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Batman Beyond is an animated DC Comics series with a die hard fan base. So big, that when brainstorming possible Spin Off's for the series, a lone character that appears in only one episode got the green light. At that moment, The Zeta Project was born. But why exactly did this obscure Batman Beyond character warrant it's own show?
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Wait, it's not what you think
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No. I'm not going to stand by while you hurt more innocent people
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Kids love robots. Kids love Batman. So it only makes sense that WB would try to make a Batman spinoff starring a homicidal
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and extensively tormented robot? The Zeta Project is without a doubt the strangest show set in the DC animated universe
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And yet, it seems to be completely forgotten. The Zeta Project was a short-lived DC Animated Universe spinoff show created by Bob Goodman
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It ran from January 27, 2001 to August 10, 2002. Originally appearing in the Batman Beyond episodes titled Zeta and Countdown
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the spinoff show follows a former assassin robot who develops a conscience and goes in search of a deeper meaning
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I'm a U.S. government infiltration unit designed to replace and destroy targeted individuals
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Destroy? But I don't want to destroy anymore. While Batman Beyond has a staunch following of diehard fans, the Zeta Project is remembered very differently
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The show had a much more comedic tone despite having a logline that seemed to purport deeper and more mature themes
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We follow Rosalie, Roe Rowan, and the titular robot, nicknamed for the show as Z
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Z. Excuse me? That should be your name. Z. Zeta is too weird
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As they're perennially on the run from the government and evil forces who want to control Zeta
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For context, at the time of Zeta's release, the DCAU spearheaded by producers Alan Burnett and Bruce
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Tim was chugging along. Batman the Animated Series was a critical darling and runaway rating success
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Superman the Animated Series had redefined the enduring big blue Boy Scout for a generation
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and Batman Beyond was a surprise, if moderate, hit. However, development executives and VPs in
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charge of children's animation at Warner were about to have a changing of the guard, out with
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the old in with the new. While they were still hungry for more of the winning material that Tim
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and company were mining from DC Comics catalogs, the prevailing concern was that the animated
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content that was being made for kids was too mature. It was pulling in more of the older kids
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in the teenage crowd. So when the studio asked for more ideas for DCAU spinoff properties
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Burnett and Goodman suggested a minor character that had recently appeared in the critically well episode of Batman Beyond a robot named Zeta This wasn a character that had previously existed within the DC Comics canon Goodman went in to pitch the idea to WB Brass
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and positioned the new potential spinoff as the fugitive with a robot
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I didn't kill my wife. I don't care. Each week, we would follow Zeta and Ro
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as they fled from the authorities and fell backwards into problems that needed to be solved
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All the while, Zeta would be going in search of answers to his origins, the intentions of his creator
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and the meaning of his existence. At first glance, a show about a killer robot
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who's starring as David Carradine in a futuristic animated version of Kung Fu
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seems like a hard sell. But it was quite the opposite. Goodman sold the pitch in the room
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and they were quickly off to the races with their new cyberpunk android, Epic
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Today, the show has almost been completely forgotten. It's been relegated to the distant corners
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of hardcore animation fans' memories. Even its ties to the broader DCAU are dubious at best
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Terry McGinnis' Batman shows up in one episode, and one of the NSA special agents in the show is named West
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with red hair, and is voiced by the Flash actor Michael Rosenbaum, but that's about it
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A lot of this is due to the fact that the Zeta Project's initial conception was much darker than the finished product
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Goodman wasn't aware of the impending changes of the guard during the pitching process
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He wanted to push the limits of what was possible on a kid's daytime animated TV show
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He wanted Zeta to truly be grappling with his internal killer tendencies. He wanted Ro, the young girl companion of Zeta's, to be constantly in peril
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because of her proximity to a literal assassin droid. He wanted the show to deal with issues of existential loneliness, grief, and guilt
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He wanted the show to basically be about what would happen if a gun woke up one morning
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and realized it didn't want to hurt anyone anymore. That thing wants to kill us
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It's just following its program. That's what they said about you. These early drafts of the show never saw the light of day, though
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Goodman pulled influence from Gene Roddenberry's unrealized robot epic, The Quester Tapes, which follows another robot looking for its creator
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and the 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show, to craft the narrative structures of Zeta
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However most of these creative influences were watered down since the Zeta Project was not produced by many of the stalwart creators who were involved in the other DCAU shows There was generally a continuity of behind personnel from show to show
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Many of the same directors, storyboard artists, and revisionists worked on every sequential DCAU show
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However, due to a simultaneous convergence of scheduling and kids WB execs wanting to shake things up
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almost none of the Batman Beyond, Superman, Static Shock, or Batman crew worked on the visuals for Zeta
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and you can feel it. Despite many of the writing crew making their way from other shows to Zeta
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the show was given a mandate to age everything down to squarely appeal
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to the highly lucrative 6 to 11 demographic. Many of the directors and storyboard artists for Zeta came directly from Pinky and the Brain
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and the Animaniacs, with seasoned producer and director Liz Holtzman leading the charge
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Only issue being that the highly refined and defined Bruce Timm art style
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that all the other shows had mastered proved exceedingly difficult for the primary comedy artists to master
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This gave the whole show a bit of a clunky feel. The artwork didn't quite line up with the rest of the universe
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and the stories were simultaneously a bit too immature. Oh, no, I'm so sorry. Here, let me get that
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What are you doing? I'm sorry, I'm trying to help. And trying to punch above their weight class
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The show seemed like it was struggling to find its rhythm for the majority of its two-season run
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The main differences between how Zeta and the rest of the DCAU relate to each other
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are the fact that Zeta is primarily a comedy show with a dramatic engine
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This was never an issue with the other shows, though. They always knew exactly what they were
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An adventure show, a gothic romance, a Tyson fight superhero showdown. They always had a clear and concise point of view on the subject matter
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But Zeta seemed to be neither fish nor foul. It's a funny show for little kids where the central character
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is a literal assassin on the run from the cops. The characters in Zeta also feel a bit undercooked
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The primary antagonists are a team of NSA agents. However, they are attempted to be painted as shades of gray, not jingoistic pro-military types
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But the attempted complexity here never quite clicks the way that you can feel the show needed
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They were obviously working at a disadvantage with the kids' WB age bracket mandates
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Watching the episodes you can feel that there a version of these stories that really has deep moral questions to ask That interrogates the idea of policing societal violence and the nature of sentience However what you get is cheap jokes and slapstick comedy
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more often than not. I've got you. Cut! Cut! The shot's ruined
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What are you doing? Even the characters of Roe and Z are undercooked as well. The show
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is more concerned with making sure Roe is a plucky female role model, attempting
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to help her connect with an increasingly female demographic than they are with making her a really complex or nuanced character. Additionally
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the characterization of Zee and Ro's relationship is one note. He's existentially tormented and
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soft-spoken. She's upbeat and kind of sarcastic, but that's about it. There's no real growth over
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the course of the show, again, largely because it's aimed at little kids. But that's exactly
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what's so strong about the rest of the DCAU. The characterizations are spot on. Even when they were
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just making cartoons for kids, the animated incarnations of Batman and Superman are just as
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iconic, if not more iconic, as their live-action counterparts. From the writing to the visualization
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of the characters, they're effortlessly cool and instantly recognizable. Even the visual aesthetics
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of the world of the show just feels less interesting than the other programs. Think about the rain-drenched
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moody Neo Gotham from Batman Beyond, or the Dark Deco from Batman the Animated Series, or even the
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optimistic retro future of Superman. And then, look at this. Daytime, coffee shop, suburbia
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rendered in the least interesting style imaginable. There's no sense of drama or tension in the
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environment at all. The scenic design doesn't have a voice in the way that the other shows have
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Ultimately, Zeta Project was canceled after two seasons. Unlike other DCAU characters like
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Batman Beyond or Static, he's never been brought back or integrated into future timeline narratives
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The show occupies a very strange place in DCAU canon in that it's the last chronological show within the DCAU
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The end of the Zeta Project is the end of the DC animated timeline
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And yet, it's rarely referenced or acknowledged by the other properties in that shared universe
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And the fans act similarly. There's a slight fondness based purely on the show being such an anomaly
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However, it doesn't really extend past that. And maybe that's why Zeta Project is the Batman Beyond spinoff No One Remembers
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