Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

This film is one of my personal favorites among movies that come from TV series:  It highlights all the great aspects of the show, condensing all the coolness and what fans and nonfans want to see into a feature-length film, and as a bonus, pays homage to the precursor series.  The “Return of the Joker” gives a unique return of a classic villain to the Batman mythos set in the futuristic setting of the Batman Beyond series.  With such a threat returning to Gotham, Bruce Wayne tells his new protégé to hang up the cowl.  Despite the old man’s best efforts though, it gets personal when the Joker’s cronies attack all whom Terry McGinnis holds dear, including Bruce.  It’s then we learn of the sad story of Robin II (in this universe anyway) in that he was driven completely bonkers and thus became a mini-me of the Joker. This pushes Batman over the edge and beats the crazy clown within an inch of his life. The Joker actually reverses the fight and almost kills Batman, and, depending on whether you saw the network censored version or not, dies either from unawareness of his environment or from the Robin he twisted into himself.  This leads to another whodunit case with future Batman following an intricate trail, leading to fights, false leads, death traps, and thrilling car chases.  Like I mentioned before, it showcases all of the new Batman’s gadgets and skills to take the Joker down, (including the through-the-wall-microphone in his fingertips and appropriate use of Ace the Batdog! Nobody remembers those things!).  As par the course for animated Batman movies, the twist is amazing and the ending somewhat sweet if not bittersweet, but at least it does give a good “and so the adventure continues” vibe.

This film, I feel, also satisfies some comic fans in that it shows Joker doing something horrible to a Robin, and it having a lasting effect on Batman.  In the comics, one of Joker’s most infamous deeds is slaying the 2nd Robin with a crowbar and an explosion while Batman got there too late.  This being the lighter, more kid-friendly version (just a bit), they couldn’t do on-screen death and thus they dropped the character of Jason Todd, going directly to the 3rd Robin, Tim Drake.  As the Joker points out in another incarnation, “Where’s the fun in that?”  I feel like they showed the Tim-Drake-is-now-another-Joker as a way of having this villain do an equally appalling act to Batman’s allies, leaving a lasting devastation to the Bat-family in the aftermath.  Thus horrible things can happen and still make it appropriate for younger viewers who should not be subjected to kids getting beaten to death by an evil clown.
This film is topnotch overall.

So instead of this:

 you get to have your nightmare fuel from this: