1999’s Batman Beyond is still wholly unique in the long history of screen media based on DC’s Dark Knight as it’s the only major incarnation of the franchise to move the story beyond Bruce Wayne’s time in the cape and cowl. In the beloved cyberpunk-flavored series, an elderly Bruce Wayne trains up cocky high school kid Terry McGinnis to be the new Batman and to take down a whole host of new threats to what is now called Neo-Gotham/
Honestly, even more so than getting audiences to care about a Batman who wasn’t Bruce, the biggest challenge Beyond faced was in building up a brand-new robust rogues gallery that could measure up to what is one of the absolute finest in both comics and pop culture at large. The genius move taken by the showrunners was to borrow from another iconic rogues gallery instead. With Terry possessing many similarities to Peter Parker, so do many of his villains mirror memorable Spider-Man foes.
Across three seasons of 52 episodes, Batman Beyond was a fountain of creativity and cool ideas, one that has stubbornly refused to spawn a big-screen spinoff — despite how epic one would be. So how about we set one of these 10 terrific villains from the show’s run on Warner Bros. execs until they finally give us a movie?
10. Robert Vance
Don’t be fooled by his lack of a supervillain alias, Robert Vance is one of the most dangerous and inhuman foes Terry McGinnis ever faced. Once the brilliant CEO of a tech company, Vance was diagnosed with an incurable brain disorder that led him to digitize his mind. His hunger for power grew, however, and he manipulated his grandson, Terry’s schoolmate Bobby, into hooking him up to the net. His most impressive feat, though? Taking control of the batsuit itself, leaving Terry to fight it with just his bare knuckles and wits.
9. Royal Flush Gang
Batman Beyond introduced a new incarnation of classic DC supervillain group the Royal Flush Gang, reimagining them as a family of crooks with hi-tech gadgets. Flying around on hoverboards shaped like playing cards, the Gang consisted of King, Queen, Jack, their android Ace, and Ten. Ten, aka Melanie Walker, is what really lifts the Royal Flush Gang. Very much Terry’s counterpart to Catwoman — or Black Cat, in Spider-Man terns — Terry and Melanie were very attracted to each other despite existing on opposite sides of the law.
8. Shriek
Sometimes Batman Beyond didn’t even try to hide its Spider-Man influences. Marvel fans will be familiar with Shocker, the Spidey baddie who uses sonic tech to commit crimes. Well, meet Shriek, the Batman Beyond baddie who… uses sonic tech to commit crimes. What he lacks in originality, though, Shriek makes up for with his nifty design and the exploration of tech corrupting human nature being one of the series’ key themes.
7. Dee Dee (and the Jokerz)
By the time of Batman Beyond, the Joker has become an unlikely icon for the next generation and the biggest gang of criminal youths operating in the city are the Jokerz. The two most memorable Jokerz are Dee Dee, a pair of mischievous, acrobatic twins who serve as henchwomen for the various Jokerz gang leaders. In Return of the Joker, we find out it runs in the family — Dee Dee are actually the granddaughters of Harley Quinn!
6. Curaré
Ra’s al-Ghul and his League (or Society) of Assassins returned for Batman Beyond, so he almost earned a spot on this list, but let’s give the placement to the show’s original Society of Assassins creation instead — Curaré, a strikingly designed and conceived character. A mute, blue-skinned woman who covers her unseen but apparently horrific face behind a niqab, the Spider-Man villain Curaré is inspired by takes a moment to figure out — as her mission is to hunt and kill Batman, she is Terry’s answer to Kraven.
5. Spellbinder
Not all Terry’s foes match Peter Parker’s, though. Sometimes they are very much proxies for the villains faced by his own mentor, Bruce. Spellbinder, for example, feels like the successor to the mantle of Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow, only with more monetary goals in mind. An embittered psychiatrist working at Terry’s high school, he uses his knowledge of the mind (and sometimes VR tech) to hypnotize the schoolkids to steal from their parents.
4. Starro
Seeing as Starro the Conqueror was the very first villain the Justice League faced in the comics, it was a stroke of genius to make Starro the villain of the Justice League’s first story in the DCAU. In season 2’s “The Call,” Batman Beyond finally joins the Justice League Unlimited but discovers a terrible secret — for the past 10 years, Superman and the League have been controlled by the psychic squid who has been stealthily invading the planet! Yes, Batman Beyond proved how sinister Starro could be long before The Suicide Squad.
3. Inque
A seductive femme fatale whose body is made up of an inky, gloopy substance, Inque is what happens if you blend together Poison Ivy and Marvel’s Venom. A mercenary who submitted to an experiment to give her shapeshifting abilities, Inque is one of Terry’s most mysterious and troublesome foes, who even got some much-needed nuance when her daughter, Deanna, was introduced. Inque has to be the single most popular Batman Beyond villain when it comes to fan art.
2. Joker 2
You can’t have any incarnation of Batman without the Joker, so on the face of it the spinoff movie Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker seems like a lazy cash-in. However, the film might just be Beyond‘s finest hour as it introduces a unique, tragic, and truly dark incarnation of the Crown Prince of Crime. Decades after his death, the Joker somehow returns to terrorize Gotham. How? To say any more would be to spoil a movie so mature and shocking it was heavily edited before releasing (the original version is now widely available, however).
1. Blight
If Terry McGinnis is the Spider-Man of Batmen then who should his arch-nemesis be? Why, his own answer to the Green Goblin, obviously. Enter Derek Powers AKA Blight, a very Norman Osborn-alike business magnate who has taken over Wayne Enterprises. In a twist on the Goblin character, though, the handsome Powers is just a mask for his true ghoulish, radioactive form. Blight served as the main antagonist of the show’s first season and has proved so popular he’s crossed over into the comics. If there ever was a Batman Beyond movie, expect the villain to be him.
