Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Harley Quinn season 3, episode 8, "Batman Begins Forever."A journey inside the mind of Bruce Wayne in Harley Quinn season 3, episode 8, "Batman Begins Forever" yields a significant number of Batman Easter eggs and references. This is hardly surprising, given that the HBO Max animated series delights in callbacks to classic Batman moments in other media. Yet the series usually finds interesting ways to put a comedic and self-referential spin on those moments.
The story of Harley Quinn season 3 has been centered around the romance between Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn and Ivy's scheme to turn Gotham City into a verdant paradise. However, those plans have been set back by Bruce Wayne abducting Ivy's test subject, Frank the Plant, for previously unrevealed reasons. Once the two supervillains figured this out and abducted Bruce Wayne, Harley and Ivy recruited their former telepathic teammate Doctor Psycho to take them inside Bruce Wayne's mind, with the intention of searching his memories, so they could find out where Frank was.
Unfortunately for Harley Quinn's protagonists, Bruce Wayne's mind turned out to be a dangerous place, dominated by the reoccurring memory of his parents' violent deaths. This set up a joke about the increasingly repetitive cinematic efforts to remake Batman's origin story, but also gave Harley a chance to show off her skills as a psychiatrist as she tried to heal Bruce Wayne's inner child. It also led to a number of clever nods to the history of Batman in other TV shows and superhero movies. Here's a rundown of all the Batman references in Harley Quinn season 3, episode 8, "Batman Begins Forever."
Red Skies At Night
The streets of Gotham City in Bruce Wayne's mind are somehow even grittier than in reality, with looming shadows everywhere and blood-red skies at night. This is a visual nod to the stylized backgrounds of the later seasons of Batman: The Animated Series, where the skies of Gotham City were regularly red at night, and it was rare to see any scenes set during the day.
A Font Of Knowledge
The marquee sign at the Monarch Theater may look familiar to fans of Batman: The Animated Series. It utilizes the same Art Deco font from the Batman: The Animated Series logo.
The Mark Of Zorro
The marquee sign at the Monarch Theater also reveals that the Wayne family were enjoying The Mark of Zorro before Thomas and Martha's tragic deaths. While the Waynes dying after seeing a movie has been part of Batman's origin story since his first appearance in the comics, no specific film was identified until the 1986 comic The Dark Knight Returns revealed that the Waynes had seen gone to see a rerelease of the 1940 The Mark of Zorro film starring Tyrone Power. This reference in itself was a nod to the debt Batman owed Zorro as a character, given that his background as a nobleman who dressed in a black costume to deliver justice was cited as an influence on Bruce Wayne's backstory by Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger, though they took inspiration from the 1920 film starring Douglas Fairbanks. As a result, many modern retellings of Batman's origins have him seeing a Zorro movie on the night his parents died.
Why Do We Fall?
Once Harley is able to break free of the memory of the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents, she sees a number of other images from Bruce Wayne's past. The first of these scenes takes place at the funeral held for Thomas and Martha Wayne, where Alfred the Butler asks his young master why people fall. This prompts Bruce to reply, "To pick ourselves up." This exchange is taken directly from Batman Begins (although Alfred's response has been drastically changed). Additionally, the design for Thomas and Martha Wayne's shared tombstone was taken from Batman: The Animated Series.
Batman Begins Training Montage
The Batman Begins references continue in the next image Harley sees, where a young Bruce Wayne is shown fighting multiple opponents while balancing on a series of raised wooden columns. This was one of the many methods employed by the League of Shadows in training Christian Bale's Batman.
Batman Begins Symbol Speech
Another image from Bruce Wayne's past shows him in his study on a stormy night, talking to Alfred about his need to become a symbol that can strike fear into the hearts of criminals. "As a man, I'm flesh and blood. I can be ignored. I can be destroyed," Wayne notes, "...but as a symbol... as a really cool, very gritty, super-serious symbol...I can be incorruptible..." This line paraphrases another classic line from Batman Begins, but the blocking of the scene is taken from the comics, where Bruce Wayne was inspired to become a bat by the sight of a bat flying through his window.
I'm Batman!
Watching Bruce's private memories prompts Harley to observe that Bruce has something of a savior complex and that the way he talks in private sounds familiar. She quickly deduces Bruce Wayne's secret identity, which the young Bruce confirms with a soft reply of "I'm Batman," as lighting strikes and his shadow is revealed to be that of Batman. This dramatic proclamation was first uttered by Michael Keaton's Batman in the 1989 Batman movie, but variations of the line have shown up in other films, cartoons, comics, and parodies.
Some Days You Just Can't Get Rid Of A Bomb!
With the young Bruce's guard down, Harley begins to see more recent memories where Bruce Wayne was Batman. One of these scenes shows Batman running past a group of nuns while rushing along a dock, clutching a cartoon bomb with a sizzling fuse. This replicates a famous scene from the 1966 Batman movie starring Adam West, where Batman had tremendous difficulty in finding a place to safely dispose of a bomb on a crowded boardwalk.
Batman Returns
Another memory shows Batman fighting The Penguin in a sewer filled with penguins armed with rockets strapped to their backs. This is a clear reference to the final battle between Oswald Cobblepot and Batman in the movie Batman Returns. When even Harley finds this image odd, the young Bruce notes "I had a few weird years."
Holy Words
At one point Harley falls into a memory and takes the place of a bound Robin. This prompts an exclamation of "Holy sanitized curse word!" as Harley discovers (much to her annoyance) that she's unable to swear now that she's been cast in the role of Robin. This is a reference to the many "Holy" exclamations made by Burt Ward as Robin in the 1966 Batman show.
Joker and Harley
While Harley is dressed up as the 1960s Robin, the Joker who menaces her is modeled on the version played by Heath Ledger in 2008's The Dark Knight. Harley is further enraged by the sight and sound of her former self, dressed in the classic harlequin costume from Batman: The Animated Series, and speaking with the squeaky and exaggerated Brooklyn accent most versions of Harley Quinn have in animation.
All the Batman: The Animated Series Nods
Thankfully, the young Bruce changes into Batman just in time to save Harley from Joker and her past self. This sets up an action sequence straight out of Batman: The Animated Series, with Batman and Harley standing in silhouette as in the logo and introduction of that classic cartoon. The ponderous theme music from the show also plays, as this dynamic duo jump into action to take down the villains.
Batman's No Guns Rule
The seemingly invincible Joe Chill who stalks Harley and young Bruce through Bruce's mindscape is finally unmasked as the real Bruce Wayne, who is unamused by Harley's efforts to fix his fracture mind. Bruce explains that his parents' deaths were his fault because going to the movies that night was his idea, so he has to suffer as Batman as penance, threatening to shoot Harley in his mind if she doesn't let his younger self go. This prompts a discussion of Batman's famous rule against using guns, with Harley Quinn exposing the hypocrisy of Batman saying that "the real me is against it, but the mind me is flexible."