10 DC Animated Universe Fates Worse Than Death
7. Turning Into An Irradiated Earth Monster - Batman Beyond
When Warner Bros. demanded a teenage Batman show for the purposes of making something for slightly younger kids than BTAS' demographic, Alan Burnett responded by making the darkest entry in the entire DCAU, as well as the dominant force on this entire list.
One of the episodes that exemplified this dark tone was Earthmover, where Batman of the future Terry McGinnis' friend Jackie discovers that not only is her father, Tony, still alive, but that he is currently living an existence that is the stuff of nightmares.
Due to an accident in an abandoned mine shaft when Jackie was just a toddler, her father was trapped under a pile of rocks with radioactive waste that his business partner Bill was disposing of. This mummified his nearly dead corpse and fused his consciousness with the earth itself.
After years of learning how to control his powers and festering with hatred for Bill, whom he was convinced intentionally tried to do away with him to steal the business and his family, Tony attempted to steal back his daughter and take his revenge.
The very thought of being trapped deep underground as a living corpse, slowly rotting away while remaining alive the whole time, losing your mind at the same time while you're forgotten about by the world above is so existentially terrifying it's hard to even know where to begin.