45-3 - Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

The Joker has been dead for years. The new Batman is a teenager from the future. And Warner Bros were keen to cut it to ribbons, this Bonk gets hit with Joker gas, a satellite laser chase has seatbelts added, and a Bugs Bunny cartoon is muted because a character says "I wish I were dead."

This week on Toonami Absolution, Alyx, Jon, and Sam cover Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000), and we are going to talk a lot about the censored cut.

The film opens in a future Gotham where Terry McGinnis has been Batman for some time, and a new gang of Joker-themed criminals, the Jokerz, are suddenly operating with equipment far beyond what a street gang should have access to. Then the Joker himself shows up, physically present, at full power, exactly as he always was, and nobody can explain how.

Even worse, Bruce won’t tell Terry what happened to the original Joker. Until we learn in the worst possible way, Tim Drake, the second Robin, was kidnapped by the Joker and Harley Quinn and subjected to three weeks of physical and psychological torture until the Joker had transformed him into a miniature version of himself. However, through sheer force of will, Tim turned the Joker's own weapon on him and fired, ending both the crown prince of crime and his life as a crimefighter.

It is darker and more violent than previous animation Batman offerings, and naturally, Warner Bros were not having any of it, creating a censored cut that must be seen to be believed. Bonk's clearly lethal spear-to-the-chest becomes ambiguous Joker gas; the Joker's knife is removed and replaced with a punch (but not the wound caused by the knife, leading to a really dumb plot hole); and a Bugs Bunny cartoon playing in the background was muted because a cartoon character says "I wish I were dead."

We’re going to talk about all of them and question if, censorship aside, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker still holds up.

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Toonami Absolution is a weekly podcast where Alyx, Jon, and Sam revisit the Toonami and Adult Swim shows that made them, and you, you.

From the block's early days with shows like Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Transformers: Beast Wars to the imported anime that made Toonami and Adult Swim appointment television for a generation of kids, such as Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball.

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