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Batman Beyond - Return of the Joker

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In the stories pilot episode we see approximately 30 years into the future an aged Bruce Wayne is having increasing difficulty handling criminals he once subdued with ease. One day a heart attack forces him to betray a lifelong personal principle by threatening a criminal with a gun, and subsequently Wayne decides to retire from crimefighting permanently.
The story then jumps 20 years from the conclusion of present day DCAU (as evident by the commentary found on Batman Beyond: Season One). Gotham is a city of the future equipped with staggering high rises and hovering/flying vehicles.
Wayne is now a virtual recluse living in bitter isolation with no companion but his guard dog Ace. It is implied by virtue of his continuing to fight crime long after he should have, his retaining the costumes worn by Robin, Nightwing and Batgirl and a conversation that even before he had a heart attack something horrible transpired that caused Wayne to sever his ties with the Justice League and forbid his disciples from ever again assuming their alter-egos. The events which caused all of this was finally revealed in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
One evening while out on a walk Wayne gets involved with a fight between Terry McGinnis and a pack of Jokerz; the exertion aggravates an apparent heart condition and Terry has to help him back to Wayne Manor. While staying at the mansion, Terry discovers the entrance to the Batcave, and later returns to "borrow" the Batsuit to avenge the death of his father (who had accidentally become involved in the revelation of a secret biological weapons development). As crime and corruption are beginning once again to rear their ugly heads in Gotham, Wayne feels he has no choice but to allow Terry to assume the Batman alter-ego.
Young McGinnis continues the battle against crime tutored by Bruce, and aided by a new black-and-red, high-tech batsuit that augments his abilities, fires Batarangs from the wrists, flies using jets fired from the feet, allows eavesdropping through a hypersensitive touch microphone, and provides camouflage abilities. He has his own rogues gallery, such as the seductive shapeshifter Inque, the confusing hypnotist Spellbinder, the bitter, deaf sound expert Shriek, the most deadly of the League of Assassins Curare, the insane terrorist Mad Stan, and the African hunter Stalker. However, on occasion he is also forced to face his mentor's old foes, such as the atrophying Mr. Freeze, Bane (elderly, wasted, and dying from his consumption of Venom, the substance that gave him his strength), the immortal Ra's al Ghul, and even the reborn Joker.
Terry's greatest initial foe is Derek Powers, a ruthless billionaire who took over WayneCorp and was later accidentally mutated into a radioactive monstrosity who called himself Blight. Powers had Terry's father murdered after Mr. McGinnis discovered Powers was in the process of developing a biological weapons program. The first season ended with a showdown between Batman and Blight aboard an abandoned nuclear submarine, where Powers was in hiding after his identity as Blight was revealed to the world by his ambitious son Paxton, who planned to usurp his father as chairman of Wayne-Powers.
Maxine "Max" Gibson (voiced by Cree Summer) is a 17-year old computer genius who discovers Batman's secret identity. Since she discovered Terry's alter-ego she's been helping him with everything from computer hacking, to babysitting, to coming up with excuses for Terry's girlfriend Dana Tan. Max plays an integral part in Batman's war on crime, essentially as his Alfred.
Terry also finds one other ally, though a begrudging one: Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl. Having followed in the footsteps of her father, James Gordon, Barbara is now Police Commissioner of Gotham City, and she is unhappy with the idea of a new Batman, especially a teenager, as she is still haunted by the same event that caused Wayne to go into isolation. However, knowing from personal experience that she cannot deter Terry anymore than she could have been deterred from being Batgirl, she relents, possibly also out of respect for her mentor, the original Batman. Also, passing lines between Barbara and Bruce suggest that, at the time of Batgirl's retirement, the suit had bullet holes in it that had not yet been repaired. It is implied early on in the series that Barbara and Bruce were in love for a period of time. It is also confirmed during Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker that Dick Grayson (Nightwing) is still alive in this time period.

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