10 Darkest Endings In The DC Animated Universe

Uhm, Batman... Are you okay?

by Ewan Paterson
Mister Freeze Batman Beyond
Warner Bros.

When it exploded onto the scene in 1992, audiences knew that Batman: The Animated Series was going to be different. The series combined a mish-mash of different visual and literary inspirations to create the most definitive version of the Dark Knight ever seen, and that more often than not meant it had to get dark.

Like, really, really dark.

But whereas BTAS' famed commitment to scaring the pants off of its viewers sort of goes without saying these days, it's worth pointing out that it wasn't the only DC cartoon to venture into darker territory.

Following BTAS, the minds behind Warner Bros. Animation (Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, Andrea Romano and countless others), set about creating a new DC Comics continuity, eventually dubbed the DC Animated Universe. Shows based on Superman and Justice League eventually followed, while an equally successful Batman spin-off called Batman Beyond also released shortly after BTAS concluded.

All of these cartoons were smart, stylish and equally ambitious, but they also had another thing in common - they could drop some absolutely spine-chilling endings on occasion, and sometimes completely out of the blue.

It's a part of what makes them so special of course, but they're enough to give even the most seasoned of viewers pause for thought.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.