such, it was considerably darker than most other children's programs at the time, although producer Bruce Timm recalls it was conceived as a kid-friendly Batman cartoon. It is also the first Batman series to portray the hero as a teenager. IGN named the show 40th on their list of "Top 100 Animated TV Series".
Batman Beyond began airing on The Hub network in October 2010. The show is currently airing on the UK channel Kix! under the title of Batman of the Future.