Project Batman Beyond
From DC Animated Universe Wiki, the DCAU Database
Project Batman Beyond was a secret project launched by Amanda Waller to ensure that Bruce Wayne would have a successor as Batman. The result was Terry McGinnis, in actuality the genetic son of Bruce Wayne and Mary McGinnis.
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[edit] History
During Amanda Waller's encounters with the Justice League, both hostile and friendly, she developed a great admiration for Batman, and came to believe that someone like him would always be needed. As she watched Bruce Wayne age, she realized he wouldn't be around forever. Drawing on her old contacts with Project Cadmus, Waller devised a scheme to give Bruce a genetic "son," who would likewise be compelled to take up a life as a crime fighter.
First, Waller found a young couple that were almost identical psychological matches with Thomas and Martha Wayne: Warren and Mary McGinnis.
Next, using nanotechnology and a sample of Wayne's DNA, she created a retrovirus that was administered to Warren during a routine flu inoculation, which over-wrote Warren's reproductive DNA with Wayne's. A year later, Terry McGinnis was born.
Knowing that genetics were not the only factor in creating a Batman, Waller hired an assassin to murder Terry's parents at the same age (eight), and under very similar circumstances (while leaving a movie theater) as Bruce had lost his parents, trying to recreate the conditions that turned Bruce Wayne into Batman.
But the plan went wrong. The assassin hired was Andrea Beaumont, who happened to be Bruce Wayne's ex-fiancee from long ago (Waller may or may not have known this). Knowing what the loss of his parents had done to Bruce, she refused to do the same to another child. Waller realized she had crossed the line, and she scrapped the project.
But Project Batman Beyond was ultimately successful. By chance, Warren McGinnis was murdered by Derek Powers when Terry was 17, and a chance meeting between Terry and Bruce Wayne did the rest, and a new Batman was created. Waller then kept an eye on Terry.
[edit] Discovery
At some point after Terry became Batman, Bruce became aware of the truth. He concealed this from Terry, feeling that Warren had raised Terry, and so deserved to be remembered as his true father. He also wanted Terry to be his own man, and not to feel that his fate had been ordained by his birth.
This conflict occurred later, during Terry's early 30's, when a routine hospital check-up revealed his genetic similarity with Bruce. Initially believing that the scheme was Bruce's, Terry rejected him and sought out Waller for answers. Waller told him the truth, and advised him that he wasn't Bruce Wayne's clone, he was his son - his own man, free to choose his path in life. Knowing the truth, Terry chose to carry on as Batman.
[edit] Background Information
- The fact that Bruce became aware of Waller's plot but chose to keep it secret was explained in background by Dwayne MacDuffie.
- The plan is a good example of the dichotomy of Waller's character: she is willing to use the most terrible and unscrupulous means, but in pursuit of goals which she considers right and for the greatest good.
- There are strong similarities between Project Batman Beyond and the scheme formed by the fictional version of Dr. Josef Mengele in Ira Levin's novel The Boys From Brazil. In that novel, Mengele attempts to create a new world leader like Adolf Hitler by creating multiple genetic clones of Hitler, then trying to influence them in the same direction by placing them as infants with foster families of similar backgrounds, and arranging for their fathers to be killed at the same age Hitler's died. In what is probably a nod to this, one of the headings in the Project Cadmus computer files stolen by Question in Justice League Unlimited, "Question Authority," was titled "Brazilboyz."
[edit] Reference
[edit] Justice League Unlimited
- "Epilogue"
