Bruce Timm's Initial Plans For JLU 'Finale'

[Agent Z]

So you guys remember the JLU episode where we discover that Terry was Bruce biological son through a weird eugenics experiment conducted by Amanda Waller? Well, I just found this floating around the net on Batman Beyond Tumblr blog about that claims Timm initially had a different idea;

Originally, it was Selina Kyle, not Amanda Waller, who had helped create Terry and in fact several other clones of Bruce Wayne in order to become the ideal crime fighter.

“Staying much closer to the Boys from Brazil set-up, Selina hedged her bets and created lots of Bruce Wayne clones, and systematically murdered their parents when they reached the proper age. Most of them didn’t become manic-depressive crime-fighters, only Terry and one other—a young boy she adopted and raised as her own son. There was going to be a creepy ‘Manchurian Candidate’ aspect to their relationship, with the aging (but still disturbingly kinda sexy) Selina coaxing the kid into becoming an über-messed-up avenger of evil.”

The ‘son’ of Catwoman would be the main adversary for Terry and was in his own ‘dark superhero’ costume. Most of the movie he was hunting down the Batman Beyond rogues gallery and even classic Batman rogues like Edward Nygma, though Timm admitted he felt this was too ‘Phantasm’ for him. During this, Terry would discover his origins and break up with Dana, who is trying to hint to him about possibly typing the knot after they graduate when they’re at one of her cousin’s weddings. Distraught and worried about the bad guy hurting Dana or one of his rogues, Terry breaks up with her.

“This version of Selina had, at some point in the past, ‘seen the light,’ after years of Batman nagging her to use her talents to help people instead of just helping herself. She eventually realized he was right, but with ‘born again’ zeal, decided Batman himself didn’t go far enough in punishing criminals; she needed a Batman who would help her eliminate criminals (i.e. kill them dead) and set about creating one. These were going to be ‘true’ Bruce Wayne clones, not nano-engineered ‘sons’“

However several plot holes were pointed out such as how Selina could manage this plan as she was not a scientist or had the resources to use this. Along with this, many members of the staff felt this hit too many similar plot beats to Return of the Joker. Dwayne McDuffie eventually created the means of the artificial DNA rewriter from Cadmus and with his help, they were able to put this at the end of the Cadmus mini-arc that had been the focus of the show.

Still, there were still some more changes. An idea was toyed around with that Waller had also created several other ‘Batmen Beyonds’ along with Terry. Any girls would live their life normally while boys in good health would have the same tragedy that Bruce endured. Eventually, it was dropped to just Terry’s family.

The final product has a few traces of the original idea, such as Terry and Dana ‘breaking it off’ in Terry’s mind only to go ahead and get married at the end. Terry’s (and by extension Matt) origin remained the same, though with the change that Terry was the son of Bruce as opposed to a clone. Terry also dealt with the idea of being cursed as being Batman throughout most of his time upon learning the truth.

There is one interesting note however about the original idea. Several years later, the idea of a genetically created dark avenger going around and killing Batman’s rogues gallery both original and new was utilized in the Adam Beechen 2010 mini-series, Hush Beyond. Whether this was an intentional nod by Adam Beechen is unknown.

http://the-schwayest-batman-around.tumblr.com/

So what do you guys think of this?

[Vinsanity]

Even though I didn't like Terry having Bruce's DNA, I'm glad that it was that instead of the initial plans.

[Johnny Thunders!]

It reminds me of Talia in Batman Inc.

[Rahul]

Yeah, good thing they scrapped it.

[Hilden B. Lade]

That sounds terrible...

[K. Jones]

Overboard, but at the time, who knows how I'd have received it.

That said, this is the first time it's ever occurred to me that Terry is Damian's brother.

[JasonTodd428]

That sounds terrible. I wasn't a fan of the idea that Terry was Bruce's to begin with but this would have made it much worse IMHO.

[Cmbmool]

Wow, this idea would have almost ruined Selina's character both in the tv and in the comics.

I'm glad they didn't use this idea.

[John Venus]

Terrible idea. I am glad they didn't go through with it.

I still dislike the idea of Terry having Bruce's DNA even though I enjoyed the episode.

I really wish Timm and co. had been the ones to address Dick leaving Bruce and Bruce/Babs thing instead of other lesser writers handling it.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I guess it's odd Selina would be a geneticist, but I didn't see Amanda Waller coming the first time around. Thalia grows an evil of son of batman to fight a good son of Batman! Sounds a lot like Batman Inc.

[TheDarkNut]

Epilogue is one of the best Batman episodes ever. I'm glad they didn't ruin it by turning Selina into a villain.

[Jabare]

They could have just scrapped the whole episode all together it wasn't much of an epilogue. And played up Terry being Bruce's biological son out of nowhere. I felt was unnecessary and didn't have a clear message. Being Bruce's biological son didn't legitimize him as Batman nor did it legitimize Terry's relationship with Bruce that was already done well before in the original Batman Beyond series.

The episode wasn't bad but ultimately felt kind of pointless, which is a shame because for the most part the show was very entertaining.

[Diggy]

Nah that sounds like a dumb idea, not in-character for Selina at all. The "evil son of Catwoman" sounds corny and cliche as well.

[Naked Bat]

as good as epilogue was, making terry Bruce's "son" was a terrible idea in the first place. The clone idea can be interesting, like it was in snyder and murphy's tec 27 story, but it doesn't make an interesting Terry, if he's just a clone.

[Vakanai]

as good as epilogue was, making terry Bruce's "son" was a terrible idea in the first place. The clone idea can be interesting, like it was in snyder and murphy's tec 27 story, but it doesn't make an interesting Terry, if he's just a clone.

Terry's not really a clone though.
And am I the only one who kind of liked the Bruce is really Terry's father thing? Everyone else hated it?
Darn.