Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker 2000

[9.2/10[ I like deconstructions, but I don’t want Batman to be a bastard. Those two ideas may not be able to peacefully coexist. Robin came about because canny businessmen thought kids would relate to their grown-up superheroes more if there was an age-appropriate sidekick for them to imagine themselves as. Decades later, we’re examining what it would mean to effectively be a child soldier, or at least in harm's way, before you’re old enough to drive.

That is both really cool, because it takes the world of the Dark Knight seriously and follows its consequences to their logical end, and really hard, because it turns Batman into, at best, a misguided adult who all but conscripted young men and women into his war on crime, with harsh results.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker isn’t the first time the D.C. Animated Universe tackled that idea. It was at the core of Nightwing’s break from the Bat-family in The New Batman Adventures. Barbara Gordon warned Terry about it in prior episodes of Batman Beyond. But the series' lone feature-length outing delves deeper into that idea, and faces the hardest truths of it, with more conviction than any prior installment.

It also does for Tim Drake what the franchise has done for Barbara and Dick. It gives him a life after Wayne Manor. It confronts the lasting damage those twilight escapades inflicted. And it gives him a chance to reconcile with Bruce, as a grown adult rather than a boy wonder.

It also spins one hell of a mystery. The prospect of the Joker rearing his ugly, greasepainted head again already provides enough intrigue to fuel a Batman movie, but the inherent whodunnit of it all is just as well done. Screenplay writer Paul Dini throws in the perfect red herrings. Jordan Pryce is the perfect false contender for the new Clown Prince of Crime, if for no other reason than that he has Mark Hamill’s voice. Likewise, the notion that Tim Drake is mad at Bruce and just working for the New Joker is a nice bit of misdirection too. Knowing the solution on rewatch, Return of the Joker feeds the audience just enough hints to make the reveal satisfying, while keeping enough cards close to the vest to make it a surprise and a thrill.

The episode’s set pieces are just as thrilling. While occasionally overstuffed with action, the DCAU creative braintrust takes advantage of the cinematic form to push the limits of its on-screen combat. Oners featuring Batman knocking out members of the Jokerz gang, exciting aerial combat, and a colorful showdown inside a dance club show director Curt Geda and company finding new and creative ways to add point-eared fireworks. At the same time, laser blasts descending from the skies, Ace the Bat-hound coming to the rescue, and throwing hands with the titular demented jester keeps the hits coming as the movie reaches its climax. The franchise’s trademark use of light and shadow comes up again and again to dazzling effect, where even quieter moments take on a mood and momentousness that befits this story.

But the real meat of the movie comes in its middle. The episode flashes back to the twin incidents it’s been orbiting around up until that point -- the death of the Joker and the corruption of Tim Drake. Those two events are intertwined, with aftereffects felt by everyone in the present (er...future). Dini and Geda take time with Drake’s abduction and Joker’s taunts. It teases the reveal of the psychopathic clown’s efforts to turn Batman’s ward into “Joker Junior.” It involves the brainwashed young man in a skirmish between Batgirl and Harley Quinn that seems to present her downfall as well.

It all climaxes with the final confrontation between Batman and Joker. The story shows the Dark Knight seeing something that makes him seemingly willing to break his code against killing the enemies who prowl the night against him -- his surrogate son being tortured, with 1950s Americana flair, by his worst enemy.

And yet, it’s not Batman who kills the Joker. It’s Tim, forced into one of those “prove your loyalty” shoot outs that always seem to go poorly. Faced with the prospect of killing his genuine father figure, and the twisted man who warped his mind, the real Tim Drake peers through and regains his senses, just long enough to shoot his abuser and let his own unnerving laugh fade into haunting cries. This is the trauma that ran through these lives, the thing that left Tim and his metnor estranged, and the thing that makes Bruce want to take the suit away from Terry when the Clown Prince of Crime reemerges.

That is undeniably dark, dark enough that the powers that be at Warner Bros. censored parts of that section of the film upon release. But it’s also vital to exploring what it means for Batman to enlist so many young lives in his crusade. It involves shades of The Killing Joke, with the Joker taunting a would-be father amid the violence, both physical and psychological, inflicted on their child. It asks the audience to consider what kind of person lets this sort of thing happen, puts kids in harm's way, when this horror is the possible, maybe even probable result.

All the while, Return of the Joker doesn’t just use the Batman Beyond setting to dig into events from Bruce Wayne’s day. Beyond the mystery of the Joker’s reemergence forty years later, it ties those questions into what it means for Terry to have taken up the mantle of Batman before he’s out of high school. It notes the parallel between him and Bruce, having lost a parent and wanting to bring his killers and those like them to justice. But it also draws a distinction, shining a light on how Terry wants to do this not just for vengeance, but because he’s made his own mistakes in his life, and waging that war on crime helps him feel like he can erase them and do better.

But it means grappling with the ghosts of Batman’s past, not just his future. The reveal that in the here and now, Tim Drake is not just a disgruntled ex-Robin, that he’s not just working for the Joker, but that he is the Joker, works on so many levels.

It works on a mystery level, as an answer to how the Joker is back that requires a bit of fantastical technology, but is set up nicely by that harrowing middle section. It works on a character level, because Tim turning into Batman’s archenemy is Bruce Wayne’s worst nightmare and forces Terry to have to face his own negative image, a combination of his benefactor’s archenemy and an ally with all the same training. And it works on a thematic level, a grim but heightened version of the fear that if you take your children to fight monsters, they will become monsters.

In that strange way, Return of the Joker isn’t just about legacy; it’s about parenthood. The smaller hints are there, with mention of Tim having a family and even an appearance from “Nana Harley” that indicates Ms. Quinn did too. Deeper still, Robin’s brainwashing is supposedly born of Joker and Harley’s desire to have a li’l slugger of their own, with twisted Leave It to Beaver-style imagery. And the movie dives into the consequences of what other villains like Mr. Freeze have acknowledged as an attempt by Bruce Wayne to rebuild the family that he lost, taking in orphans, turning his sidekicks into versions of himself.

Terry is the peak of that but also, arguably, the best of it. He faces down the Joker (played once again with the usual superlative, vaudevillian flair by the inimitable Mark Hamill) but talks back to him. He slags Joker for his lame gags and tricks. He laughs at the homicidal jester, getting under his skin and returning his allegations of being a “Bat-fake” in kind. He turns Joker’s own methods against him, in word and in deed, using the clown’s joy buzzer to zap the smiley-contoured microchip that’s given him new life out of his unwitting victim.

In short, he saves the day, not as Bruce Wayne would, but as a different but no less valid Batman would. He stares down the Caped Crusader’s greatest enemy, withstands the grease-painted menace’s darkest scheme, and comes out on top. That’s not funny; it’s stirring.

It gives Bruce a reprieve of sorts. He gives Terry the sort of emotional encouragement, the verbalized recognition that this young man makes the mantle of Batman great, not the other way around, in a way that shows growth. He reconciles with Tim after so many years. In the struggle for who would have the greater influence on the hearts and minds of those kids who stormed rooftops with the man and the cape and cowl, he too beats the Joker, with the help of his latest ward, his latest teenage warrior in the fight against crime.

That lets fans like me have our cake and eat it too. Return of the Joker doesn’t shy away from the dark realities of bringing young men and women into battle, or the psychological scars that linger with them across decades. It uses that notion to show regret and remorse in Bruce, to stoke conflict between him and Terry, and to question, however briefly, whether these kids would be better off without their masks and gadgets.

But it also shows that Bruce didn’t just bring young people into the line of fire. He found good people to carry on that fight, people who were up to the challenge, people who vindicate what he stands for and make the mantle of Batman worthwhile. The rationale behind kid sidekicks may have been mercenary and monetary. The deconstruction of that choice may be bleak and hard to watch in places. But the way forward is inspiring, with the reunion of an old man and his estranged son, as the next generation learns from their mistakes and aims to succeed where they failed.

(As an aside, two small details that I liked from this one are: 1. The mention of Dr. Leslie Thompkins helping Tim Drake recover, a nice bit of full circle continuity and 2. The fact that at the club, we finally get to see Terry and his fellow teens dancing together a la the scene from the show’s intro!)