Warning: spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends #7!
In the cyberpunk megalopolis of Neo-Gotham, Terry McGinnis rules the night as the Batman of the Batman Beyond timeline. A spin-off of the DC animated universe (DCAU), Batman Beyond follows the young and impulsive McGinnis as he toils under Bruce Wayne to become the Batman of the future. Unbeknownst to the latter, however, McGinnis is actually Bruce Wayne’s son, and DC has just confirmed that this fact eluded Bruce Wayne right up until his death in the Batman Beyond timeline.
Batman Beyond was an animated TV show that featured a young Terry McGinnis stepping into the shoes of Batman after the death of his father. After meeting and butting heads with Terry at first, Bruce agrees to take McGinnis under his wing and give him a job as Batman. While the original TV show only focused on McGinnis’ high school years. Later on in life, during the “Epilogue” episode of the Justice League: Unlimited TV show, McGinnis learns from Amanda Waller that he is Bruce Wayne’s son, and that Cadmus had rewritten his father’s DNA so that his offspring would actually be Bruce’s. While this revelation shocks Terry to his core, it appears that he never shares this with Bruce. In Batman Urban Legends #7, Terry loses his chance, as Bruce Wayne is murdered when his hacked pacemaker overworks his aging heart. Terry sets out angrily into an uncaring Neo-Gotham, on the hunt for his father’s killer.
While Bruce Wayne is an incredibly competent detective with a keen eye for detail, it appears that he never figured out on his own that Terry is his son. While dying, Bruce explains to Terry that he is what Batman was always meant to be, and that he goes beyond Bruce’s shortcomings and failings. During his monologue, Bruce never references Terry as his flesh and blood, or even as family. Instead, his talk focuses on how Terry is poised to be a better Batman, and he cautions Terry to continue to listen to his innate goodness, something Bruce believes he himself lacked. While touching, it appears that Bruce genuinely does not know that he is talking to his own son, who is now bearing a great deal of grief and responsibility.
Bruce in the Batman Beyond series grows much closer with Terry, though there was a bit of a gap in their personal lives. Bruce never spent prolonged periods of time with Terry’s brother and mother, and even if he did, he never got to meet Terry’s father, which would have made it apparent that Terry has little in common physically with Warren McGinnis. Even then, Bruce had no reason to dig into Terry’s past, meaning that it is likely he never connected the dots and realized why he saw so much of himself in Terry.
On the flip side, Terry’s behavior in the rest of Batman: Urban Legends #7 is similar to his behavior when he lost Warren; Terry throws himself into dangerous situations head first, hoping to shake out answers. All the training and rationale he learned from Bruce is momentarily tossed out the window as the grief of the second loss of his father truly settles in, possibly along with the guilt of having never shared the fact that they were related with his mentor.
As a shrewd detective, Bruce Wayne rarely misses details and connections in his life. Yet in the far future of Neo-Gotham and Batman Beyond, it appears that Batman never figured out that the man he was preparing to replace him was his own son.