I. There was an excellent episode of Justice League the other week, a time travel saga where the current heroes go into the future, 2060ish AD, encountering both old versions of current heroes (a 60 year old Static! With dreads!), and heroes and villains from the DC series set in the future, Batman Beyond.
II. Now the thing is, kicking around on my hard drive somewhere is my half-finished Batman Beyond spec script, which I set aside until I could work out problems with the ending, and then set aside a bit more permanently when the series got cancelled. It, too, had time travel as the central macguffin, but from a different angle*, so I was very interested in this particular episode. Unsurprisingly, they did it better; what *did* surprise me is this little exchange that they slid in:
2060AD BRUCE WAYNE: Surprised to see me?
YEAR-2004 BATMAN: I'm surprised that I'm alive.
So much was in the tone of voice. He was surprised, yes. But pleased? Y'know, I almost think he wasn't. And that's one of the darker revelations a "kiddie show" on at 8PM on a Saturday is ever likely to give you.
* The plot, for those truly interested: a plague in the 30th century threatens humanity, and the last conscious member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Cosmic Boy, discovers (upon consulting with an immortal villain, Ra's al Ghul, in a holding cell...as a sidenote, Ra's is FUN to write) that the only possible antidote comes from a plant that went extinct in the 21st century. A flower genetically engineered by Dr. Pamela Isley, its last known location was, of all places, a seedy bar in Gotham City.
Nearly delirious with fever, Cos travels back in time, only to discover that the flower's in a theme bar packed with memorabilia from various Batman villains, and populated by the decrepit henchmen of said villains, who might be retired and (mostly) reformed, but still don't take kindly to a teen in a shiny costume trying to tell them what to do. Mayhem ensues, Batman gets involved, Matches Malone comes out of retirement for one last poker game, and fun is had by all.
Now, there are some obvious flaws you might have noticed, like the fact that the show's title character doesn't even pop up for the first ten minutes, and the open question of why Cos doesn't just go back another few years and get an easier sample. Yeah. Still working on it.
