Batman (Terry McGinnis) [DCAU]

Icons of Animation: Cartoon & Anime Characters (100 items)
list by trvesithlord

Terrence "Terry" McGinnis Wayne adopted the identity of Batman in the future following Bruce Wayne's retirement from the role. Like his predecessor and mentor, he fought crime and injustice in Gotham City and elsewhere for many years.

In 2039, Terry McGinnis (born on August 18, 2023) is an athletic sixteen year-old high school student, and reformed troublemaker with a deeply ingrained sense of personal justice. During the pilot episode, he saves a fellow passenger on a commuter rail from being hassled by one of the Jokerz, and later single-handedly takes on an entire gang of them to defend his girlfriend, ultimately resulting in a harrowing high-speed motorcycle chase through Neo-Gotham's expressways. The chase ultimately ends at the doorstep of Wayne Manor, where a fleeing Terry runs into the elderly Bruce Wayne. Bruce and Terry fend off the Jokerz side-by-side, but the exertion aggravates his heart condition. Terry helps Bruce back to the manor, and while staying there, he discovers the entrance to the Batcave, and later returns to "borrow" the Batsuit to avenge the death of his father. As crime and corruption are beginning once again to rear their ugly heads in Gotham, Bruce ultimately allows Terry to assume the mantle of Batman.

During her encounters with the Justice League, Amanda Waller particularly developed an admiration for Batman and came to believe that someone like the Dark Knight would always be needed. While watching Batman age, Waller realized he wouldn't be around forever and the Dark Knight would either have to retire or be killed at some point. Drawing on her old Cadmus contacts, Waller began Project Batman Beyond: A scheme to give Batman a genetic "son" who would likewise be compelled to take up a life as his successor. After obtaining a sample of Batman's DNA, a young couple was later found that were almost identical psychological matches to Batman's father and mother: Warren and Mary McGinnis. During an apparent routine flu inoculation, Warren was actually administered a nanotech solution that overwrote his reproductive DNA with Bruce Wayne's. A year later, Terry McGinnis was born as a genetic son of Mary and Bruce.

As genetics were not enough a factor in creating another Batman, Waller later hired an assassin to murder McGinnis's parents at the same age and under very similar circumstances as his predecessor to try to recreate these conditions. The hired assassin, Wayne's former romance, Andrea Beaumont, recognized what the murders had done to Wayne and subjecting another child to the same horrors would be hypocritical for their cause. Beaumont heavily reasoned with Waller, with the latter realizing she had crossed a line, so she cancelled the project.