The Zeta Project Origins - A Brilliant Batman Beyond Spin-Off That Died An Agonizing Painful Death 

“We want a more kid-friendly show.” “I’ve got it! There’s this assassin robot, see, and . . .”

We deserve a return to the Batman Beyond universe.

Honestly Zeta should've been Batman Beyond's sidekick.

I love Zee and Ro their dynamic is SO unique and underated we don't see much of it nowadays When I rewatched Zeta again I remembered him and I really cried because he and Ro were always in my heart as my heroes 💓 The Iron Giant, Optimus Prime,Sunny and Wall-E qualities are in Zeta while their families are Ro, Terry aka Batman Beyond, Bucky Buenaventura and Maxine Gibson

What a shame. So many underrated Batman Animated shows.

Zeta episodes and this show were so underrated.

I really dug this show, it deserved an actual resolution. Pity that it'll never happen unless a fan does a "Dungeons & Dragons" finale type episode on their own. I'd get the DVD/blu ray collection of this, if they ever bothered to make one.

Dope video. The Zeta Project was ahead of its time

Thank you so much Marvelous Video for going to all this trouble and talk about The Zeta Project it's one of the greatest shows ever and has an edge that not even Batman Beyond has and the wait for answers about Dr Eli Selig mysterious disappearances was so very worth it and the Dynamic between Rosalie "Ro" Rowan and Zeta is so pure but I wished they referred to Max once in awhile because she was the reason Zeta became good and realized that he can find another way to defend himself without the use of guns but only by using his intellect and the things he learned from Ro, like the one time he was fighting against Infiltration Unit 7 alongside Batman Beyond he had the two genius ideas of using a banana to blind him and the magnetic chamber to put an end to IU7 but didn't even tried to escape he choose to stay... he was willing to sacrifice himself so that no more people get hurt and to save Batman Beyond and to save Ro despite Batman hitting him he chose to block his attacks and even didn't fight back when he used the EMP on him and forgave Terry for all the doubts and wrongs he did to him... He is just so pure and far more humane than he lets on Zeta and Ro truly are Justice League materials and if Season 4 does come I would love it to end that Zeta and Ro become one of it's members and that they meet Static and Gear and become friends with them too Thanks again Marvelous Video 😻 Thank you SO MUCH When I rewatched Zeta again I remembered him and I really cried because he and Ro were always in my heart as my heroes 💓 And Bucky Buenaventura was an interesting character just like and rivals Maxine Gibson's from Batman Beyond he has extraordinary intellect to the point he managed to hack into NSA files effortlessly I hope we see him again in the hopefully future reboot in season 3 and season 4 as he helps Zee and Ro again by trying to find her parents and to uncover the mystery of Dr.Eli Selig and possibly to find out where his assistant went The Iron Giant, Optimus Prime,Sunny and Wall-E qualities are in Zeta while their families are Ro, Terry aka Batman Beyond, Bucky Buenaventura and Maxine Gibson It's not Strange it's AMAZING

Might be the only person in the world that has this sentiment... but I hope Zeta shows up in MultiVersus as a playable character. Though I do kind of get why the show had such a short runtime, there's no denying Zeta, given what was said about him in the video, would be perfect for both fanservicing purposes and competitive gameplay.

The NSA losing the PR war against Zeta might of been an interesting route they could of taken. I wonder how they would of gone about doing it. Still it is a shame they were hand cuffed by the executives.

The zeta project was awesome

I love The Zeta Project! Thanks for this video! Hopefully more people will watch it.

When I rewatched Zeta again I remembered him and I really cried because he and Ro were always in my heart as my heroes 💓

Whoever selected the voice cast was a genius. James Bennett is voiced by Kurtwood Smith from Robocop Zeta's kid disguise is voiced by Eli Marienthal from the Iron Giant. All they were missing was Tim Blaney or Peter Weller to voice someone.

WE CAN'T DENY THAT THIS SHOW WAS BEYOND ITS TIME

I'd love to see you review The Mummy: The Animated Series, it came out in that same era as Batman Beyond and Zeta, a very fun and at times mature series that actually did serialized storytelling.

I hadn't thought of this as a kid, but how do seat belts work with Zeta? Logically they should clip through his shirt, which is just a hologram. Even if he tries to fake it by projecting another seat belt it should line up differently.

DC and Warner Bros should bring back the 90’s DC Animated Universe

I loved Zeta and definitely had a crush on Ro when I was kid

WB makes too many restrictions and still do that. Honestly, they need to keep out from the creative process of DC stories.

The season 1 animation is similar to Static Shock and the few episodes for it until they shifted to Bruce Timm animation which by the way they had aired in the same year 2001 to 2002 for Zeta Project and 2000 to 2004 for Static Shock

I liked the show and i could see it had lots of potential - until executive meddling ultimately did it in. However, you neglected to mention the character of "Agent West" one of the NSA agents who was part of the Zeta capture team. It was theorized he may have been related to Wally West (The Flash in the Timmverse). He had red hair and the surname, and was old enough to have been Wally's grandson. However, it was never confirmed that I know of, and he had no speed powers (or any other superpower) either. The reboot idea sounds similar to the live action syndicated series, Total Recall 2070 which had a human and an android as cops and partners solving various crimes. The android character in that show was also looking for answers about himself and even found the place where he was created (where robots were creating other robots).

Straight up they should have gave Batman a season 4 instead of the spin off The Zeta project like Bruce Timm should have went back to the drawing board and said hey maybe we just need to consider making extra arrangements for Batman Beyond

It was one of my favorite shows and still is ... Hope one day they continue the story

Your channel is one of the most beautiful and wonderful channels that takes us back to the good times. Thank you very much for all these interesting and interesting videos

You know something I never heard of this show before because I was interesting of Batman the animated series and Batman beyond but I never heard of this show before and I was wondering if Bruce Timm and the casts,writers would might come back to make season 3 in the future someday but not in cartoon network anymore but as an HBO Max Original series I would like to be invested to watch this series from the very first time if it's on HBO Max.

Bula from Fiji 🇫🇯 @ Marvelous Videos! I remember watching this in the afternoons on TV (we had only one national tv station back then). We were lucky to get alot of the top 90's cartoons including BTAS & Batman Beyond,Static Shock,Spiderman,Superman,Xmen and quite a few more. Glad to have grown up in the 90's. Thanks for the amazing content.Vinaka.

Flashing red and blue colors really fast at the beginning of the video. Ah, what a great and creative way to induce epilepsy... What could go wrong? Otherwise I miss that show. Was one of my favorite as a kid

And his resistance to high temperature 🌡️ 2000° baby😌

I can’t thank you enough for bringing me back to my childhood with this long lost Batman beyond spin off series.

There are only 2 scenes I remember from this show as a kid: 1) Zeta gets captured, strapped down and scanned so the agents can find his 'faulty coding'. This caused Zeta, who was awake for the process, to doubt his own sentience and attempt to refuse Ro's rescue attempt as he believed may just be a faulty robot putting her in danger. 2) Zeta, while running from some agents on a train, ducks into a cabin and takes on the disguise of a showering old woman. When the agents broke into the cabin he shrieked, causing the agents to quickly retreat out of shame and embarrassment.

Game Over Origins This Short Lived Video Game based series was cancelled by UPN after only airing 5 episodes with one unaired

This is criminally underrated

I totally forgot about this damn this brings back sum memories lol

Beloved adventures best describtion EVER

Still my favorite dcau entry, for what it lacked in gritty violence it made up with heart

Damn, guess I gotta figure out where I can stream the Zeta Project now

I wish this show wasn’t cancelled

Im still upset that this show got cancelled, I loved it as a kid and still remeber its themes quite fondly to this day. I also hate how WB executives (and amny others now that I think about it) think that young kids can't handle mature or dark themes such as the ones featured in Batman Beyond and The Zeta Project. Both shows are purely undertated and desserve to be revived.

Looks like another show who's only future lies in streaming channels 🤔

Literally saw it today on tooncast and it was like a blast to the past that I remember juuust a little about, so thanks for the video to remember it all and yes its a great show

I seriously wish that Zeta would get a reboot. One big thing though is I want them to be more careful with his personality design. Like, have a really gradual shift from clearly a robot that can use its AI to mimic words well but doesn't initially have a fully-formed sentience to a proper individual. Like, make its interpretation of things initially take the form of protocols and criteria, the identification of paradoxes or orders that contradict its programmed rules, leading to errors that it needs to be taught constitute things like empathy and compassion. Don't have it just start out "he didn't deserve to die" or "I couldn't take seeing his child's future from him". Let words and phrases like that be an accomplishment gained following development. That, and the programming should remain for a long time, with "Eliminate" continuing to be the first answer for a long period of time and long struggle to deal with these impulses. If done well, it could be a very interesting superhero. Just need to be careful that it comes across as a robot, not an autistic person.

I loved the artwork. It was iconic to me!

I did forget about this show till seeing this

Warner Archive released both seasons of this TV series on DVD-R. You forgot to include this fact in this video.

Fun Fact, Zeta was voiced by Diedrich Bader who voiced Batman in brave and the bold, also in Harley Quinn

Loved this show.

I thought they already covered this but that was another channel 😅

The Zeta Project season 3 HBO MAX original ?

i use to love this show wish they brought it back

3:20 And Marvel's Machine Man comic.

For the record I love this show and idea

Bring it Back

I really missed both Batman Beyond and Zeta Project series.

I remember it.

That was a good and very underrated show. Too bad i was canceled after 1 season. I must say that on a business perspective, I understand why they canceled it as US cartoons were mostly targeted towards kids. However, I think it's now the right time to give this show a reboot or semi reboot. A new Zeta Project show for the now adult fans could be amazing. I really hope they'll make it happen.

I hope (THE ZETA PROJECT) cartoon show series gets rebooted someday.

I love The zeta project TV show. I saw nothing wrong with the series. For me it's very simple. I either like it or I don't.

project zeta was the shit. i used to watch in french and year later when i remember the show it took me time to find it because all i remember was the name Zee. i was able to get the 2 seasons

Honestly the Zeta Project feels disconnected from the DCAU, despite being DCAU.

I swore i had imagined this show. I couldnt remember anything about it beside a robot

It definitely deserve better than when it died.

underrated show

It's the daughter who was rescued not the mother

How I would introduce the Zeta Project is like this... I'd take inspiration from "The Terminator" in a parallel timeline before ever shooting the Batman Beyond series. Show a timeline of Batman Beyond in which Brainiac has taken over and hacked Cadmas and released Project Zeta. Justice League has been defeated the current future Batman is Damian Wayne in Batman beyond armor suit, working with Jonathan Kent the current Superman, as well as Booster Gold. I'd introduce Roe as Oliver Queens grand daughter who is tech savvy. Brainiac learns that Bruce Wayne is Batman and tries to rid himself of the resistance by sending a bot into the past Batman TAS to kill a young Bruce Wayne. The resistance manages to capture a robot and reprogram it and send it in the past with Booster Gold to save young Bruce. In the end The robot 🤖sacrifices himself to save Bruce Wayne and Booster resets the Timeline ⏲️ therefore that future nolonger exists, now you have a future Terry Batman future, and so on. Then reintroduce Zeta in Batman Beyond as an Assassin turned good, that way the Audience would already be familiar with him

Loved espiode

I actually forgot about this show🔥

Classic

E remind me the film iron giant

Tbh it seems to be a long running gag with banger 2000’s animated shows and ending due to corporate interference 😂

Could you maybe cover the Comic Series „Once and Future“ ? It’s amazing. It’s like Hellboy and Grimm mixed with the Legend of King Arthur . Bloody, dark, sometimes funny but most of the time badass brutal. For example a huge Barbarian riding on a gigantic fire breathing Lion chasing a Car while rhe protagonists (A guy and his grumpy but badass Grandma) are trying to fight him with MG. And King Arthur as the undead main Antagonist is just bonechilling

this needs to be in hbo max! maybe then they'll make a season 3

Is Zeta part of the Institute?

FYI: There appears to be a phishing bot making replies in your comments. At least that's how it came across to me.

I used to watch this 😂 I miss it tho.

I liked the show I hate WB because they cancel the best shows.

Zeta story way better then batman in my opinion anyway

Wow

I remember watching this show. I was sad when it was cancelled all the sudden. Hollywood leftists ruin everything.

Lol. All that existential stuff went over my head. All I cared about was how I thought Ro was kinda hot as a kid. She kinda looked like a cooler spunky version of a girl I liked at the time. 😅

Until this day it annoys me

first

I'm trying to figure out if this is a Mandela Effect for me love animation Used watch all the DC stuff suprise this 1 went under the Rader might have to watch the whole series.

I vaguely remember thus but thought it was a batman beyond story line

I loved this show so much, but I'm not sure about that live action idea. Being on the run was part of what I enjoyed and part of the complexity, the whole guilt thing mixed up with trying to prove his innocence.

I shouldn’t of watched this, because now I want them to bring it back so bad…and I can’t see that happening…but then again I kind of can, like if Netflix brought it back or something. Or Hulu. Just hope the original creator could have his involvement and original story told somehow. And it could be not just a kid show anymore considering most of us fans are now adults. They could fully explore the themes now

I loved this cartoon when I was a kid

If Zeta was more like he was in his first appearance the show could have worked, instead they dumbed him down and the stories so much