Batman Beyond was a DC Animated Universe show that ran for 52 episodes from 1999-2001. Its main character was high schooler, Terry McGinnis, who takes on the mantle of Batman 20 years after a heart condition forced Bruce Wayne to hang up the cowl for good. Set in a futuristic Gotham City, the show received critical acclaim, with IGN ranking it 40th on their list of the Top 100 Animated TV Series. However, with a new Batman comes a new rogues gallery to cause havoc. True, some familiar faces from Bruce Wayne’s day did reappear, such as Mr. Freeze, Ra’s Al Ghul, and Bane (who was in a vegetative state thanks to his addiction to the steroid, Venom), but Terry McGinnis’ Batman collected some fairly notable names as well. Let’s look at some of the best villains Batman Beyond had to offer.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
7 Starro
Warner Brothers Television Distribution
Starro only appeared in the two-part episode, “The Call,” which saw Superman ask Batman to figure out which member of the Justice League was trying to kill the other members. However, the investigation reveals the traitor appears to be none other than Superman himself. It’s not his fault, though. The alien starfish known as Starro has taken control of him. Starro first came to Earth after Superman battled the Preserver (that battle can be seen in a two-part episode of Superman: The Animated Series). After witnessing the Man of Steel’s strength, Starro decided to take control of him. So what does Starro do with full control of one of the strongest superheroes out there? Breeds more, enough to subjugate most of the people on planet Earth. It makes the alien one of the few global threats Terry McGinnis faced, and if fighting Superman wasn’t hard enough, the rest of the League gets subjugated by the alien starfish, too.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
6 The Royal Flush Gang
This aristocratic family of criminals is very different from the same named gang that appeared in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. The names of the members are still the same: King (voiced by one-time 007, George Lazenby), Queen, Jack, Ace (he’s a robot), and Ten, who would serve the same role to Terry McGinnis’ Batman that Catwoman did to Bruce Wayne’s. New members would join upon marriage or childbirth, and all of their crimes were centered around play card suits, such as the time they robbed a yacht club (a pun so bad it hurt Batman). They appeared in three episodes, each one seeing them fall further and further until they were stopped for good, with two of them (Ten and Jack) reforming completely and getting jobs at a diner. Ten, whose civilian identity of Melanie Walker relates very well to Terry’s struggles as Batman, has some great interactions with Terry, especially since her feelings for him do appear to be completely genuine. While the Gang does have some very good weaponry and each member has a very specific role to play, they do tend to fall apart completely if even one member is absent during a heist. However, they still gave Batman more than a few headaches.
5 Curaré
Curaré was the best assassin the Society of Assassins ever had. Very few people have ever seen her face, though Batman was one of them, and what he saw horrified him. She appeared in only two episodes, but her martial artist skills, her incredibly deadly blade, and absurd efficiency easily make her one very dangerous threat. She has no speaking lines aside from a few grunts after getting hit, a true silent assassin. Her first appearance sees her try to assassinate Commissioner Barbara Gordon’s husband, Gotham DA Sam Young. Of course, this attempt was thwarted by Gordon and Batman. Curaré’s second appearance sees her return to Gotham to eliminate the last member of the Society of Assassins, who asks for Batman’s protection. In both episodes, Curaré shows why she was the best assassin the Society of Assassins ever had and why it’s a very, very bad idea to make an enemy out of her.
4 Shriek
Walter Shreeve was a brilliant sound engineer who sunk all his money into his research. Luckily, Wayne-Powers CEO Derek Powers would bail him out in exchange for one favor: use his sound technology to assassinate Bruce Wayne. Thus, the sound-based villain, Shriek, was born. Shriek would appear in three episodes. He would go deaf at the end of his debut episode, where he would torment the elder Bruce Wayne with voices in his head and have him committed to a hospital. His second appearance saw him use his sound powers to make all speech unintelligible throughout Gotham, something he’d only reverse if Batman surrendered to him. His third and final appearance had him trap Batman in a labyrinth of underground tunnels, hoping to kill off The Tomorrow Knight once and for all.
3 Spellbinder
Dr. Ira Billings was a high school psychiatrist, who felt underappreciated and underpaid, so he would use the students in his care to gain information on their wealthy parents. One girl’s father owned a rare statue; another boy’s father ran an auction house, and Terry McGinnis worked part-time for a billionaire. As the illusion-centric villain, Spellbinder, Billings would trick the students or their parents into stealing valuables for him. Combined with his knowledge of the human psyche, Spellbinder was a very dangerous foe. He would also create the dangerously addictive VR Rooms and force teens to steal from them before they could use the rooms. He also tricked Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon into thinking Batman killed crazed anarchist Mad Stan in a parking garage, leading to a police manhunt for The Tomorrow Knight. All of this makes Spellbinder easily one of the greatest threats the Batman of the Future ever faced.
2 Blight
Corrupt CEO Derek Powers merges his company with Bruce Wayne’s to create the Wayne-Powers conglomerate and makes some radical changes, such as producing nerve gas for Eastern European nations currently under a weapons embargo. When Batman throws a can of the gas at him, Powers foolishly shoots it, exposing himself to the gas. Luckily, there’s a cure: extreme radiation, which turns Powers into the glowing, skeletal, and nuclear-powered supervillain known as Blight. Now, as monstrous on the outside as he was on the inside, Blight was the closest thing to an archrival that Terry McGinnis’ Batman ever had. Their conflict was very personal. After all, it was Derek Powers ordering the killing of Terry’s father that drove the teenager into becoming the new Batman in the first place.
1 Inque
Without a doubt the toughest villain Terry McGinnis ever fought, Inque was one of the few villains who Batman always needed help to defeat. Inque appeared more times than any other villain, and aside from one instance where she took a disguised Superman hostage, she put up one heck of a fight in all of her appearances. The result of a mutagenic experiment, Inque’s body had the consistency of well… ink. She could shape-shift, form weapons with her arms, and squeeze into absurdly small spaces. Perfect abilities for an industrial saboteur, which is what she was introduced as. While her range of powers makes her incredibly tough, she does have some weaknesses. She doesn’t like water, for instance. She has also shown that she can be frozen, as Terry has to use Mr. Freeze’s iconic ice gun to stop her in her first appearance. Definitely the best villain Terry McGinnis’ Batman ever went up against.
