San Diego Comic-Con brought together the creative team of Batman Beyond for its 20th anniversary and revealed some interesting tidbits about its start and ended with a real treat coming soon for fans.
Producers Bruce Timm and Glen Murakami, casting/dialogue director Andrea Romano, director James Tucker and writers Bob Goodman and Stan Berkowitz were joined by Batman himself Kevin Conroy and Will Friedle, who voiced the lead character, Terry McGinnis. For those who aren’t familiar with the animated series, Batman Beyond, we learn that there was more to the symbol of Batman than just Bruce Wayne. As age begins to catch up to him, Wayne passes on the mantle of the Bat to young Terry McGinnis, and it was Terry who then donned a state of the art bat-suit and pursued vengeance through a futuristic Gotham City. The series lasted 52 episodes and spawned one direct-to-video film, and while that run may seem short, the show was insanely popular and was well-received by fans who were open to this new take on The Dark Knight.
The panel began with producer Bruce Timm taking us back to the beginning and explaining how the show came to be. He recounted that a group of creators went to a meeting and were asked to develop a teen Batman for a younger audience because the Kids WB Saturday lineup was starting to skew younger than their previous work with Batman: The Animated Series. He, Paul Dini and Alan Burnett came up with the idea of setting it in the future, and not only were they given an instant green light, but the entire thing was also ordered to be ready for that fall. No pressure or anything, right?
Producer Glen Murakami said the intention was to get away from the noir feeling of the Batman brand as we had come to know it ahead of their series. They wanted to show audiences a different style, a more anime look, and a different kind of editing. Everything would be a bit more flashy and fast-paced, but even though they were told to go less dark, writer Bob Goodman felt that some of their stories were darker than most:
“Even though we were asked to do a show that skewed younger, we ended up telling more mature stories that were more violent..so, we took what we were supposed to do and subverted it.”
When it came down to who would be voicing the two versions of Batman, Kevin Conroy was the obvious choice for the more mature Bruce Wayne because of his impeccable voice work on Batman: The Animated Series, but there was a brief concern because the show was supposed to veer away from that series. They wanted some continuity between the two shows, so Conroy remained firmly in place. As for Will Friedle, the Boy Meets World actor had never done voiceover work before this, but Timm’s wife was a fan of Boy Meets World and said he should look into him for the job. Timm’s wife being a TGIF fan paid off for Friedle in the end.
The opening critics have always stood out to the fans, and Timm revealed that he shot some of the sequences in his kitchen, spinning a Batman figure on a lazy susan. The story got a laugh from the crowd, but it certainly proved how some of the most creative ideas could come from the simplest of things.
The whole team described what it was like to record and how it felt to bring in vocal talent. Conroy and Friedle said their experience on the show was unique from others because they nearly always recorded together. In most animated shows, you record separately, but recording together gave their scenes more of nuance and realism in their emotions. Conroy and Friedle mention Mark Hamill during this moment, who returned as The Joker for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. They said they would set in awe as he just did his thing and they admitted that Hamill was a bit of spitter in the booth because he would get so intense but when the other actors were recording he would always be present and congratulate them on a good take.
Regarding villains, a fan asked a really good question about how they decided to update the villains on their show. Timm responded that they didn’t want to do “Joker Beyond” or something similar. Instead, they used the archetypes of classic Batman villains and revamped them as futuristic new villains— Clayface was the inspiration for Inque, and so forth. The show did dabble with some classic villains (The Joker, R’as al Ghul, Bane) but they were the exceptions because some villains were deemed too important to tweak all that much.
Before the panel ended, the big news was that 41 episodes of the series were fully remastered, but the remaining 11 were only “upgraded.” The original materials were too timeworn and damaged for a full remaster to be possible. In a side-by-side comparison, the remastered version looked much sharper and brighter, as one would hope. This led to the reveal that a Batman Beyond Blu-ray set was coming on October 29 complete with a Batman Beyond Funko. Supplies might be limited, so the audience was told to pick up their copy as soon as it comes out.
As the panel was wrapping up, a small child dressed in full Batman Beyond cosplay, asked the panel if they would ever do another season of the show. Timm responded that they would love to, even a movie would be an option, but a lot of it will come down to the Blu-ray sales.
It’s our job now fans; you want more Batman Beyond? Let them know how much you want it, but if we’re only left with the original series, it’s clear its impact still resonates in the Batman pantheon 20 years later.
