Setting the Record Straight on Terry McGinnis as Batman Beyond

Lucas Fashina

4 years ago

So first off to give context what this article is about we have to go to the beginning… The first appearance of Terry McGinnis was in Batman Beyond #1, and his first appearance as Batman Beyond was in Batman Beyond #2 (or is it Animation magazine #76?) .Â The debate swirling around the comic book community, is when did Terry first ever appear on Earth Prime and entered the DCU?Â There are some that think it was the Superman/Batman Annual #4 (Jun 2 2010); however, the Young Gunners, have brought to light some information that questions the veracity of that claim. They believe that it was Superman/Batman #22-23. Still others refute that claim saying that was Tim Drake.

Superman/Batman #22 is the 1st Cameo Appearance of Terry McGinnis as Batman Beyond

*There are actually 4 appearances of Batman Beyond in DCU continuity, but for this Info. pack we will be focusing in on Superman/Batman #22 1st Cameo Appearance of Terry McGinnis as Batman Beyond in the DCU.

The plot of Superman/Batman 22 & 23 involves characters traveling into different Universes/Earths, the one with Batman Beyond being Earth-12 (which is the continuity Earth of Terry McGinnis and his version of Batman Beyond). Now the catch is Batman Beyond literally is only in this one page spread and is not referred to by name in this issue. That doesn“t happen until Superman/Batman #23 which is published by DC was published on September 28, 2005, with a cover date of November of 2005, in which Bruce Wayne is communicating with Batman Beyond and refers to him as “Tim”“ (more on this in a bit)

The question of continuity is contingent on this Batman Beyond interaction with Bizarro. has just accidentally transported himself from Prime Earth to the Batman Beyond Universe (Earth-12). So in my opinion Terry still had not been to Earth Prime.Â But thats not that big a deal. YG points out the now infamous Superman/Batman #22 published by DC comics in October of 2005 & near the end of the book we get the full page panel shown here (clearly Batman Beyond).Â This is the one and only time he is referred to as “Tim”“, the book continues on with its story and Batman Beyond only sticks around for a few panels and that is it.

Now to complicate things a little bit, about a year or so later DC Direct, which is a division of Warner Media, sold collectibles based on DC Comics characters, and released an action figure based on the comic series (note that it is a division of Warner Media, NOT a division of DC Comics directly).Â

Â This is the one and only time that Batman Beyond is referred to as “Tim”“. The Batman BeyondÂ the book continues on with its story, and Batman Beyond only sticks around for a few panels and that is it.

Â *Now in regards to this action figure as you can see it is not identified in the front but in the back in a small description of the figure you can clearly see they labeled it as “Tim Drake”“.Â according to YG The best we can assume is that when the figure and the packaging were being manufactured something happened that when they went through the book to find the name and the only name attached to this character at this time is “Tim”“ according to no other information available to them at that time. So in haste they slapped the name “Tim Drake”“ on the packaging and sent it DC Direct for distribution. Also on the back of the packaging you can see that it says “Manufactured in China for DC Direct”“ further helping to prove that DC Comics directly had nothing to do with the manufacturing of this figure, it all went through Warner Media who had it manufactured in China and then just handed it over to their DC Direct division for distribution, at no point did the DC Comic division have any kinda involvement, they were probably just told that a toy was going to be made based on their comic series and that’s it.Â

2007 now at WonderCon in San Francisco, DC Comics animation participated in a panel promoting their upcoming direct-to-DVD specials based on classic DC comics and graphic novels. At this panel is the host/mediator Dan DiDio who at this time is vice president-executive editor, DC Universe. At some point during the panel the question came up about Batman Beyond in Superman/Batman #23 being referred to as “Tim”“, which the panel members state that it was an error and it should have been “Terry”“. Publicly admitting that there was an error in the book and stating the correction to fix it was that it was supposed to say “Terry”“.

Ok now that all explained it’s time to show all the evidence to support all the fact Terrys McGinnes has made his first appearance prior to the Superman/Batman Annual #4 :

According to the Young Gunners, it lies in the fact that on the DC Comics Official Website: You can see that they list Earth-12 as featuring in this book and when you click the link it takes you to a description page of Earth-12 where you can clearly see Terrys McGinnes is this Earths Batman

Grand Comic Database (GCD), huge comic book database established in 1994 and archived with the Library Of Congress (meaning this database gets uploadedÂ twice a year with the Library of Congress for posterity): Â Right on the main page for this book in the list of characters you can see they have “Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond”“

The Essential Batman Encyclopedia, printed by DC Comics in 2008, page 32 (in the time-frame when all of this information was still known to people, before it got lost in time).Â As you can see on page 32, second paragraph on the right it states “A different Batman was seen in roughly the same period: Terry McGinnis, who used a technologically sophisticated Batsuit to continue the fight on crime. (Superman/Batman #22-23, October-November 2005)”“

According to the Young Gunners “Now let’s play devil’s advocate, let’s pretend that S/B 22 & 23 Batman Beyond IS without question Tim Drake (it’s not, but pretend), how is it possible that DCComics.com and all the other sources shown here are getting this information 100% wrong 15 yrs later?…Answer is there NOT, this issue was an error but for DCComics this was an error that was cleared up publicly and resolved as a company years ago, that is why everything regarding this issue points to Earth-12 Terry McGinnis cause to DC Comics that’s who it is. The only things saying otherwise is a mislabeled toy that came out after (at the time) a misprinted book, that’s it.”

I for one agree with them on that side of the issue. But I diagree with everyone on when is the first time he set foot on Earth Prime.Â According Jeff Lemire that would be in, The New 52: Futures End #0.Â Per Lemire

Really, what we’re trying to do with this book is to explore the nature of what a hero is and we’re doing that, obviously by playing with the future of the New 52 timeline,” he said. “Past present and future all colliding in this story line.” That means exploring the past with a character like Frankenstein, the present with Firestorm and the future with Batman Beyond who is, Lemire said, making what is his first “in-continuity appearance. He’ll become part of the New 52.”

A special thank you to the Young Gunners and their hard work and research.Â Â All information was compiled from research done by the YoungGunners