I understand that this topic may have been beaten to death but after watching the stellar animated adaptation of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, I cannot let this go. For the final live-action Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, director Christopher Nolan exploited that source material and failed to achieved anything but a summer popcorn flick. There are huge and just annoying plot holes in the narrative of the film. The characters seem to go against themselves and what was previously established in the other films. The film takes itself too seriously, and yet it makes a joke of itself. It it comes off as jarring and disjointed. I want to compare Nolan's vision of the world post-Bruce Wayne as the Dark Knight to the more canonical and less offensive world of Batman Beyond. Batman Beyond was created by Warner Bros. Animation in collaboration with DC Comics as a continuation of the Batman legacy. It depicts Terry McGinnis as a new Batman in a futuristic Gotham City under the tutelage of an elderly Bruce Wayne. The series ran for 52 episodes spanning three seasons and one direct-to-video film, the Return of the Joker film, from January 10, 1999 to December 18, 2001. More importantly, Batman Beyond is set in the chronological future of the DC Animated Universe. And as such is creates the new timeline of the DCU just by existing. It presents a whole new future for the Batman universe. One that is a mix of Blade Runner and the traditional Silver Age depiction of Batman. It is anchored to the lonely future of Bruce Wayne and he continued fight against crime. The series starts with Wayne being Batman until he physical can no longer do it. It is at that point that we meet his protégé to continue the fight. In the Dark Knight Rises(DKR), there is none of this. Wayne instead takes a wild guess that Blake will be able to cope with this new role. It is on this premise that I want to explain why Batman Beyond is a better future than The Dark Knight Rises for Batman. Firstly, it makes sense. The continuity of Batman Beyond has made various crossovers into the comic books published by DC Comics after its run. Beyond explores the darker side Batman, including the disturbing psychological elements of the character of Bruce Wayne and the underbelly of Gotham. Wayne is an old man who never dealt with his trauma in the right way. Like Miller's future, he is hesitant to bring in another body to his world. There is so much pathos for the character that you feel a connection to the material. This is an amazing feature of the show, one that weaves in both the darkness of Death in the Family and The Killing Joke through subtle references. Therefore the continuity is untouched and makes the world feel alive. It is this world that these events of the Batman canon would indeed have created for Bruce Wayne. For proof of this, watch the Return of the Joker film. http://youtu.be/j5ezQMB7tXU DKR completely misses the point. The elements that it takes from The Dark Knight Returns/Cult etc. are shoehorned into a script that doesn't need them. The completely unexplained 8 year gap and random injuries to Bruce don't cut it for me, sorry. Both Beyond and Miller, show Bruce as a much older man, indeed using some form of robotics, still kicking butt as the Dark Knight. Also on that point, the suite in Beyond actually looks like a Batman suite, not random battle armour with ears. Sorry Nolan, that was a failure too. Beyond was also the first Batman series to portray the Bat as a teenager. Despite this, and unlike Blake, Terry actually works to earn the approval of Bruce. He even steals the suite in the first place. There is a sense of loss and a real connection between the two which sets up the emotional punch of the series. Blake shows up and is handed the cowl because Bruce doesn't want it anymore. What sense does that make? He has no training nor any real skill. How is he set to take on the Bat mantle? At least Terry has Bruce to "show him his world", to work with him and develop him into what Gotham needs. Miller himself paved the way for this move in the Dark Knight Returns, or Grant Morrison in Batman Incorporated. Bruce must train his successor as the cowl must be earned.
The greatest sin of The Dark Knight Rises is that Bruce packs up and leaves Gotham. He gives up being Batman. After all those years of training and sacrifice, he just gives up and moves the Italy. How lovely! There are two paths we can take here: Either Bruce died. Or this was the ending to the Nolan Universe, which exists in a vacuum. Either way, this is not a canonical DCU Batman. How could it be? Even within this Nolanverse, the decision to leave is contradictory to its own world. Bruce rants about justice, and being the hero the city needs, being a symbol etc. He trains his body and mind to handle the strict code of Batman. None of this is remembered in the third film. It is a cheap and low ending to a great series that, at one point, could have been the closest telling of the 'Dark Age' Batman. Disappointment is not the word for this letdown. So we must settle for the future of Beyond, because like The Dark Knight Returns, it has one key factor that must never be altered, Bruce Wayne is still Batman. He serves as the moral and physical tutor for his replacement. He acts as Terry's literal eyes and ears while also strictly enforcing the ethics that separates Batman from others, like the Punisher for example. Wayne wanted to make sure that what happened to him would never happen to anyone else, and in the Beyond universe that seems certain.